Past actions

On the March

Bexhill and Hastings WDM at the Copenhagen Climate Conference

Copenhagen, December 12, 2009.Assembling with 100 000 other campaigners to set out on the Climate Change March to the Bella Conference Centre.
	The 15.5-hour journey from Brussels to Copenhagen

Before the Copenhagen Conference

London demonstration, The Wave, before the Copenhagen Summit.

G8 Conference, Edinburgh, 2005

With friends from Worthing WDM group

Paris March, 2003

Marking the end of the European Social Forum, November 2003.

On the Streets

	April 27, 2010. Outside the NatWest Bank, part of The Royal Bank of Scotland, in Bexhill. RBS is 84 per cent bailed out by taxpayers and is using our money to finance the extraction of tar sands in Canada. This pollutes the environment, wastes energy, and ruins the livelihood of indigenous communities.
Tug-of-War in Bexhill, 2009. Indigenous farmers (left) versus International Bankers (right). Fair Trade would help Third World Nations to be self-supporting.
	Local campaigners took part in the Miliband demonstration against the proposed new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth, July 2009.
June 2009. The town pipe and drum band summons shoppers to Devonshire Square, Bexhill – a town without a focal point – for the Bexhill launch of the BIG IF campaign against dirty coal and against plans for the expansion of Kingsnorth Power Station in Kent.
Campaigning in Hastings. Aviation generates carbon dioxide and is still subsidised by the British taxpayer.
	Campaigning in Bexhill against airport expansion.
Making a splash for World Water Day, March 2008.Stop Water Wars demonstration and card action.European water companies are trying to take over water supplies in the Third World. Local campaigners support developing nations which refuse to privatise their water.
	Make Poverty History:March to end the all-night vigil in Westminster, 2005.
Supporting Brighton WDM’s demonstration at the Labour Party Conference, September 2004.(Spot the GATS monster on the beach, framed by our banner).
	Encountering the Drop the Debt bus from Leeds, en route to the G8 protest march in Genoa, 2001.
Die-in outside De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill	Cuttlefish message on Bexhill Beach before 2005 G8 meeting

Putting Parliament in the picture

	Lobbying Greg Barker, MP for Bexhill, 2009.Campaigners remind their MP of the need to pay this country’s debt to poor countries whose people have contributed very little to the climate crisis and who are suffering the effects of Western nations’ damage to the climate. They present him with a giant invoice itemising the debt, with a request that he take WDM’s message back to Parliament.
Climate Change Bill Day of Action, April 2008.Michael Foster, Labour MP for Hastings and Rye, supports WDM’s campaign.
	WDM Group members inside the European Parliament building in Brussels, 2005.Together with other members of the Trade Justice Coalition they lobbied MEPs about the unfair trade deals being forced, by the EU, on poor, vulnerable countries around the world.

GREENING THE LOCAL PARKS

Launching the Betting on Hunger campaign in Egerton Park, Bexhill, July 2010.
	Egerton Park, Bexhill, 2008.The Mayor of Bexhill supports the WDM stall.
July 2007. WDM stall at Egerton Park Green Day, Bexhill.
	WDM Stall at Alexandra Park Green Fair, Hastings, 2007.

Public Meetings

Bexhill and Hastings WDM played ‘Human Blackjack’ with George Osborne, to show how our government allows bankers to continue betting on food prices.

Bexhill and Hastings WDM group member,Denis Lucey, who lives in Bexhill said: “Our message is that gambling on food isn’t a game. It causes sudden food price hikes that lead to starvation, riots and political instability for people in developing countries. And this gambling is making UK basics such as bread, cereal and meat more expensive at a time we can least afford it.

“We want thousands of people to play Human Blackjack to ensure the Government hears the message loud and clear that the UK public supports regulation and increased transparency of an unfair financial market.

“George Osborne is attending a meeting of EC leaders in Spring 2011 when he has the opportunity to agree to regulate food speculation. We are urging the UK public to show that the bankers don’t hold all the cards by playing Human Blackjack and signing up to support the campaign to Stop Bankers Betting on Food at www.wdm.org.uk/humanblackjack.”

WDM’s contribution to Bexhill Fairtrade Town celebration “Peacing Together One World”, in October 2010, highlighted two alternative approaches to the management of climate change resources. On the one hand, the World Bank Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience offers half its money as loans – to nations hard-pressed to repay. On the other hand, the UN Adaptation Fund offers grants on a non-commercial basis to those most in need. The UK government has given £440 million to the World Bank (out of the aid budget!) but a loan (!) of only £660 thousand to the UN Adaptation Fund.

Our symbolic piggy bank, filled with gold chocolate coins, represented the World Bank. When the pinata was broken the coins fell into a bucket representing the UN Adaptation Fund.