Newsletter Spring 2006

With the centre facing ongoing financial pressure for its core overheads, our volunteers responded and the end of 2005 saw a flurry of fundraising events for BPEC.

We kicked off with a live music night at the Grand Central on the 8th. The music on offer consisted of an eclectic blend of soul folk and blues provided by a wealth of artistic talent, including Moses and the Doghouse Band, Sam Carter and Songs from the Bleeding Jukebox to whom BPEC would like to convey their warmest thanks and appreciation. The night was topped off by a raffle, with prizes provided by Lush, Neal's Yard, Sanctuary Café and Linda Austin. Once again, BPEC would like to say a big thank you to those and the others who kindly donated prizes - their support and generosity were invaluable to the success of the night. It was a great event and well supported by our members. Through a combination of ticket sales and donations, we raised a grand total of £310 for BPEC.

On December 3rd, the Campaign Against Climate Change held a mass demonstration in Central London. The aim of the event was part of a global project of synchronised protests around the world to pressurise for urgent action on climate change, in particular the US failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. The date was chosen to coincide with the UN www.glClimate talks in Montreal that took place from November 28th to December 9th. The idea was to give one single united response about how strongly the public feels about the danger of a global catastrophe. BPEC received this first hand report from local Green Party Education Spokesperson, Rachel Fryer:

Recent events such as the WTO conference and the London march re-emphasized the importance of improving awareness of our unsustainable energy consumption. With this in mind, BPEC continues to encourage ways of making our homes and offices more energy efficient - even small-scale energy-saving methods such as low voltage lighting and computers, movement detection switches and low-flush toilets would have a sizeable impact if carried out by enough people. In addition, we are currently researching ways to improve green energy use at the Brighton Eco-Centre along with Ethical Property Company and fellow Eco-Centre organisations.

During the past week, we have all been reading reports of the 100 UK soldiers dead in Iraq. In recognition of the lost lives – both soldiers and Iraqi civilians – members of the local community came together for a candlelit vigil on the evening of the 1st Feb.

Meeting at the War Memorial near the Old Steine, community members paid a moment of silence to those fallen in the illegal occupation of Iraq. Organised by the Stop the War Coalition, CND and the Muslim Association of Britain, the vigil included readings by members of the Save Omar Campaign and Sussex Action for Peace, who remembered the names of 100 Iraqis and 100 UK military personnel killed in Iraq.