SKILLSHARE CONFERENCE LIVERPOOL
Merseyside WDM
Many thanks to everyone who attended the successful conference on Saturday. We welcomed delegates from several other regional branches including Central Lancashire, Calderdale, Manchester and Rochdale as well as interested guests from other Liverpool organisations. We were privileged to hear Nick Dearden, the new Director , who had come to meet northern members and challenged us with the three major issues of the present time, firstly the need to break the stranglehold of big finance over government both nationally and globally, and its aggressive aim to acquire the global ‘commons’ (the resources which should be available to all the world’s citizens)/ Secondly the increasing gap between rich and poor is not now just a matter of the North and South divide but a clear and widening division between the poor and the wealthy elites within all countries. Thirdly he warned against an obsession with aid without tackling the root economic problems that make aid necessary and which weaken its effectiveness. He encouraged us however to believe that change is possible and that we are seeing this especially in Latin American countries where financial pressure by multinationals is being rejected by governments and people
Sarah Reader , the Groups Coordinator, gave a very good talk on the way the big UK banks are investing in destructive mining operations in Indonesia and South America and we saw an excellent film on this. We hope to show this again in the near future. This proved to be an excellent motivator for the direct action we took in Liverpool City Centre where we set up a fake mine outside HSBC and urged people to stop banks ‘bankrolling climate change.’ This was a very public skillshare!! and we are grateful to Sarah and Maya the Northern regional coordinato for bringing the props and encouraging us in our activist roles.
The workshops were excellent – we are going to use technology with greater confidence in future and good discussions were held about the best campaign methods including the proposal to provide more user friendly leaflets to hand out to the public in actions. Members of the different groups are invited to add to this blog their own record of the discussions in which they were participants. Photos of the day are also on our webpage.
Many thanks to the rest of the Merseyside group for leading the icebreaking session and providing extremely delicious soup to fortify even the most apprehensive activists.
Next meeting Wednesday Dec 11th at 20 Deacon Court Waterloo when we shall combine business with a little festive cheer to celebrate a successful year.
Kathleen
