Featured Item December 2018
GREEN SCHOOL
Our feature this month is not an Article on the website but a new initiative in conjunction with Green House.
Over the weekend of 15th/17th February the Green House Think Tank and the Green-History Project are together putting on the first ever "Green School".
A two-day intensive but informal residential educational event, it will feature expert presentations and seminars on core aspects of green politics and philosophy and the opportunity for about 30 participants to debate them with each other and the presenters in a relaxing green environment.
Deputy Leader of the Green Party Amelia Womack will be co-chairing the event with Rupert read. Tutors from Green House and Green-History will be joined by other experts on specific aspects. There will also be an exhibition related to the workshop topics and more relaxed evening entertainment.
Topics to be covered will include:
- the origins and history of the Green Party in Europe and in the UK
- ‘ecologism’, and how it differs from other political ideologies
- Greens and science; climate change, hope and despair
- the fundamentals of green political philosophy for today’s problems.
The location is the beautiful Earth Spirit Centre 5 miles outside Glastonbury. We hope to keep costs low to enable participation, with different levels of charges for different ‘packages’ of accommodation (from the luxurious to the basic).
Full details are on the Green House website (https://green-history.uk/blog/environment-and-ecology)
Site News December 2018
Three new articles and a couple of blog posts to draw your attention to this month.
David Taylor has published a major piece on the The Green Collective - a different way of doing things.
Both of these are grist to the mill of the Green School in February. A suggested reading list for the school will be published here before the Christmas holiday.
Another topic that will form background for the school is the relationship between environmentalism and ecology - David has provided a brief blog post this month as a starter for the discussion. Roger's blog for November is concerned with the problems of organising and cataloging material on the site.
We would also like to draw your attention to the articles on our Future Plans and the related Fundraising Appeal appeal. There is a lot of work to do and you can help very easily by using the Donate button on the left.
New documents in the Library this month include the first tranche of Steve Lambert's documents which he donated at the fundraising launch. Now the dark evenings and wet days have well set in Roger is hoping to get a lot more published before the New Year...
Support our Autumn Appeal
Thanks to your generous response to our Crowdfunder in March 2018 we raised enough money to put the website on a secure footing for the next two years.
Now we are starting to focus on the running costs and future development costs.
Our Autumn Appeal has two primary objectives -
- upgrading to a A3 flatbed scanner to enable us to bring larger format items into the library. Specifically we have a set of 1980s Econews and many local newsheets which were produced on A3 newspaper style and we would like to make these available to you
- We now have a significant backlog of material needing scanning and we would like to hire some help with this work. We will be offering £8 cash per hour to recruit a student in in NE Cornwall to do the work and we need to fund this.
There are also some further extensions to the project which we would like to move forward with - full details of these and the above items are on the main fundraiser page - but you could simply donate now with the button below - our target is a modest £600 for the basic costs and a stretch goal of a further £1300 to cover further developments over the coming year.
Thank you for your support
You might also be interested in our future plans for taking the project to the next level.
FEATURED ITEMS November 2018
OXFORD
This month we would like to draw your attention to the material on the cluster of activities in Oxford during the 70s and 80s. In some ways Oxford can claim to be one of the first cities with a cluster of green-ness in the UK.
As early as 1970 the first Ecology Action Group in the UK was set up in Oxford by Laurie and Carole Greenfield. Michale Allaby interviewed them for his 1971 book "The Eco-Activists"
A local Survival Society was set up in Oxford around 1972. It was part of and/or associated with the Movement for Survival. Martin Stott and Stephen Josephwere actively involved.
A few years later in 1976 Peter Taylor and Gordon Thompson set up the Political Ecology Research Group (PERG) in Oxford which flourished through the 1980s.
PERG members then formed the Oxford Ecology Movement (OEM) with specifically political aims. OEM contested the Oxford city elections in 1978 and the general election in 1979, resisting an approach from the Ecology Party to merge into the EP.
After the '79 election OEM disbanded as planned. Some members had already broken away to form the Oxford Ecology Party (OEP). OEP remained a hotbed of Ecology and then Green Party activity throughout the 1980s.
Much 'green' activity was centred around the Cowley Road area, Annie Skinner has produced a book covering the history of Cowley Road which is worth tracking down. One significant spin off from the general 'Eco' activity in Oxford was the foundation of Green Line magazine - the entire archive from the 1980s is available in the Library.
Also in the library are a lot of papers from the OEM.
Oxford has played a significant role in the development of green politics in the UK. The Oxford Ecology/Green archive papers are held in the Oxfordshire Records Office in Cowley - part of our Autumn Appeal is to enable us to visit the Oxford archive and extract material from there.
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What's Where
In the Library area you will find an ever-expanding range of resources. The Document Archive contains scans of original paper. There are also collections of images, graphics, video and audio as well as a selection of recommended books and weblinks.
We are always looking for new material - if you have anything from the period; a copy of your election leaflet from the time you were persuaded to stand for the council, a placard from a demo you attended, photos of some action, a poster you saved, or a cache of some obscure news letter/magazine you received, then do get in touch - info@green-history.uk.
Under Articles, People and Elections in the top menu you will find contemporary accounts, more recent recollections, commentary and opinion.
News, under Home on the menu, carries general news about the project, Article Updates, under Articles on the menu, lists new and updated articles, Library Updates under Library details new material added to the Library.
History is subjective and we welcome debate, comment and opinion - if your memory or experience differs from that presented here then have your say - this is YOUR history. You can comment using the form at the bottom of most pages or contact us by email - info@green-history.uk.