Meeting minutes/Budapest January 2011

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Sooooo...

we had a really productive wintermeeting in Budapest - and here are the minutes!

Of note:

Anna from Hungary and Seb from the UK are going to be the 2011 international co-ordinators, doing EVS from 1 May

Alice from UK is going to be one of the international co-ordinators, doing EVS from 1 Nov (with 1-2 others - possibly Vera as one of them) I'm going to add them to this list tonight :)

Can someone create them @ecotopiabiketour.net email addresses? (daniel? :D) their skype usernames: Anna: bajomi.anna.zsofia ; Seb: achaibou ; Alice: alice.o.rourke1 - there's a skype call tonight at 19:00 about the current EVS application.

We have a couple of theme and route suggestions for 2011, both including italy!

We have a couple of theme suggestions and built on the route suggestion by francois for 2012 too! (fuck yeah, we are getting organised.)

We propose a clean up of the biketour org list, although come to think of it we didn't designate someone to do this.

EVS is the most urgent thing on our plate. wiki + website need a bit of updating too.

Who's here (not everyone listed was always present)

Milan
active in cycling groups in Serbia and Europe, been involved in ecotopia biketour since 2001, and is keen to have the biketour go to Italy in 2011! He can keep helping to organise it this year.
Karl
from Austria and active since the first biketour in 1990! Has cycled through italy before, even before ecotopia biketour existed! Will participate in 2011.
Laura
living in Belgium, co-ordinated the 2010 biketour with Moritz, did EVS for biketour. Wants to help with hands-on things, like screenprinting and rocket-stove making and to get 2011 biketour rolling. Will participate in 2011.
Moritz
Participated in 2009 in the Balkans, co-ordinated 2010 biketour, as a volunteer not with EVS. Interested in helping with fundraising for 2011, doesn't know if he'll be able to join the tour though.
Vera
from Hungary, working for an NGO in Budapest, applied to do EVS with the biketour but situation has changed a bit and so can't commit to do EVS to organise biketour 2011.. maybe 2012? Can help out with organising this year's tour & would like to participate too if she can!
Justin
living in Budapest, writing for World Carfree Network amongst other cycling things, encountered the biketour at ecotopia in Slovakia and Turkey. Would be interested getting the newsletter translated into Italian.
Anna
from Budapest, will be a 2011 biketour co-ordinator! Met the biketour at klimacamp in Germany in 2010. Enthusiastic, excited and hoping to absord lots of information this weekend. Has exams up until 2 Feb, happy to help organise EVS before that, then she has much less to do and much more time to organise the biketour prior to EVS actually started.
Edith
organised biketour when it came to budapest for a couple of days previously, might join in 2011.
Chubba
from Hungary, was local co-ordinator here in 2006, ruined his knees on that biketour and had to say goodbye to the group :( Set up a community bicycle project in Pecs, in the south of Hungary, everyone's invited (and would have a bike when they come!)

By Skype

Yo
Co-ordinated 2008 biketour in Bulgaria & Turkey (by herself!) as EVS, joined biketour in 2009 and 2010 as well. She helped with fundraising last year and can help with the EvS application this year.
Valentina
living in Bologna, Italy, wants to help out the biketour!
Seb
living in London, will be a 2011 biketour co-ordinator! Met the biketour in london, helped joao and yo build their bikes before we hit the road in 2010. Thinking to go to Italy in March already to meet people, etc.
Alice
very happy to become 2012 co-ordinator position, start EVS from 1 Nov for 12 months. Ideally would participate for the whole biketour this summer too!

SATURDAY

Route Proposals:

(Ideas already put on the wiki: Route_2011

  • Italy- ? -Istanbul: (too long, we've been to Balkans a lot)
  • Switzerland-Italy- Greece: all the new countries - Could be nice! but also too long.
  • Ecotopia is not happening this year so to go through the Baltic states to poland and germany is doesn't make so much sense anymore
  • Barcelona france italy: francois is proposing to have this in 2012, beacuse there will be a degrowth meeting in Venice in autumn 2012 - it's not a proposal for 2011 anymore.
  • Start at the G8 meeting in deauville (france) end of May yet but french groups are not mobilising against this event, instead to have dezentralised action-days.
  • Italy - all by itself, including stopping over or finishing at ?orld Wisdom Unitein Torri in Sabina near Rome, an alternative festival we are invited to (date to be fixed, probably in august) from Italy we can go for a northern Balkan country? easier to get home

Also more things that are happening which fit into above ideas:

  • German climate camp in Lausitz (next to the polish border)
  • Torino (19th to 26 june) big cyclying event maybe a starting point
  • 2 motivated local co-ordinators in the area of bologna (Andrea, Valentina)

Benvento -> city in the south of italy.. we have invitation from people living there who would like to host us. A festival close to Rome, where we are invited "Word wisdom unite"

  • Ciclopista del Sole- north to the south, goes through Bologna
  • Critical mass in Rome (last Friday every month). many other CMs all around Italy
  • http://www.eurotopia.de/verzeichnis.html -> list of community-projects in different countries (a lot of them in italy)
  • There is a big movement gathering in austria about food, sustainability and food sovereignity "Nyeleni Forum"
  • Andrea Magnolini (participated in biketour 2009) proposed some places to visit
  • Write to the list to ask for collecting places, camps, happening in Italy (and close by)

Look on ecovillage network homepage

lesson learned: Taking the ferry 2010 from the Uk to france was splitting the group -> people left before we went to france, a almost complete new group joined in france -> also we lost money because not many cyclists crossed the channel --> taking the ferry from italy to greece could not be best idea<

Proposal:

stay in Italy, cycle southwards from Torino, bologna, roma, napoli, further south?

Advantage: starting in central europe makes it accessable for more people, disatvantage: only one country.. new for BT..<

Proposal: torino -> to Krems in Austria (to food sovereignity meeting) if topic is about food

this has 2 possibilities:

  1. crossing the alps -> possible, highest point only 1200m, but probably lot of traffic on those roads too
  2. go around the alps -> from italy to slovenia to austria...slovenia very nice but coast between venice + trieste isn't very nice.

Torino seems to be a good starting point...... Seb mentioned another bicycling

Laura to send a mail to the italina festival organisers in Torri in Sabina (marinela (?) world wisdom unite) to ask about the date and maybe check if we even can influence the datemiddle of august would be brilliant! http://www.fiab-onlus.it/cps2.htm -> distances for the eurovelo cycling route in italy?

Theme:

alternative energy? D.i.y (rocket stove, peddal powered washing machine), cycling as a alternative way of transport, italy very sunny country -> very efficient, solar panels,

Mainly oil used (whole industrie is based on it), lots of cars. Peak oil? Take care of not making it too simple: biofuels are not a solution for peak oil.

Organising movie evenings with discussions, lectures, workshops..

First frightening the people with peak oil, next year coming back and showing the solution (degrowth).. juhu!!

Peak oil- more understandable for peoplethan e.g. climate change, prepare worskhops

Food-agriculture, community gardens, alternative gardening- maybe we can do then the Italy-Austria route

Agrofuels! (anti-agrofuels, that is) Could combine food issues with peak oil.


FUNDING

for coordinators and the project

Financial update by Laura and Moritz

960 we have now minus travelling cost to the wintermeetingmeeting: about € 700 left

EVS application:

__Monday__

Valentina or Caz contacts legambiente (host org)

Anna contacts Zofi (sending org in Hungary)

If Legambiente is not ok Vera & everyone can help find other contacts and possibilities immediately


Try to organise urgent skype call on tuesday with Caz, Yo, Anna, Seb, Valentina....make a poll to find a time!


[Valentina and Seb in skype]


IF no EVS

Find squatting community and an office

Money leftover from Biketour could help support co-ordinators

Other fundings ?


Project funding

Moritz will do a fundraising course where he will take the Biketour as his project. Its starts in February- He is contacting the coordinators

(Get more money- new trailers

The old-ones is at Moritz? place- we need to get them to Italy, Maybe Seb can pick them up on his way?

Youth in Action good for transport costs!!

Sponsors just nice companies e.g. trailor companies for new trailers: Seb knows one in England

Peopleon bt-org list or involved in EYFA could help suggest funds or proof-read applications?

WIKI on fundraising - past co-ordinators to contribute with recent history of funding - Laura & Moritz to start, previous coordinators to contribute too: can write there which funders we have contacted, applied to, which ones actually funded biketour, and which was most useful for biketour's spending.

Updating new co-ordinators and volunteers

Very good to have a handover between co-ordinators of different years! We talked for a couple of hours about how to organise biketour, and how it runs - not everything written down here.


Normally we have 1-2 internatinal co-ordinators, this year it'll be Seb & Anna, last year it was Moritz & Laura.

Then we have local co-ordinators along the route, who are involved in local campaigns, actions, projects, etc. who help find activities and sleeping places and organise the biketour in that area. These people help shape the biketour a lot.

Sometimes biketour goes to places where there isn't a local co-ordinator (ie. albania!), and it still can work.

Maybe it's good to have a wiki page (non public), where contacts and organisations can be kept ie. who in italy could help us, who's been contacted. --> Seb to create wiki page for local contacts.

2 Email lists: one for organising the upcoming biketour, 1 bigger list for past participants and people who want to be kept up to date.

Organising list is full of past organisers, current organisers. Working groups ie. fundraising can be made if people are keen!

Yo made up a great page on the wiki, a checklist for international co-ordinators: Checklist_for_international_organisers

A googlemap has been started for 2011 summer events + projects, Laura will invite everyone as collaborators so everyone can put more dots on the map, to be able to visualise things better.

Each year biketour creates a booklet, for each participant to have when they arrive on the tour.

Laura to try to upload previous year's booklets to use as a rough guide.

Leaflets to spread in countries where biketour goes are also always made in local languages.

It would be good to make leaflets in advance of the biketour to advertise it and invite people to join, make these accessble via the website as well, ie. PDFs.

Biketour always helps people get visas to join biketour, and we try to fundraise money to pay for the visa fees.

A lot of info about how the biketour functions during the actual can be read about in the booklet - such as daily tasks and their division, food, participation fees, biketour signs, concensus, etc.

Stickers - the black and white design from 2010 (thanks nina from belgium) can be used in any year as the message is generic, would be great to have some plastic ones that stay for years on people's bikes, not just a couple of days/weeks, which happened to a lot of the paper ones from this year.

Online tools

Applications done with wufoo and imbedded on the site, with list of limited details available for everyone to see who's coming

Email loop

Add new co-ordinators to bt-org list, create @ecotopiabiketour.net email address for new co-ordinators

Info to help interested participants and useful links are put on the website & wiki.

Facebook hasn't been active much, mainly because most of the international co-ordinators aren't on it! Biketour has some 650 followers, since it's twice as big as our mailing list, it would be good to actively update this too.

Cleaning up the organiser's list

There's been a couple of comments to clean up the biketour-org list, it keeps getting bigger and there are a lot of people who aren't active on there. There's a lot of people on there that have been involved in the past, who aren't necessarily doing anything at the moment, but it's also very useful to have knowledgable/experienced people on there.

Proposal: to email everyone on the org-list, ask them to reply within one month if they want to stay on the list, and ask them in what way they would like to help organise the biketour/ why they want to stay on the list. Send a reminder at 2 weeks with similar message. Take people off the list that didn't reply, send email with everyone's replies on how they'd like to help to org list (good for new co-ordinators to have that introduction of everyone).

Also

Send an invitation email to bigger biketour list saying that Biketour 2011 will be in Italy, who wants to help make it happen can join the bt-org list, introduce new co-ordinators Checklist_for_national/local_organisers


SUNDAY

continuing online-tools stuff:

GPS: new idea this year to use Pisteciclabili.com - enthusiastic italians collecting maps, its free, there's a forum to ask questions, could be useful for joining the dots between camps/farms/towns.

It's nice when all participants have to have a map on the road, so it need to be fixed at the start.


Timeline for the 2011 Biketour

1st of Februrary
EVS application deadline
  • It's useful to clarify the topic: Combine oil and food topic?
Consumption could be put in application - which leaves it more broad / open.
Theme finalised on tuesday, 18th of January at the skype meeting
Route: much easier to pick between the two basic route proposals once we have the theme. (if it's food, then we go to austria, if not, we go towards south of italy) - can be decided in the skypemeeting as well.
February
Translate the checklist for local co-ordinators wiki page into Italian
March
writing funding applications, make basic flyer/poster to promote biketour 2011
  • Optionalbut really useful: A meeting sometime in March in Italy - Meeting with the local coordinators and activists, visit the future office, etc
1st of April
opening the registration to join the biketour, need to have basic info on route on website
Put a 'please register by' date, closer to when biketour starts
1st of April
Youth in Action project deadline; other smaller funds should also be submitted in the first week of april (as they normally take 2 months to be approved)
May
make sure the trailers are in Italy at starting point
Update website, wiki, routepage and every week Checklist_for_international_organisers
MAY
Visa for Schengen zone can be one month sending out (one of the reasons it's good to open registration as early as possible - it's only when people think about registering do they send you an email about an invitation letter)


May-June
Buying practical necessities: kitchen equipment, spare parts trailers, notebook.. New pots are needed, lightway instructions - Moritz checks the equipment in Mainz.
Finalise info on any planned-in-advance actions/events for biketour plans to take part in
Collect stuff for the guidebook, finalise guidebook, would be good to have it translated into Italian
Write general biketour press release, contact media / create own media
Make small evalutaion form for those how cannot be at the meeting
Make copies of basic flyer in italian to spread along the road during the biketour
During the tour
Share tasks!
  • Update twitter, website, FB
  • Evaluation meetings during the tour- (give out small evalutaion form for those how cannot be at the meeting)
  • collect photos
After the tour
Administration, reports, Updateing the website with photos, infos

help start up proces next year

join wintermeeting

collect & upload photos, videos

BIKETOUR 2012

Proposal
Degrowth gathering in 2012 autumn in Venice:
  • Francois: can we have an update on what it would be & when is the date being set?

Spain -France - Italy (ie. Barcelona- Lyon - (Geneva, Switzerland) - Venice)

Theme: degrowth

Francois has a lot of contacts where he went on a donkey

We can make it big, starting the organisation full time in november


Another possibility: Join Ecotopia next to Berlin


Alice will be [one of the] international co-ordinators, doing EVS from Nov 1, for 12 months


Application deadline: 1st of june

Find a host organisation, accredit them

Host organisation could be in: Barcelona, Lyon, Geneva, northern italy, etc

Alice speaks some spanish and french, she's keen to look for organisations there -->

Alice starts to looking for an appropriate host for EVS for 12 months.

Why not have 3 EVS people? If the tour is going to be long ie. more than 2000km, more than 2months and more than a year to prepare (after all, it's the start of 2011!), then it'll be a big project, 3 EVS could be good! (EVS provides food, insurance, language, accomodation, travel, pocket money)

Vera would be interested in doing 2012 EVS from Nov 1, depends on her work situation

Shall we open up another application, or just ask around biketour people?

If people want to read more about EVS, look at pages 53-73 on this PDF: http://ec.europa.eu/youth/youth-in-action-programme/doc/how_to_participate/programme_guide_11/guide_en.pdf


ANYTHING ELSE:

food:

dumsterdiving? -Fine

  • But if buy food we have to consider the principles of biketour
  • Maybe ban some tipe of skipped food
  • Milan very surprised that Transparency of money is important because some people were buying at supermarket because the thought BT cannt affored more expensive (local, organic food).
  • Clarify the principles on food better for new participants
  • Lets discuss it on the biketour if people have concerns then

Money

1% of your monthly income per day is easier than explaining 10 ecos per day, and 1 eco is equivalent to 1/1000 of your monthly income.

Ecorates are too complicated, and doesn't distinguish different incomes within a country.

Perhaps the bigger financial problem for people is the travel costs to get to the biketour, we should see if there are any funds (apart from Youth in Action) that we could apply for which could support travel to & from biketour, ie. for eastern european participants.

Seb will try to organise a benefit party in London before he leaves!

Leftover money is with Moritz at the moment in his german bank account, we should tranfer it to an italian bank account - would cheaper/easier while biketour is in Italy. Who should look after that?

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