Notes of Democafe meeting, 2-4pm on Sat 16th January 2016
at The Forge, Delancey Street, Camden NW1 7NL

Present: Janos (chair), Mary (notes), Trevor.
Apologies: Michael, Denise, Sara, Eddie, Eamonn Cashin (hospital).

1. MINUTES of the last meeting held on Saturday 9th January 2016.

2.  MATTERS ARISING from the MINUTES:

2.1 Housing Event 20th February 2016:
We have made contact with the organiser, Fred Ashmore, who has allocated us a table at the Quaker Housing Conference. There are plenaries in the morning and we can take part in afternoon workshops, one of which is. “Lobbying and activism – what are the approaching issues and directions?” Janos has emailed the wider group to remind them that whilst entrance is free but all who wish to attend need to register:  http://www.quaker.org.uk/events/housing-and-inequality-what-canst-thou-do

Eddie will co-ordinate the display of cardboard houses, with copies of Michael’s paper  on Housing- a place to Live being available. In relation to updating Michael’s paper, t was noted that Duncan Bowie, of the Highbury Group on Housing Delivery, gave a very well-informed presentation on Housing to a Meeting of Islington North’s Labour party St George’s Ward on 6th January 2016, here is a link to his research website: http://www.westminster.ac.uk/research/a-z/highbury-group-on-housing-delivery/highbury-group-documents

3.  UPDATES

3.1 Free Critical Thinking:  Daily Pickings, edited by Clive Menzies:
http://www.freecriticalthinking.org

3.2 Labour Party:  Updates have been received from • Sadiq Khan, London Mayoral Candidate:  • Lucy Anderson – one of four London Labour MEPs: http://www.eurolabour.org.uk/your-meps –  the total number of London MEP’s is eight- http://www.europarl.org.uk/en/your-meps/uk_meps/london_region.html and • Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign organisation, Momentum – http://peoplesmomentum.com – see also: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/01/momentum-has-defied-odds-and-will-continue-grow

3.3 London Global Open Table: Draft notes of the January meeting of the Strategy Forum meeting of the Independent Constitutionalists are in now available on the Global Table website – the main website is:  http://www.constitutionalists.uk

3.4 Runnymede Gazette:
Backnumbers of the Runnymede Gazette, produced by Frank Taylor and now in its seventh year, have been added to the Global Table archive:  http://globaltable.org.uk/wp/links/newsletters/runnymede-gazette.  In conversation, Frank Taylor also pointed us to a the website Towards an Agreement of the People for the 21st Century, which is a fascinating store of campaign information:  http://agreementofthepeople.org

3.5 DRUK – Debt Resistance UK: is showing a film on Tue 26th Jan 2016 – “Si Se Puede (Yes It’s Possible)”: at the Hive Dalston, 260-264 Kingsland Rd, E8 4DG – ‘SÍ SE PUEDE. Seven days at PAH Barcelona’ is a daily account of Barcelona‘s citizen’s movement defending the rights of people affected by the housing crisis. Spain is the European country with the most empty dwellings and the highest number of evictions. In 2013, there was an average of 184 evictions per day. Since 2007 over 550,000 repossessions have gone through the courts. Faced with this situation, people in Barcelona decided to take matters into their own hands and formed PAH (Platform for People Affected by Mortgages) to fight all evictions and support those affected. Within a couple of years they had 200 groups throughout Spain and stopped at least 1,200 evictions.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1728283104074514 –  https://www.facebook.com/DebtResistanceUK – http://debtresistance.uk

4.  EVENTS LISTINGS:

4.1 DemoCafe Events Listings: to update: http://www.democafe.uk/events/

4.2 Global Table:  http://globaltable.org.uk/wp/forthcoming-events

4.3 Occupy Economics Working Group: events listing http://occupylondon.org.uk/events/

5.  DISCUSSION ITEM:
Discussion centred around the place of this project in relation to the Independent Constitutionalists project, and the idea, which originated from the Runnymede Project about setting up local “lodges”, and whether we should seek to collaborate directly with Frank Taylor in extending the DemoCafe project to other areas of the country.

6.  NEXT MEETING to be held on Sat 30th January 2016 – we aim to produce a draft agenda in advance and invite all readers to suggest additional items by email to discuss@democafe.uk.  Do let us know about local meetings you have held.  Apologies for the Camden meeting can also be sent to group@democafe.uk.

JA/mf