 About
Us
Next to Nowhere is a radical social centre built and run by activists
from the Merseyside area. Located on Bold Street beneath News
From Nowhere bookshop (find us), we have a
vegan kitchen space, and hopefully eventually a cafe, a free to use computer
suite and gig and meeting spaces. Eventually, we will be open to the general
public, but at the moment we're only open for specific meetings
and events.
We welcome anyone who shares our goals to get involved either through
volunteering to help run the centre, donating
money or materials, or through using the space to stage their own events
and meetings (bookings).
Who we are
The social centre is run by the Social Centre Collective who meet on
the fourth Tuesday of every month (meetings and events).
We're a group of activists who came together through the Liverpool
Social Forum
to work towards 'a fair, free and sustainable society - without hierarchy,
discrimination or the exploitation of people, animals and the planet for
profit.' All of us see the social centre as contributing to this, although
it's fair to say that as individuals we see it working in many different
ways.
We come from a range of backgrounds in community activism, animal rights,
the anti-war movement, anarchist groups and more. As the centre grows
and more people get involved we expect this diversity to increase and
we see it as one of our strengths. We don't claim to represent anyone.
Instead we seek to provide resources for people to work for themselves,
to increase their own self-confidence and to improve their own lives.
For a brief history of the social centre project see this
article from Nerve
magazine.
top
What we do
The Collective runs every aspect of the social centre. This means everything
from paying the rent to cleaning the toilets, running the cafe and doing
the cooking to maintaining the computer suite and even this website. However,
it's not all crap jobs (and even the crap jobs can be fun when you're
doing them for something you care about rather than a boss you hate).
We also organise events in the centre, in part to raise money to cover
our running costs, but mostly and more importantly to further our goals
as political activists.
So far, even before building works have been completed, we've run successful
film nights and gigs and intend to do much more of this kind of thing.
In time we hope to run discussion groups, training sessions on everything
from how to deal with confrontation and direct action tactics to housing
policy and building wind generators out of scrap, as well as fund raising
events and so on.
We're all volunteers, and we'll always welcome
more help, especially if you have any ideas. Come along to a meeting
or get in touch. Our announcements
email list is a good way of keeping up to date with what we're up
to and the events and working groups sections of this website should be
updated frequently. If you're part of a group which has ideas of its own,
why not book the space for your own events
and meetings.
top
How we work
The running of the centre is based on principles of mutual aid and solidarity.
Without the fancy words this means we look after and respect each other,
whatever our differences. We work non-hierarchically, without leaders
and without anyone telling anyone else what they have to do. This doesn't
mean we spend our time playing shareball and hugging each other, we all
have our own opinions and disagree fiercely at times. What it means is
that at all times every opinion is respected and heard and that all our
decisions will try to take into account everybody's needs as far as that
is possible.
To this end we use consensus decision making at our meetings and a working
group structure to run specific aspects of the centre. Consensus is a
decision making system that solicits the views of all present and moves
through a series of proposals that are modified until a decision agreeable
to everyone is reached (see links for more on
consensus). We use a stripped down version without hand signals and other
features of consensus that people sometimes find embarrassing or alienating.
We use a facilitator to run the meeting, keep items to time and to make
sure that people have chance to speak and a separate minute taker. Minutes
of meetings are posted to the mailing list and to this website.
The working groups do the day to day
running of the centre and organise themselves as they see fit. So far
we have a kitchen group, a film group and the buildings group. This list
is expected to grow as the centre finds its feet.
Individuals choose their own level of involvement. Some people choose
only to go to the general meetings and take on work as and when its needed,
whereas others choose to work with a particular working group only. You
can give as much or as little time as you want. We encourage everyone
who shares our goals to get involved.
top
Why we do it
As should be clear by now running the social centre is a hell of a lot
of work. Why, you might ask, spend time cooking and cleaning rather than
devoting time to any of the hundreds of issues that cry out for attention,
from climate change to social housing, the Iraq war to hospital closures?
As it happens, many of us as individuals, in different groups or as part
of the social forum are working on these things and many others. All of
us, however, are convinced that tackling this or that issue is not enough.
The whole system of capitalism is rotten and needs to be destroyed and
replaced with something better before it destroys us all.
We feel that the social centre is one, admittedly very, very small, step
towards a different world without the exploitation of the many by the
few. We feel that the centre can contribute towards a culture of resistance
amongst ordinary people by providing space and the facilities they need
to organise for themselves and by providing an example of organisation
without hierarchy or coercion. We are part of the national
social centre network and one example of an international phenomenon
which is tied to resistance worldwide.
Modern social centres are part of tradition which stretches back through,
amongst other things;
- working men's clubs in the UK which were part of
a militant labour movement,
- occupied social centres in Italy which came out of
the rent strikes, factory and apartment occupations and mass demonstrations
of the Hot Autumn of 1969,
- the Solidaridad Obreras set up before and during
the Spanish revolution of 1936 by anarchists and syndicalists,
- the meeting halls of the IWW crucial in organising
the most militant union the US has ever seen,
and many other examples of radical independent spaces organised by movements
for social change.
Next to Nowhere is one small part of something much bigger. By taking
part in it we hope to be part of real social change that will make a difference
to all our lives.
For more on social centres see links.
top
|
