Category: Events

April Red and Black Club

Come to the London Action Resource Centre (LARC), 61 Fieldgate Street E1 1ES, for the a monthly social and fundraiser. From 8pm until midnight you can meet up with other anarchists for a chill time to chat, gripe, and possibly even plot.

The Red and Black Club is the last Friday of the month, which will be Friday the 24th for April. We do not have an alcohol license so none will be sold in LARC, but feel free to bring your own booze. Suggested donation of £10 on the door, but no one will be turned away for lack of money. Half of this will go to LARC to keep the space running and half will got a new zine called Anarchy which we hope to distribute for free.

Reading Group 20 – How Nonviolence Protects The State

For our twentieth reading group we will be reading How Nonviolence Protects The State by Peter Gelderloos. From the blurb:

Since the civil rights era, the doctrine of nonviolence has enjoyed near-universal acceptance by the US Left. Today protest is often shaped by cooperation with state authorities–even organizers of rallies against police brutality apply for police permits, and anti-imperialists usually stop short of supporting self-defense and armed resistance. How Nonviolence Protects the State challenges the belief that nonviolence is the only way to fight for a better world. In a call bound to stir controversy and lively debate, Peter Gelderloos invites activists to consider diverse tactics, passionately arguing that exclusive nonviolence often acts to reinforce the same structures of oppression that activists seek to overthrow.

A free version of How Nonviolence Protects The State can be found at the Anarchist Library here and our friends at Freedom Press here have offered a 10% discount on physical copies for the reading group. Just quote “London SolFed Reading Group” or pop into Freedom for your general radical book buying needs.

The reading group will be meeting on Tuesday the 28th of April, 19:00, at Freedom Bookshop, 84b Whitechapel High St, London E1 7QX. You are welcome to come and join in the discussion even if you have not finished the reading.

April Drop in Session

Need advice about an issue with your boss or landlord? Want support organising in your workplace or community? Want to talk about anarchism or syndicalism? Want to meet members of the group and find out how SolFed works? Just want to say hi? Then come see us at one of these drop in sessions.

The next session will be on Thursday, April 16th, 19:00 – 20:00, at the London Action Resource Centre (LARC), 62 Fieldgate Street, E1 1ES. We will be in the upstairs rooms. If you can, please bring a donation for the space.

Red And Black Club is Back!

Come to the London Action Resource Centre (LARC), 61 Fieldgate Street E1 1ES, for the first of what will be a monthly social and fundraiser. From 8pm until midnight you can meet up with other anarchists for a chill time to chat, gripe, and possibly even plot.

The first Red and Black Club will be Friday the 27th of March and will be the last Friday of the month going forward. We do not have an alcohol license so none will be sold in LARC, but feel free to bring your own booze. Suggested donation of £10 on the door, but no one will be turned away for lack of money. Half of this will go to LARC to keep the space running and half will got a new zine called Anarchy which we hope to distribute for free.

Reading Group 19 – Resistance in the Workplace

For out 19th reading group we will be doing something a little different; instead of reading a book we will be reading a set of articles suggested by different members of the reading group.

The articles chosen have been deliberately selected to give differing and conflicting perspectives on organising and resisting in the workplace in order to provoke discussion on the topic.

The article we are reading will be:
Anarcho-Synidcalism by Tom Wetzel – A short introduction to modern anarcho-syndicalism.
Trade Unionism by Anton Pannekoek – A short critique of trades unions/introduction to council communism.
Death to Rank and Filism! by pre-Proletarian Gob – A critique of rank and file organising in the British postal service in the 90s.
Dare to be a Daniel by Wilf McCartney – A short history of one the early British syndicalist unions from 1905 to the first world war.
A Critique of Syndicalist Methods by Alfredo Bonanno – A Longer piece that is a critique of syndicalism from an insurrectionary vantage point.
Strategy & Struggle by SolFed – A Longer piece that is an internal debate within the anarcho-syndicalist Solidarity Federation.

Our friends at Freedom Press here host the reading group for free, so please support them by using them for your supply of radical books and zines.

The reading group will be meeting on Tuesday the 31st of March, 19:00, at Freedom Bookshop, 84b Whitechapel High St, London E1 7QX. You are welcome to come and join in the discussion even if you have not finished the reading.

March Drop in Session

Need advice about an issue with your boss or landlord? Want support organising in your workplace or community? Want to talk about anarchism or syndicalism? Want to meet members of the group and find out how SolFed works? Just want to say hi? Then come see us at one of these drop in sessions.

The next session will not be our usual third Thursday of the month, but will be on Monday, March 16th, 19:00 – 20:00, at the London Action Resource Centre (LARC), 62 Fieldgate Street, E1 1ES. We will be in the upstairs rooms. If you can, please bring a donation for the space.

Hospitality Organising Meeting

We will be holding an open meeting on the 29th of March for hospitality workers who want to organise a union in their workplace. We will talk about ways people can organise at work that can actually get results, whether the problem is dodgy contracts, missed breaks, pay, or a wanker boss.

We believe that organised workers taking action into their own hands is what’s needed, not just having to leave your job, having to take it, or going through a big bureaucratic union or HR department. Come along to talk to organisers from SolFed and connect with local workers to discuss issues that face us at work and in the community and what we can do about it.

Although the meeting will be in Camden, London and that is the area we will be flyering in, if you work in a bar, cafe, restaurant, hotel or other hospitality venue and want to organise in your workplace, please get in contact with us wherever you are. We will also need people to help us flyer and otherwise spread the word, so please also get in contact if you want to help.

The meeting will be at 6pm, 29th of March, in the Castle Room at the Castlehaven Community Hub, 21 Castlehaven Road, London, NW1 8RU.

Reading Group 18 – Poll Tax Rebellion

For our eighteenth reading group we will be reading Poll Tax Rebellion by Danny Burns. From the blurb:

This book tells the gripping inside story of the biggest mass movement in British history, which at its peak involved over 17 million people.

Using a combination of photos, text, and graphics, and drawing from the voices of activists and non-payers, it describes the everyday organisation of local anti-poll tax groups and chronicles the demonstrations and riots leading up to the battle of Trafalgar Square. It shows how the courts were blocked, the bailiffs resisted, and the Poll Tax destroyed. The final chapter draws from our experience to present a radically new vision of change from below.

A free version of Poll Tax Rebellion can be found at Libcom here and our friends at Freedom Press here have offered a 10% discount on physical copies for the reading group. Just quote “London SolFed Reading Group” or pop into Freedom for your general radical book buying needs.

The reading group will be meeting on Tuesday the 24th of February, 19:00, at Freedom Bookshop, 84b Whitechapel High St, London E1 7QX. You are welcome to come and join in the discussion even if you have not finished the reading.

February Drop in Session

Need advice about an issue with your boss or landlord? Want support organising in your workplace or community? Want to talk about anarchism or syndicalism? Want to meet members of the group and find out how SolFed works? Just want to say hi? Then come see us at one of these drop in sessions.

The next session will be on Thursday, February 19th, 19:00 – 20:00, at the London Action Resource Centre (LARC), 62 Fieldgate Street, E1 1ES. We will be in the upstairs rooms. If you can, please bring a donation for the space.