There’s a good crew at the Peace Camp just now, if we can be so pleased with ourselves. However, to be fully effective the camp needs greater numbers and wider support. For that reason, we’d like to organise a ‘bank’ of part-time Peace Campers, to help make sure all the boxes are ticked and afford greater ambition in campaigning at this critical time.

What we hope is to put together a rota, maintaining a minimum number of people at camp over and above full-time camp residents. This would achieve two main objectives:

— to free up Peace Campers for direct action, demonstrations, meetings, conferences, research, and monitoring — as well as breaks and nights out!

— to help share the skills which have been built up over 33 years of the camp, spreading knowledge of direct action, blockading, anti-eviction tactics, protest site maintenance, nonviolence, facilitation, and more.

Anyone who is even remotely considering this should know that the most basic function of the Peace Camp is to be welcoming, and hopefully informative, to visitors. If you can make a cup of tea and hand over a leaflet, then you are exactly what we need. Equally, whilst it’s great if people can be on-call to rush through at short notice, we’re just as happy to pencil them in for when they get a free week-end in June.

It’s also worth noting that the camp is well-appointed by protest site standards, or even caravan site standards. There’s a bathroom with hot and cold water, flush and compost toilets, gas and wood-fired cooking facilities, solar power, and telephone and internet. It’s also well-established; there’s no current eviction threat, and the police usually respect our boundaries.

What we don’t want is a two-tier system of full- and part-time Peace Campers. Anyone who’s up for camping recurrently over time would be invited to participate in meetings and contribute to the democracy of the camp.

So, if you like the sound of this, get in touch and we’ll get organised! We may follow up with local meetings dependent on interest. Dogs and children are welcome.

PS: if you’re worried about the security of your personal details, a (nick)name and phone number would be amply sufficient for our purposes.

https://faslanepeacecamp.wordpress.com/2015/04/19/support-your-local-peace-camp/