Anarchist Youth Network agendas and minutes, 2002-2003

I believe that most of AYN's internal documentation was lost when its email list was shut down after the group disbanded. These are the documents which I still had archived on my computer or our old email list:
- London Anarchist Youth meeting minutes 10.05.02
- London Anarchist Youth meeting minutes 15.11.02
- AYN National Gathering meeting minutes and additional notes 13-15 July 2002, Manchester
- London Anarchist Youth meeting structure, Some time early 2003
- London Anarchist Youth meeting agenda 06.06.03
- London Anarchist Youth meeting agenda 04.07.03
- AYN Summer Gathering 2003 agenda, 25-27 July 2003, London
- London Anarchist Youth meeting minutes, ?.08.03

People who have not agreed to having their names on the documents I have changed to single letters unrelated to the individual's actual name.

I have made retrospective notes in square brackets where I think they will be useful.

Steven Johns

2002
London Anarchist Youth meeting minutes 10.05.02
Here are the things AYN london talked about in our meeting on Friday, and what we, uh, decided to do about them (edited for cops+fash. See closed list one for more info some things added which I forgot to put on closed list one):

AYN London meetings:
The people who met thought it'd be good to have a regular meeting at LARC every other Friday @ 6pm starting last week, so the next one'd be on the 24th. If anyone can't do Friday or knows a different place please say so as the people meeting couldn't decide anything for the whole group.

National Gathering:
One thing we did say is that we think a one-day thing would be quite sufficient, as opposed to the 3-day thingy suggested on the list. We could possibly have it at LARC – the RTS/IMC building in central London – as it's owned by "the movement" and the cost is voluntary donation. I think the weekend of the 13/14th July was put forwards as a possibility, or the one before that as there are AF AYNers coming down from Scotland. Format suggested was a couple of workshops, decision-making/organisational stuff then social in the evening.

Education/Exam action: to be talked about in more detail nearer the time of the action (as yet undecided)

Colombia action: as most of you probably know, since the victorious SIMTRAEMCALI workers left the CALI tower couple of months ago after occupying it for 35 days, 44 of the union members have been assassinated by right-wing paramilitaries (backed by the Govt. the US govt. + various corporations like coca-cola). There's been loads of other awful shit happening recently and some sort of action was proposed. To be talked about at our next meeting.

Carlo Giuliani tribute: Coming up (20th July) is the 1st anniversary of the murder of Carlo Giuliani by Italian paramilitary police. Suggestion was put forward to plan a commemoration (possibly candle-lighting+flowers, maybe a street-renaming) as AYN then invite other groups+people to come along. They've had commemorations all over the world, but we haven't really done here…

The booklet/info thingy – some people expressed confusion about what it was actually going to be + who exactly it was going to be aimed at. Discussing it in detail was put off till the Gathering.

Pro-Palestinian demo on Saturday: as DAAWN are doing something, we decided not to organise anything independently of them, so some (most?) of us will probably go on their thing.

Prop/outreach: things like making leaflets and giving them out is something we would like to do, but will wait until after Gathering.

Uh that's all I can think of. If anyone has anything else to add please do.

The AYN scribe-for-the-day

London Anarchist Youth meeting minutes 15.11.02
London Anarchist Youth: Just a quick one this week to sort out what the meetings are actually for/timesaving etc.

Agenda:
- meeting details
- working groups (uni students?)
- network gathering

Decisions (subject to discussion and change on the list and preferably the London board on http:www.ayn-forums.cjb.net )

Meeting details:
- Reduction in number of open meetings, now ONE PER MONTH on the first Friday of each month at 6.30pm at LARC in Whitechapel.
- (name removed) to find out if we can get our own keys

Working groups:
- emphasis on working groups so people interested in a certain thing (e.g. animal rights) can organise it and let the rest of us know details etc. as opposed to general LAY meetings, where we all say "hmm wouldn't that be a good idea" and then no one actually devote the energy to organise it.
- put WGs on website so people can get involved in what interests them: some WGs might work better on a network-wide level, others on a local level - let's see where we go...

Active working groups to be set up:
Graffiti/subvertising WG
Animal rights WG
Prison action WG???
University students???? There are a few involved in LAY/AYN - do they organise in other groups or should we set up student forum or something so students can start to organise in their community (i.e. the uni) against the new top-up-fees etc.? (Should this be a working group? Or a type of local group?)

Network gathering:
in Mancester weekend of Dec 7th, LAY delegation. Will ask (name removed) and (name removed) to go, will organise money to assist travel costs if necessary. Anyone else can go but if not elected by LAY obviously won't get financial assistance.

Announcements:
Fur week of action, 30th November
21st December day of solidarity with struggle in Argentina
DSEi direct action planning begins

AYN National Gathering meeting minutes 13-15 July 2002, Manchester
[Minutes taken by O]
Here are some notes I took from the meetings on Saturday and Sunday. Please add things I missed off and print this out for people who can’t get easy access to email. I tended to only write down things people seemed to generally agree on but this is still informal in that we didn’t have a consensus on all of it.

Saturday 14th July – loose theme of “What do we want the group to be?”
· Our long term aim is to destroy capitalism… [we didn't]
· …although campaigns help us reach new people so they are important.
· We don’t want an age limit and can use our discretion to decide if we feel comfortable working with older people.
· We can work within the anti-capitalist movement and make sure youth issues are not forgotten (those who aren’t young can’t relate to the issues so well).
· We want to sustain campaigns on issues (e.g. Selfridges [we got involved in a campaign to stop Selfridges food hall selling products made in the Occupied Territories. The campaign was not sustained...]).
· We want to educate and empower those people!
· We are not for or against violence as a group but respect individual opinions.
· We can/should not try to control how people behave at actions we organise.
· We want to be accessible to people new to our ideas.
· We want to do our own thing (not just tag along to Stop the War marches etc.).
· Nobody should talk to the media AS AYN (consensus “suggestion”).
· …we can create our own media!
· People can draw and use their own AYN logos if they want but no overall “official” logo.
· Local groups will be networked together but allowed almost complete autonomy. (A proposal was to be drawn up about structure for this – what was the proposal?! [see additional notes, below])
· Transport to meetings could be subsidised with people who live close paying a little towards the cost of those living further away.
· Minutes of local group meetings could be posted to the e-group for all to see. [only LAY ever really did this]
· If an unexpected, important event occurs (e.g. Sept 11th), local groups meet and send at least one delegate each to a national meeting.
· The phone will be passed to a new person each month (Jack for first month).
· Whoever wants to do propaganda can do so but other AYN people must approve it if it is to be labelled as AYN (quickest way to do this is to post it to the e-group).
· Short internal monthly (or at least often!) bulletin with highlights from the email list/discussion board, mainly for those without easy email access. Joel agreed to start this.
· We would like both local and national newsletters.
· The national newsletter will be free/donation and called the Daily Slacker (at least for the first issue). It will be monthly with articles from whoever wants to write and a different local group compiling each issue. The first issue will be compiled as a group effort. [this newsletter never happened]
· We can show links between national and local action by printing info about what’s happening locally in the national newsletter and re-printing articles from the national newsletter locally.
· Our newsletter should inspire action not replace it!

Sunday 15th July – Loose theme “campaign ideas” [none of these happened, continuing an AYN tradition...]
· Alternative sex education leaflet
· Anti-prison support, sending books to prisoners
· Leaflet to coincide with the restart of schools in September(!)
· Block NF march on Remembrance Sunday
· Action against the Countryside Alliance Stall
· Leaflet about dealing with police harassment (stop & search, the law etc.)
· Anti exam stuff
· Guerrilla gardening (organise locally)

(apologies for the lack of detail but the discussion was a bit like that anyway)

My additional notes
Agenda
· Structure/organisation/membership?
· Mailing list
· Newsletter
· Action

Decisions(subject to agreement of people on here + local groups):

Structure/org/membership
· The Network will not have a membership, although local groups
may if they so wish. This should not be much of a problem as there is
little that the Network should have to decide on as a whole
· Certain positions are needed for particular things to get
done. These are:
o Web team (jim + rkn0
o Phone person (LAY)
o Email secretary (rkn – next someone from Manc [no one from Manc took this over so other people from London did])
o Snail mail secretary (LAY]
o Mailing list co-ordinator (john) and regional contributors
(see next section for more info)
All these positions are currently filled by volunteers, but
should be rotated – especially Email Sec, as contacts are power! If
anyone has a problem with any of the people doing these jobs, or
thinks they aren't doing them well let us know, as they can be
recalled at any time if someone really has serious concerns about
them.

Other than this we basically re-confirmed the structural decisions
from the 1st gathering – that we should be a network of autonomous
groups etc.

Mailing List
· We'll get a proper mailing list going to let people know what
we've been up to, also to provide a better first point of contact
than the younganarchos list, which many people join then leave after
getting swamped with emails.
· Each local group should please choose 1 person to each month
summarise what you've been up to, and what stuff is upcoming in your
area, so we can collate all the info from different areas.
· The network mailing list person can then put these all
together and send them out.

Newsletter
We didn't really decide much on this front, other than suggesting if
local groups want to put local newletters together we can help each
other out, and use info from the mailing list on them.

Action
Most of this to be done on a local level, but it was proposed that we
as a network start trying to start the process to get a load of
nationwide street parties/events upon Maggie Thatcher's death.

We should get a web domain name then do some sort of "launch" and
then try to get other groups and individuals on board and
start "getting the word out". We could have quite a long time for all
the publicity (unfortunately). [This did not happen, though it was spoken about a lot, and the Class War Federation did start this work]

2003
London Anarchist Youth meeting structure, Some time early 2003

Basics:
· Choose facilitator
· Name go-round
· Run-through of last meeting's minutes, check decisions have been carried out

For example, each month before the meeting we need to put up a post (and egroup post) advertising the meeting and getting people to make an agenda. Then we need someone to print the agenda and bring it.

* then we need someone to send out the notification by SMS

* then we need someone to type up the minutes, and post them out on egroup and boards, then advertise the social, bookstall etc. nearer the time.

* I also think we should keep a paper copy of the minutes, and send one paper copy to the Kate Sharpley Library, which documents the Anarchist Movement and all that kinda shit. [this did not happen in the end]

* Now I suggest we either in every meeting dedicate a section to choosing someone to do that (and change each month) or just make all that shit the job of the secretary. [it was made the job of the secretary since few people were willing to do this]

Also we should work out how often we should change Sec's and treasurers... although this last one will depend on what happens with bank a/c I guess.

Um yeah and I reckon we should get a sample minutes and agenda templates which we use the same thing each time, just with slightly different content, so it already has in the stuff we need to do each month.

I suggest we just use the ones we did for last month.

London Anarchist Youth meeting agenda 06.06.03

Reportbacks:
· Evian [G8 demonstrations]

Organising:
· PFI and school related... do some sort of anti-PFI school thing. [didn't happen...]
· AYN international links working on.
· DSEi school/student strike: Using School Action idea for DSEi, some sort of young peep's / school students action working with other Uk youth groups.... maybe room for expanding outside activist ghetto here? [didn't happen]
· Regular club night [didn't happen - individual club nights were too much work to do regularly]
· Gathering organisation i.e. where, what do we need etc
· Squat
· Prop – General AYN introduction leaflet
· Confirm venue for next social (advertising for social)
· Reports back from Evian (If anyone is around at the meeting)
· @ stoodents in Uni's, networking, getting free money off the unions etc,
· Moving meetings to Freedom bookshop/soc. centre?
· bank account/money situation
· Stall at Marxism (It's that time of year again kids! ) - meeting about collaborate with other ppl?
· Stall at Conflict gig (who's to do it etc. Maybe some sort of AYN banner for it would be cool, same for Marxism. do we still have that cloth? Could just do a simple Anarchist Youth Network banner) - 2 ppl can go free, need a pasting table - one in LARC basement we can have.
· Animal Rights working group

Announcements
· South London Punx Picnic

London Anarchist Youth meeting agenda 04.07.03

Reportbacks

* Thessaloniki [Anti-EU summit demonstrations]
* Squat

Organising
* Gathering: who's coming, who can help out etc., location, location, location.
* Projects bit for website: contacts
* Squat?
* Help Fixing 56A / opening it more days a week
* Meeting conduct, how we all interact etc. [most people were not making an effort to talk to newcomers, people would sit in small groups making in-jokes, etc.]
* Organising next social night so it works unlike last, publicising it to get new ppl down and being nice to them.
* DSEi stuff - someone to go to dsei co-ord meetings, someone to follow up on what i posted to list about dsei.
* LAY Club Night
* Marxism Stall, who wants to do it, prop for it, CDs or whatever.
* Sharing workloads/tasks, more people taking initiative etc
* Stall at some other gig 10th July

Announcements
* Prisoner Support Party Friday Night, 10pm onwards
* Street Party Sat, mid-day onwards
* DSEI benefit party Saturday Night, 8pm onwards
* Unsound.

Anarchist Youth Network Summer Gathering 2003 agenda, 25-27 July 2003, London

Friday 25.07
19.00 Social/party/get-to-know-each-other with cheap booze, films and music (maybe some live)! Till late...

Saturday 26.07
10.00 Introduction and Regional reportbacks
11.00 Internal organisation meetings:
- Formalise AYN roles i.e. Web Team, secretary etc and re-elect positions
- Formalise gathering structure
- Money – LAY account; need for general AYN account? How do we sort out money nationally/as a network? Financial aid for new groups?
13.00 Lunch
14.00 Organising meetings:
- Quick reports and explanations of AF/CW/SF meeting & HUB. How do we fit in to these developments? Do we want to help? If we do, how?
- Anarchist Bookfair – Stall: being visible, sorting prop etc. Our meeting: What do we want? Suggested ‘National Network of Anarchist Students’ OR ‘Anarchism & Young People’. Any others? Let’s try to sort out in advance.
16.00 Workshop:
- Legal Workshop – LDMG
17.00 Workshop:
- DSEi Workshop – one of the Disarm DSEi Collective
17.30 Debate:
- Class Struggle or non-class struggle? debate
18.30 Organising meetings:
- Set up Working/Projects Groups i.e. Animal Rights group, Anti-Fascist group, Eco group etc.
- How can we bring network together? How can we keep each other informed about other groups’ actions? Stuff like meeting minutes, local newsletters, actions, events etc.
- Where do we go from here? How can we grow? How can we increase outreach and generally progress?
20.00 Dinner and Goodbye party!

Sunday 27.07
- Whenever people wake up
- Tidy-up, tieing up any loose ends, films, food
- Then go home and get on with the revolution!

London Anarchist Youth meeting minutes, ?.08.03

People present: ?
We realised the meeting wasn't advertised on the email list or the text message service. (I just thought we should decide at each meeting who will advertise the next one, or maybe the LAY secretary should do it?)
We also decided to put number of people in attendance in minutes, to gauge how well supported a decision was.

** Asterisks mark concrete decisions

Gathering Discussion/Reportback
Maybe should've been spread over two days?
Not as much bonding as last time - maybe because bigger?
Summer camp for next time?
** Jim has minutes - please could he type them up and post them on the boards and egroup.

DSEi
**LAY will form an affinity group to take part in Sep 10th Direct Actions, and maybe non-violent actions on the 9th too.
The 11am blockade on the 10th may be easily penned by police.
**LAY will be heavily involved in organising Libertarian Bloc on 6th September march, with banner perimeter (so cops can't enter) and plently of flags, banners
**Banner/flag making session for Libertarian Bloc on 24th August at 12 noon at LARC (www.londonarc.org). Remember to send reminder email to egroup.
**john to buy material for this stuff (and also flags can be sold at @ bookfair)

Stickers/Prop
RTF should loan us some money (up to £x) to pay for this [we never did any large-scale printing in the end]
**john to research printing costs for 15th Aug
Some designs are up on Organise! forum
**P to put callout to do sticker designs for before LAY Social, 15th Aug. Get feedback on the boards/egroup then make final decisions at LAY Social.
**LAY reckons we should spend a few hundred to get decent prop. Hope other AYN groups can help us pay (MAY donated £70 to us already)
Try to get prop done for DSEi
try to get standard contact detail leaflet done too

Squat
**Future of squat decision meeting this Saturday 6pm at the squat

Next LAY Social
**will be at the Edinboro Castle on Delancey St, off Parkway near Camden Town tube. Meet 6.30pm, or earlier if people want. Could someone advertise this on boards and egroup soon please?

(this is *not* the revo [Trotskyist youth group we poached a lot of members from] pub)

Money
**Proposal: Get LAY bank account with 3 signatories, instantly recallable by LAY.
**P to see how we set one up at the Co-op
**£x in LAY funds, much more than we thought cos we got more gathering donations than we thought. (just thought we should talk to MAY about the £70 they gave us, which turns out we didn't need, but maybe that could go on prop?)

Outreach
**LAY to do a test bookstall Sunday 10.08.03 in Covent Garden. Meet 12 noon at the tube station
**P to buy pasting table (c. £10 - funding approved)
**john to get books from Freedom for stall
**P to get free prop
**Will report back to meeting and decide whether we wanna do more/more frequent ones.

Meetings
**At each meeting, we'll decide where to have next social and decide a little action to do in the next month and get a rota for the bookstall if this month's one goes well.
(I just thought we should also decide who advertises these things and who'll post up minutes to boards and egroup - this ok?)

Squat Bookgroup
happened 31.07.03, was good, read communist manifesto. If you wanna come along, post to the bookgroup thread on this forum