Hello Cooperation Birmingham.
A group of us have been planning to do Solidarity parties, with a view to raising money for local, national, and international causes. We’re proposing to become an affiliate of Coop brum.
I’ll run down the basics of the event.
Finances/Governance:
Tickets will be priced at £10, £15 and £20. People who are skint can email us and come for free, and this option will be indicated on all marketing. We also take profits raised from the bar during
the event.
The organisers (currently the core group attending meetings are Mikaela, Ethan, Riley and Sam) will not be taking any payment from the event, and are making decisions democratically through a consensus process. For the first event the bar will also be staffed by volunteers (doing short shifts).
• Pay for the DJs/Bands is currently at a rate of £90 per person, per hour. If one act negotiates up, every act will get the increased payment rate.
• The door-person we will hire will be paid well above the real living wage.
The current financial model is based around the money raised being split between three causes, one of which will always be Cooperation Birmingham. As Cooperation Birmingham will be a regular recipient of funds, and the other causes will likely be one-offs, we have decided on a split of -
40% to Cause1
40% to Cause2
20% to Cooperation Birmingham.
We will also slowly aim over time, to build up a reserve of funds to cover future events.
Ethos/Vision
The purposes of the event are as follows
• Raise money for local/international causes.
• Create a space which is joyful and fun whilst being overtly political. We would like to explore if this project has consciousness raising potential. By creating an overtly Political space which people have fun in, we hope to increase the likelihood of them entering other political spaces.
• Have a lot of fun with friends and comrades, blow of steam and vibe to DJs and live music. We want to explore a way to have movement related literature/leaflets/ info materials for people to access. (We haven’t settled on the best way to do this.)
Relationship with co-op Brum
For now we are aiming to go for affiliate status but would like to explicitly rent the Equaliser sound system for our events. We are keen to continue to explore this relationship in the future.
The first event will be on Friday 26th September at the Old Printworks. We hope for this to be a semiregular (quarterlyish) event, and hope to be selling tickets for the next one in the room at the first one. Of course it somewhat depends on it being relatively successfully the first time.
- In favour
- Against
- Abstain
- Block