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Trans Prisoner Day of Action and Solidarity - 22nd Jan

We are holding a letter writing group this Sunday for Trans Prisoner Day of Action and Solidarity, 7pm onwards
Postcards, vegan food, and help working out what to write will be available
 

http://transprisoners.net/

Trans Prisoner Day of Action on January 22nd is a day to acknowledge the experiences of trans and other sex and gender-minority prisoners. It’s about collaboration. It is about forging new relationships and dismantling the isolation of prison. It’s about resistance to state violence.

This project was first imagined by Marius Mason, a trans prisoner in Texas, USA. Since then, through his friends and supporters, an international collection of people both inside and outside of prison walls have come together to make Trans Prisoner Day of Action a reality. Join with us in the struggle for freedom.

Stand with Standing Rock - film night and gig

29th Jan - Film night including a feature film and a set of short documentaries, in solidarity with the water protectors of Oceti Sakowin Camp at Standing Rock. Vegan bring and share dinner from 7pm, films from 8pm
https://www.facebook.com/events/1266459453416853/

18th Feb - Benefit gig for Oceti Sakowin Camp from Uncomfortable Beach Party promotions and Random Camel Housing Co-op, featuring Bolshy, Paper Wings, and The Minor Discomfort Band. 7:30pm start, £5 suggested donation on the door   
https://www.facebook.com/events/312974265764677/

Update from our last gig, and future events

Huge thanks to everyone who came to our Rojava benefit gig back in October, and especially to the fabulous artists, we had amazing time and raised £452 to donate to a womans bakery worker co-op in Kobane. 

The next event here at Camel House is International Pizza Punk day on the 26^th, so drop by from mid-afternoon onwards for music, beer, and vegan pizza. Feel free to bring a CD, an instrument, or just yourself.

Our film nights will be starting again in the new year, with the next one being on Jan 29^th. Vegan dinner from 7PM, films from 8PM.

Happening: Rojava Benefit gig! See this page

https://www.facebook.com/events/1136063086452618/

Our next work weekend is this weekend, Sat 23rd + Sun 24th, when we attempt the epic task of putting the massive wooden frame we've almost finished building on top of the wall we've rebuilt parts of, and then try to put in some windows and walls, and possibly begin making some rafters.

But there are various things happening and not all of them need building expertise, just desire to learn new skills and appreciation of resourcefulness + DIY ethos.

This is roughly what a work day looks like...

Breakfast + planning 9am
Work commences 10am
Lunch + review tasks 
Work on a different thing/finish what you were doing
Dinner 7pm
Tidy up, crack open some beers + hang out

As always there'll be free vegan food throughout the day and a fire in the evening. Wear your scuzziest least precious clothes + bring your favourite music. Crash space available.

Work Days

So it's Summer and we have lots of work to do here at the house of random camel. Our regular film nights have been put on hold until the Autumn, and we're busy putting a new roof on the extension, growing some lovely veg in the garden, paint-stripping and painting, all-sorts of exciting things!

We have some work days coming up that we'd love some of you lovely people to come along to. There will be breakfast from 9am with work starting at 10am each day, lunch at about 1pm, and dinner and a fire in the garden in the evening. So come along and help out with the painting and building and roof work etc. There will be skill sharing and lots of tea and coffee.

12/07


16/07 & 17/07

Some photos of recent work days:

Rojava Events and other upcoming things

Rojava Events:

We have a Film Night on 24/04, starting at 8pm about the co-operative movement and worker co-ops in Rojava, an autonomous region in Northen Syria with a largely Kurdish population. Rojava is fighting back against the threat of Daesh - the so-called Islamic State (aka ISIS/ISIL), and the ongoing war in Syria (note on the Syrian civil war: there is currently a partial 'cessation of hostilities', not including attacks on UN-designated terrorist organizations such as Daesh and al Qaeda’s Syrian front, al Nusra), by developing a society based on principles of direct democracy, gender equality, and sustainability.

Bring and share food and snacks; all food needs to be veggie (preferably vegan) and no almonds or brazil nuts


We also have an all day event & benefit gig coming up on 28/05, raising money for the co-operative movement in Rojava. Suggested entry donation £5.

More details to be announced soon.


More upcoming things:


We have a Work Party on Sunday 17th and Monday 18th April. Jobs will include lots of painting, work in the garden (weather permitting), re-potting, and more.
Come along, bring friends and your favourite CDs. Skill sharing, and large amounts of tea and coffee will be available.


The Prison Letter Writing group will be on 27/05 starting at 8pm. Lists of prisoners you can write to, help and advice for writing the letters, and lots of old magazines and pictures to cut up and use will be on offer.



Random Camel now has a facebook group for keeping you guys posted about our events, gigs etc.: Regular Events @ Random Camel


Event announcements and general updates will still also be posted here on the blog.

Ipswich housing co-op seeks new members

Who would like to live in a community with seven adults, one cat, and 

two part-time children?

We have a room to let until may 10th (call or email to discuss details & options) and one membership vacancyRent is £55 per week, which is within the local housing benefit rate and there is no council tax to pay.

Membership

Our vision is to create a better Ipswich – we're looking for a proactive motivated person, happy to band together and initiate building work, work on radical social change projects or community engagement, or take an active role in the administrative side of running the co-op.We are a community in its infancy so your influence will make a strong impact. The right person for our community will be respectful of other members' needs, open to listening, honest and supportive. We expect to give the same in return and recognise that this depends on a constant commitment to good communication. All co-op decisions are arrived at by consensus.We also pool resources to buy organic, fair trade and local produce communally from our independent food co-operative. We split all bills equally.Current members range in age from early 20s to late 40s, with a wide range of skills and experience. We put on events, help run the Ripple food co-op, and our interests include ATS belly-dancing, horticulture, foraging, wildlife conservation, music, cycling and mechanics.
Here's some criteria to help us see if we're right for each other:A commitment to co-operative principles and radical social change.The ability to communicate in a co-operative way.Participation in home-making – energy efficiency, construction, tidying and washing up!We have an evolving set of agreements for how we live together, called our Secondary Rules, on a separate blog page. These will help you decide on our mutual compatibility.



Our housing co-op is a member of the Radical Routes network, we're a vegetarian/vegan household (one kitchen each) with no smoking indoors. We often eat together and cook with fresh ingredients every day, sourced from the Community Supported Agriculture scheme in Rushmere. In return, we do some work on the farm about once a fortnight.




Interested in applying?We want everyone who applies to be at the same stage as others so that we minimise the chances of any unfair advantages and inequalities, but if you're interested please be pro-active and invite yourself to our events, get stuck in on work that we're doing and generally impose yourself on us! We very much welcome visits, emails, telephone calls, post, etc. from anyone interested.

Wintery Happenings

We hope you've all been having a great festive season. Our new members (and cat) are settling in well, we've been very busy doing lots of work and organising a variety of wintery happenings, and we have some great events coming up!

Events

Yuletide Storytelling 30th Dec: 
Join us tomorrow 30th Dec from 7:30PM for an evening of winter, yule, christmas and solstice stories from around the world with a fun and fantastic local storyteller from Bards Aloud. 
Food and drink will be bring and share. As usual all food should be vegan, and no almonds or brazils.

Folk-Punk Gig - Cistem Failure (and others) 9th Jan:
Come to the House of Random Camel for our first gig of the year, featuring Cistem Failure's rowdy political banjo folk-punk. More acts to be announced soon! 8 til late


Some stuff we've been up to/Work we've been doing:

The windows for one of the bedrooms have been repaired, and the window frames at the back of the house have been fixed and painted. The fire room now has a projector wall; a shelf was put up for the projector and laptop to be put on, and the wall above the woodburner was striped (the hideous scraps of wallpaper are gone! Yay!), filled using lime-plaster, and is being painted with white ecopaint.

International Pizza Punk Day on the 26th, an anti-capitalist holiday focused on mutual aid and co-operation celebrated with communal vegan pizza and punk music, was a huge success.


175g plain flour 
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ tablespoon olive oil
½ teaspoon salt
125ml water
Should make 1 aprox. 12inch pizza, which can then be topped with your choice of sauce and veg (the most popular one here featured tomato sauce, sweetcorn, red peppers, soy "cheeze", and sliced vegan sausages), and baked at 200C for about 15mins. We also added herbs to the dough base, which was yummy.
Pizza Punk Day was started in Switzerland in 1997 by a group of orphan caravan punks and has now spread to Scotland, England, America, New Zealand, and beyond.

In less happy news, we are currently battling against the rodents that have moved in for the winter, and have been working very hard rat-proofing the houses. Holes have been filled in, the floors have been washed in a homemade peppermint-based repellant, and Rex (the newly resident house-cat) has been doing his bit to scare them away.

Application Deadline and getting involved

If you are interested in living here the window for applications to join has now closed !

BUT! We have a waiting list, so if you are really interested and want us to consider you for future vacancies just let us know you want to be on a waiting list.

If you were thinking about applying but didn't please keep in touch with us anyway - we're not just about housing people... you can use our place to run workshops, events, host community meetings, start up a group, etc. Use us!

Finally big thanks to everyone who came to our recent events and helped us raise money for the farm. Added to the money raised from The Oak Tree's kickstarted there is enough money to plant fruit trees, and there was some really positive feedback from the open day :-)

More to be announced soon to keep the winter blues at bay...

Previously unreadable post - open day on Saturday 12th September

Random Camel Co-op Open Day extravaganza !

Saturday 12th September

It's our open day next Saturday and we're getting ready to throw open our doors and welcome people with a day of workshops, activities, info sharing, and meeting new people. We got so excited that it's now extended beyond our own four walls!

Here's roughly what we've got drawn up:

10.00  Tea

10.30  Discussion/workshop: What are co-ops? A short history.

11.00  Tour of the house

11.30  Workshop: Introduction to Radical Routes 

12.30  Either A) Open slot for anyone to talk about their own projects
                      B) Food co-op tour [at CAB office on Tower Street]

1.30 - 2.30  Lunchtime

2.30  Workshop: introduction to Concensus decision-making and faciliting meetings

4.00  Tour of the house

4.30  Feedback/open slot [?]

4.30  Discussion/workshop: 'Living with Camels' discussion and workshop for those interested in             joining the co-op.

5.00  Garage door painting [bring old clothes]

Farm party in Rushemere from 7pm - all welcome!

Visual/ongoing things throughout the day:
People needing projects/projects needing people board
Visioning - what do you want to see happening and be part of?
Kids' space and activities

All welcome! Bring friends and enough food to share [no meat or almonds/brazil nuts though] :-)

If you're travelling from out of town and need to stay over let us know in advance and we should be able to put you up for the night.

Contact: randomcamel@phonecoop.coop

Previously unreadable post - Fundraising gig 18th September

This Friday we have a fundraiser gig for The Oak Tree Farm CSA  with music from the brilliantly talented Chantelle Love and the incredible Elly Tree! There will also be a fire pit into the night and a lot of beer to be drunk :-) Consider yourselves invited!

We'll be asking for donations of £3-£5 [give what you can for unwaged/concessions] on the door and drink & snacks available on donation too. Please give generously to keep this wonderful project alive and well, so it can nourish the local community for many more seasons and years to come.

The Oak Tree Low Carbon Farm produces excellent food while really caring for the environment. It's a not-for-profit social enterprise based in Ipswich. Funds raised will be spent on bridging the gap to pay the people who run this excellent project the national minimum wage, and buy new equipment.
This is the last weekend of the crowdfunding campaign so every penny helps to get the farm closer to its target and save it from closure. [For more info on the crowdfunding and how to give something even if you can't make it to this event please see the website].

Thanks for reading and for all your support.

Also a special thanks to those who came along to our open day on Saturday and took part in workshops. I ran my first workshop and you guys made it a great experience :-) Much love xxx

Something weird is going on with our blog sorry!

This Friday we have a fundraiser gig for The Oak Tree Farm CSA  with music from the brilliantly talented Chantelle Love and the incredible Elly Tree! There will also be a fire pit into the night and a lot of beer to be drunk :-) Consider yourselves invited!

We'll be asking for donations of £3-£5 [give what you can for unwaged/concessions] on the door and drink & snacks available on donation too. Please give generously to keep this wonderful project alive and well, so it can nourish the local community for many more seasons and years to come.

The Oak Tree Low Carbon Farm produces excellent food while really caring for the environment. It's a not-for-profit social enterprise based in Ipswich. Funds raised will be spent on bridging the gap to pay the people who run this excellent project the national minimum wage, and buy new equipment.
This is the last weekend of the crowdfunding campaign so every penny helps to get the farm closer to its target and save it from closure. [For more info on the crowdfunding and how to give something even if you can't make it to this event please see the website].

Thanks for reading and for all your support.

Also a special thanks to those who came along to our open day on Saturday and took part in workshops. I ran my first workshop and you guys made it a great experience :-) Much love xxx