BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF STOKES CROFT - ECPv6.15.20//NONSGML v1.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH X-WR-CALNAME:PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF STOKES CROFT X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://dev.prsc.org.uk X-WR-CALDESC:Events for PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF STOKES CROFT REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H X-Robots-Tag:noindex X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/London BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20160327T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20161030T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20170326T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20171029T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20180325T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20181028T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20190331T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20191027T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20200329T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20201025T010000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20190115T140000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20190115T160000 DTSTAMP:20260421T152952 CREATED:20190108T164447Z LAST-MODIFIED:20190110T135625Z UID:10014257-1547560800-1547568000@dev.prsc.org.uk SUMMARY:Save the Bear - Save the Bearpit - Full Council Meeting DESCRIPTION:Last October\, without prior discussion of any kind\, Bristol City council served legal papers on The Bearpit Improvement Group (BIG) and Peoples Republic of Stokes Croft (PRSC) for removal of all assets (including the bear sculpture\, performance space\, and community facilities) from the Bearpit by the 19th of January 2019. \nA petition was immediately produced calling on the council to “SAVE OUR BEAR“. The sculpture has become an important symbol\, well loved by the City’s residents\, and the petition recieved over 4000 signatures and has forced a full council debate on whether to go ahead with the eviction or to refer the decision back to Mayor Marvin Rees for reconsideration. \nThe debate will be held at City Hall on Tuesday January 15th at 2pm. At the same meeting the council will also debate the petition submitted by Coexist requesting that they make a Compulsory Purchase Order of Hamilton House to guarantee it’s future as a community and cultural resource. \nIf you want to support the fight to protect Bristol’s cultural and community spaces from the forces of corporate greed please come out and join us on College Green on Tuesday! \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n While the statue is clearly a significant artwork\, the ideas that the Bear represents are crucially important. These ideas must be regarded as vital to the wellbeing of a city that likes to think of itself as progressive.\nThe Bearpit as Community Action Zone \nIn 2011\, the Bearpit was declared a “Community Action Zone”. Council officers were instructed to help the newly formed Bearpit Improvement Group to revitalise a public space that had been moribund and regarded as ‘difficult’ for decades. These were exciting times! Over the years that followed\, the Bearpit lived an extraordinary story. It became a cultural hotspot\, with people coming from all over to see at first hand the experiment that was taking place. Academics wrote papers about this bottom up\, low cost community experiment in common public space. Several major exhibitions were curated in the Bearpit\, and BIG and PRSC continued to design and build infrastructure in this location to bring a truly alternative vision to fruition. \nTrade over Community \nHowever\, not everyone liked this approach. The traders\, Council officers and others in the Mayor’s office created a narrative whereby the Bearpit was unfairly characterised as dangerous and lawless\, with the suggestion being made that encouraging grafitti and political expression somehow increased drug use and violence. PRSC believe that any increase in antisocial behaviour in the Bearpit has been caused by an increase in homelessness; the spice epidemic; cuts in police numbers; cuts to drug\, homeless\, and mental heath services; and an active policy of stopping the PRSC and BIG from running community activities in the Bearpit. \nThe most shocking part of this saga came in autumn 2017 when the PRSC installed a plaque in the Bearpit in memory of Paul Larner\, a much loved local man who had been living on the streets of Stokes Croft\, and helping others to survive there for many years\, and who had died in the Bearpit of a spice overdose in October. As Paul’s grieving friends and loved ones gathered to show their respect\, the traders insisted upon the removal of the plaque saying that it encouraged the congregation of homeless people in the area. \nOver the last decades\, the Bearpit had always been the last refuge of street people\, one of the city’s forgotten areas where the homeless would congregate\, and this continued to be the case. Where else can they go?\nSimultaneously\, the community group BIG was starved of funds by the Traders’ unwillingness to pay any rent for the units they occupied. Units which were built and provided by PRSC and BIG volunteers with the vision of generating a small income to fund other community and cultural activities in the space. The BIG and PRSC were then blamed for lack of upkeep of the Bearpit. This looked like a deliberate plot to squeeze out the Bearpit Group. \nAs the growing effects of austerity caused increasing desperation\, homelessness and drug addiction\, and as Bristol Waste refused to be involved in maintaining and cleaning the Bearpit\, it was clearly unfair to lay the blame for the messiness of the site on these underfunded and unsuported community groups. \nIn reality\, the Bearpit experiment had been extraordinary\, amazing and of rare vitality\, and with a little support\, it could still continue to be a truly groundbreaking cultural space. Our beautiuful uncommon commons! \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n What Happened to the Cube? \nIn May 2018\, once again with no prior warning or consultation\, Bristol City Council ordered Bristol Waste to remove and destroy Bristol’s only non-commercial billboard\, the cube in the Bearpit. The cube was displaying a warning from Greenpeace about the illegally high levels of air pollution in Bristol City Centre. \nThe cube was destroyed on the Friday evening of the Whitsun bank-holiday weekend leaving PRSC\, Friends of the Earth\, and BIG to discover it’s removal on the Tuesday. \nListen to deputy Mayor Asher Craig justify this move\, and other moves by Bristol City Council to drive PRSC and BIG out of the Bearpit\, on Tony Gosling’s political radio show on BCFM last August: \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Bearpit discussion on BCFM August 2nd\n \n https://dev.prsc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Bearpit-BCFM.mp3\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Current situation \nFast forward to today: In October 2018\, some people at Bristol City Council who have declined to reveal their identity have attempted to serve legal papers on the now-defunct Bearpit Improvement Group and PRSC requiring them to remove all their assets from the Bearpit. This includes the Bear sculpture\, a perfectly serviceable Theatre/community space which is ready to go\, storage for market trading and all of the art panels in the tunnels. \nBy any standards\, this is an appalling way to treat community groups BIG and also PRSC. Both groups have given seven years of their time on this project for no financial gain. There has been no discussion\, no phone call\, none of the behaviour one might hope for from our Council. PRSC has been forced to seek legal advice at considerable cost to discover what our legal rights might be in the face of such unwarranted vindictiveness. \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n   \nCall to Action \nIf you support our efforts to create a unique cultural\, community run space in the heart of the city. Please add your voice to the campaign… \n1 – share this story – tell people what’s happening to the Bearpit \n2 – write to your local councillor (or Mayor Marvin himself) demanding that they put their support behind community and culture over capital and control \n3 – join our Banner Making Session in the PRSC yard on Monday January 14th at 3pm \n4 – come to College Green on Tuesday and add your voice to the crowd on Tuesday 15th at 2pm \nTogether we can protect this Uncommon Commons URL:https://dev.prsc.org.uk/event/save-the-bear-save-the-bearpit-full-council-meeting/ LOCATION:City Hall\, College Green\, Bristol\, BS1 5TR\, United Kingdom CATEGORIES:Debate,Politics,Protest ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dev.prsc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/bearpit.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20170930T090000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20171001T200000 DTSTAMP:20260421T152952 CREATED:20170915T161517Z LAST-MODIFIED:20170926T205547Z UID:10013912-1506762000-1506888000@dev.prsc.org.uk SUMMARY:Wildscreen Festival - Witness the Wild DESCRIPTION:This October\, we’re bringing together local community groups\, artists\, scientists\, wildlife filmmakers and photographers to transform two concrete roundabouts into oceanic sanctuaries\, giving thousands of people the opportunity to dive beneath the waves and explore the ocean depths for themselves and discover how we can all do little things to help protect it. \nThough vast\, our ocean is not limitless and it needs our help. 275 million tonnes of plastic waste is generated every year around the world. That’s the equivalent weight of over 2.3 million blue whales – the largest animal to have ever lived. That’s a lot of rubbish. Only 5 percent of all plastic waste is recycled\, and the rest of it has to go somewhere –usually in our ocean or landfill. We can all really easily help by being better at recycling and using less single-use plastic\, especially things like straws\, which get used once and then thrown away. \nWTW will engage local communities and businesses with our throwaway culture and its impacts on our ocean\, bringing them together with amazing artists to create beautiful instruments and sculptures from single-use plastics and fly-tipped rubbish sourced from within the communities themselves. \nTogether we’ll tell the story of plastic\, the impact it’s having on our world and how we can all make little changes to help reduce it. Our sculptures will quite literally be rubbish. \nThe creations will be exhibited in our two wild reefs – the Bear Pit and another soon-to-be-announced roundabout – and be supported by films screenings\, art\, talks and lots more floating around the city. \nKey events at the Bearpit include: \n\nBearpit event: From 30 September – 1 October four Bristol-based street artists\, EPOK\, Sled One\, Meghan O’Malley and Sophie-Rae will transform the Bearpit (St James Barton Roundabout) into a marine sanctuary with huge ocean-themed murals. A bicycle-powered cinema will screen some of the world’s best ocean films\, including the original Blue Planet and A Plastic Ocean. Across the weekend\, LitterARTI will create a giant sculpture made from litter\, ocean conservation organisations will host workshops and activities and there will be food and drinks stalls on site.\n\nThis beautiful and inspiring documentary features the wildlife of Hawaii’s famous surf zone and the surfers and scientists who are fighting to protect it. Turtles\, dolphins\, monk seals and albatrosses all have to cope with the growing number of people using the island beaches\, but now animals face a new threat from washed-up plastic. A varied bunch of island characters\, including born and bred Hawaiian musician Jack Johnson\, make it clear that these beautiful islands have a powerful message for us all. \nSunday 1 October 2017 \nBlue Planet Marathon \n5pm THE BLUE PLANET\nThis opening episode touches on all aspects of the oceans to reveal the sheer scale\, power and complexity of The Blue Planet \n6pm THE DEEP\nThe deep remains the least known of all the ocean habitats. It is an eerie world where animals play hide and seek and where predators with massive teeth and enormous mouths lurk like patient rat-traps\, waiting for their prey. \n7pm OPEN OCEAN\nIn this marine desert there is nothing save the burning sun above and the blackened abyss below – yet here live many of the most spectacular predators in the ocean. \n8pm FROZEN SEAS\nFor the first time\, the frozen worlds of the Arctic and Antarctic are compared\, where the annual freeze and retreat of the sea governs the pace of life. With winter temperatures plummeting to 70 degrees celcius below freezing\, relief only comes with the brief respite of spring. \nWildscreen’s Witness the Wild festival will submerge Bristol in all things marine to raise awareness about ocean conservation between the 30 September – 26 October \nCity-wide festival\, from BS1 to BS11 includes 15 FREE film screenings\, street art\, photography trail\, pop-up restaurant and kid’s yoga. \n\nThe full line-up of events can be found at: http://www.wildscreen.org/witness-the-wild/ URL:https://dev.prsc.org.uk/event/wildscreen-festival-witness-the-wild/ LOCATION:PRSC Outdoor Theatre\, Bearpit\, St Lawrence Weston Roundabout\, Bristol\, BS2 8JP\, United Kingdom CATEGORIES:Art Exhibition,Community Meeting,Exhibition,Film,Photography Exhibition ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dev.prsc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/wilscreen-BP.jpg GEO:51.4625693;-2.5905714 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=PRSC Outdoor Theatre Bearpit St Lawrence Weston Roundabout Bristol BS2 8JP United Kingdom;X-APPLE-RADIUS=500;X-TITLE=Bearpit\, St Lawrence Weston Roundabout:geo:-2.5905714,51.4625693 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR