Wool Against Weapons Briefing # 2: Information for MILESTONE COORDINATORS and PARTICIPANTS

WOOL AGAINST WEAPONS AUGUST 9 HUMAN PEACE SCARF, AWE Aldermaston and Burghfield

BRIEFING # 2 Information for MILESTONE COORDINATORS and PARTICIPANTS

Dear Campaigners,

We hope you are gearing up for August 9th, not long now! We have GOOD NEWS that we have nearly met our target for the 7 mile peace scarf – with wonderful pink knitting still coming in.

Here below are some practical information and checklists for Nagasaki Day.

1. MILESTONE ORGANISERS - We also need information from you, which we ask you to send to me ([email protected]) , cc to CND ([email protected]) and Angie at [email protected] :

IMPORTANT – SEND US KEY CONTACT DETAILS AND MOBILE NUMBERS

We are compiling two contact lists, as in some cases people who have taken on roles to mobilise knitting, and do outreach and get coaches organised for August 9th are not the same people who will take responsibilities on the day.

Please confirm the following names and contact info direct to me ([email protected]) , and be sure to cc to CND ([email protected]) and to Angie at [email protected] :

i) Names, email and mobile phone numbers of regional coordinators for August 9, including coach organisers (if different).

ii) Names and mobile phone numbers of milestone coordinators, peace scarf linkers, and first aiders for THE DAY, 9th August. Tell us what time you expect to arrive and leave at your Milestone.

In some cases these people may be the same as the regional coordinators, but in that case please provide names and mobile numbers again, so there’s no confusion.

For milestone coordination and communication on 9th August, we have calculated that there needs to be the following (if possible):

At least one Milestone anchor – who will stay at the central milestone location and be contactable and responsible for the 8 milestone bases.

Peace scarf linkers – i.e. people to be responsible for the ends of the scarf being stretched outwards from your milestone . Two will be needed for most milestones which will stretch the scarf in both directions, though only one peace scarf linker is necessary for Rainbow Burghfield and Rainbow Aldermaston.

One first-aider per milestone (if possible). This person should bring and be responsible for a basic first aid kit for your milestone.

It would also be useful to have a couple of cyclists or ‘runners’ who can carry messages from milestone to milestone, especially as there are some places where mobile phones won’t work. CND has ordered walkie talkies – one for each milestone – which should be the responsibility of one milestone contact person (can be the coordinator or a different designated person) to look after and return to CND when the demo is over.

Please decide who these people will be for your milestone, and make sure that you send us their names and mobile phone numbers.

When you get that to us, we will compile and send you all a list of these names and mobile phone numbers, so that everyone is able to contact key people during the day, especially for the peace scarf link up and in case of emergencies.

2) BRINGING THE SCARF TO THE DEMO

Jaine Rose – the knitting genius behind Wool against Weapons - will be based at Rainbow Aldermaston with the Stroud group, and is the main contact for queries to do with the knitted sections and pinwheels for rolling out the peace scarf. Her email address is: [email protected] and the website is www.woolagainstweapons.co.uk

Jaine has calculated that it is easiest to transport and unroll the knitting in ‘pinwheels’. A pinwheel is calculated as 40 meters long - that is 40 pieces of scarf.

Assuming a realistic 25% stretch (as experienced in Scotland’s wool against weapons action along the Royal Mile in Edinburgh), she has estimated the amounts of scarf need to be brought to each of the Milestones (see below). Note the original plan was 7 miles from the main gates of Aldermaston and Burghfield, but we decided to go a shorter route for the link-up (slightly under 5 miles in actuality, making it more do-able).

From West to East, these are the Milestones from Aldermaston to Burghfield, with estimations for how much scarf will be needed.

Rainbow Aldermaston at corner of the Aldermaston perimeter fence at Red Lane - Stroud/Bristol/South-West – needs between 12-16 pinwheels to reach towards Purple Milestone.

Purple Milestone at Padworth Common Carpark (0.7 miles from Rainbow Aldermaston) - Berkshire, Hampshire and South England – needs between 18 to 26 pinwheels

Blue at Englefield Estate Corner adjoining Wokefield Common (0.6 miles from Purple) - Scotland and North-east England, needs between 18-24 pinwheels

Green at Mortimer Road (0.5 miles from Blue) – Greens and feminists – needs between 21 to 26 pinwheels

Yellow at Goring Lane mini roundabout (0.7 miles from Green) – Wales and the Borders - needs between 21 to 28 pinwheels

Orange at Lockram Lane green field (0.6 miles from Yellow) – North of Oxford, Midlands, Yorkshire/Lancashire - needs between 16 to 20 pinwheels

Red at Dairy Cottage corner (0.5 miles from Orange) – Quakers/Faith Groups – needs between 20-30 pinwheels

AWE Rainbow Burghfield at layby adjacent to Burghfield (1 mile from Red) – CND London, East Anglia and South-East, needs between 16 to 20 pinwheels.

DON’T WORRY if you haven’t got enough scarf to bring down and cover your length yourselves, as Jaine and various Lush shops have been collecting from people sending in their scarf metres from many more places.

So that we know where shortfalls need to be made up, please email Jaine and me to tell us WHAT LENGTH (in pinwheels or metres) you expect will be brought to your Milestone.

3. GETTING THERE

3.1 Transport: URGENT - Have you organised the transport to bring people and ‘pinwheels’/sections of scarf to Aldermaston-Burghfield?

How many coaches are coming from your area (please keep us updated with this information). If you need more mobilising post-cards, posters or other info, please get those direct from CND (([email protected]) - Sara Medi Jones is taking over from Anne who will be away in Japan). Sara’s mobile phone number is 07786 656065

Aldermaston and Burghfield are between junctions 11 and 12 on the M4. Junction 11 is closer for those coming from the M25 or London. Or if coming from the M3, take the Basingstoke turn-off and take the A340 towards Tadley, the village adjacent to Aldermaston’s main gate on its south side.

By train, the nearest station is Mortimer, which is half way (10-15 mins) along the Reading to Basingstoke line. This is about a 35 minute walk from the Green and Yellow milestones and 5-10 mins by bike.

3.11 CND is running a shuttle all morning from Mortimer train station from 9:45 to midday. We’ll then be starting the shuttle service back to Mortimer station from 14:30. It won’t be possible to book spaces on particular shuttles. In emergency, you can call Sara Medi Jones on 07786 656065.

3.12 CND recommends that the coaches drop people off at the milestones between 9.00 – 12.00, and that they return from 3.00 pm to start picking people up, with those having to travel the longest distances being given priority for earlier pick-up times.

3.13 Coaches can park at the same place as 2013’s April Fool’s Aldermaston demo, at Mac’s Café on the A4 (Bath Road). They will charge a fee that is being negotiated with CND. Contact Sara at CND ([email protected]) for further info and also let them know when/if you know how many coaches/minibuses you’re bringing. It is important for Sara to have an idea of how many coaches to expect so she can liaise with Mac’s café on this. Her mobile for the day is 07786 656065. Please give Sara the mobile number of one liaison person on each coach in case of emergencies or problems.

3.14 Car parking – We can’t recommend specific locations for parking, but there are some parking places in and around Tadley, Burghfield and Mortimer villages (first come first served), but you’ll need to check locations and times on parking websites.

3.15 Bicycles – cycling may be the best way to get around the route, so we recommend you think about bringing some down with you (on coaches or by train to Reading or Mortimer).

3.16 POLICE LIAISON

This is intended as a nonviolent, family-friendly demonstration, so we hope that’s how everything will go.
Three people have been designated from our side to liaise with the police, and they will continue to do so on the day if necessary. These are: Jaine at Rainbow Aldermaston, Sara (CND) at Rainbow Burghfield, and Angie in the middle at the Yellow (Welsh) Milestone.

4 WHAT TO ORGANISE IN ADVANCE and/or BRING ON THE DAY

4.1 Useful stuff – to bring – or tell participants to bring:

• Food and drink for yourselves and any to share if you want – be self sufficient!
• Large banner or placard in your milestone colour, identifying you as Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple (and also for Rainbow Aldermaston and Rainbow Burghfield)
• peace banners and placards – the more the better from your regions, organisations etc
• first aid kit
• plenty of large bin bags for clearing up rubbish, sorting for recycling, carrying scarf sections if necessary
• megaphone
• camping chairs – especially for people who may not be able to stand for a long time
• additional camping toilets/buckets and privacy tents
• gazebos or some kind of shelter against either hot sun or rain, especially if your group includes older participants who may need extra shelter
• suncream, sun-hats, brollies/parasols, etc…
• bells for ringing – can be any kind
• mobile phones and a list of contacts for your milestone
• info materials you want to distribute

4.2 Communications -
It would be good for Milestone coordinators to make copies of the basic programme for distributing on coaches and at your milestones.

Some organisers have suggested doing a phone tree with mobile numbers of as many people as you know are coming. Others think this would be too complicated, as a lot of people will come to milestones who are not directly known. If you think a phone tree would be useful, please organise. If not, just make sure that key people at your milestone have each other’s mobile numbers. Nearer the time we will send you key mobile numbers.

4.3 Toilets - CND has organised for there to be at least one ‘accessible/disabled friendly’ toilet at or close to each Milestone location, from 9 am until at least 4 pm. Milestone coordinators are strongly encouraged to bring additional toilet tents and buckets with lids, if you are able.

4.3 Food and drink – We strongly encourage that everyone is self sufficient in bringing food and drink, including plenty of water – it could get hot! At the same time, some Milestone coordinators are making arrangements for tea urns and food, for example by contacting food cooperatives from your area (or elsewhere). If you can do that and have friendly food providers eager to participate and make some money, then go ahead and organise (and let us know).

In addition - as it could get very hot - CND will do their best to deliver pallets with water bottles to each Milestone, but there may not be enough for everyone’s needs, so do come as self sufficiently as possible.

4.4 Music or speakers?
Are you planning to have music or speakers at your milestone before or after the peace scarf link-up? If so, make your own arrangements for sound equipment, including megaphones. Do let us know if you’ve got special speakers or musicians coming in, as we can also direct media towards them.

4.5 Media – do as much locally and in advance as possible

It’s really important for milestone coordinators to plan local and regional media coverage well in advance.
National media will be coordinated through Action AWE (Symon Hill, email: [email protected] ) and CND (press officer Luke Massey, email [email protected] ).
We will have professional photographers and camera people to film the whole demo, and media workers writing news releases.

However, local and regional media outreach is far more likely to be successful.
Symon, who will coordinate Action AWE’s media outreach is happy to discuss with you how to interest and engage your local and regional media. Some preliminary advice:
• Contact your media before you go, tell them about the demo, email a press release as you leave identifying how many are going from your area and any names and quotes you want to highlight.
• Some groups have held a ‘mini demo’ in their areas before August 9th, with sections of peace scarf, banners about scrapping Trident and getting a nuclear ban treaty.
• Involve your local MP, mayor, local councillors etc. and any supportive local celebrities in local scarf actions, Hiroshima Day etc – and persuade them to come on 9th august!
• Bring a professionally trained photographer. It’s great to have lots of people taking photos, but media often won’t publish unless they get photos that are of the professional standard and framing they like. So it’s worth contacting – and if you have the resources and can’t find a suitably qualified volunteer – hiring a professional photographer/camera-person to film your milestone and get the images out quickly to the media.
• Make sure you do follow-up work with your media and politicians as well.

Twitter
Make this action ‘trend’ by using #peacescarf and sending lots of tweets before and on the day, including with instant photos if you can!

5. PRACTICALITIES FOR BRINGING AND ROLLING OUT THE PEACE SCARF
Following the brilliant Scottish, Welsh and Angel of the North peace scarf demos in the past few months, we’ve got more idea about what’s needed and how to handle and link the peace scarf. These are suggestions to make it go as smoothly as possible.

It’s easiest if you tack together 40 sections of scarf into a ‘pinwheel’. Each pinwheel ought to be manageable to carry, and would be around 40 metres of knitting. Label the pinwheels with your area or other identifier – makes it easier when rolling back up after the demo and sorting out where everything should go.

5.1 For the roll-out, you would find it very useful to have:
• Needles, darning needles, wool or thick thread to tack/sew sections/pinwheels together
• lots of large 38mm safety pins to connect sections/pinwheels for more temporary joining of scarf sections and pinwheels
• gaffer tape – lots of uses
• string/washing line and pegs
• pink ribbon and/or pink wool for joining sections
• ribbon in your Milestone colour, for various uses such as marking your section
• scissors
• bamboo stakes/sticks to hold the scarf and reduce drooping
• clear plastic sheeting for laying on the ground if necessary

5.2 Some useful advice from previous actions:
Label the pinwheels you bring down for the demo, so they can be more easily taken to the right place when the demo is over.

Need one person at least every 3 metres if scarf is not to droop too much.
Sticks with a fork/notch at the top to can be used o hold up the scarf without tiring arms so much.
4 large safety pins work well for joining individual sections.

To stretch the scarf, consider pegs for pegging it, string, gaffa tape to help attach scarf where it needs to go on a wall or hedge where no room for holding it or where not enough people.

Have several pairs of scissors – useful for cutting the tacking if you need to shorten the pinwheels or detach sections of of scarf

Ribbon or rope for crossing roads to link the scarf at the crucial ‘link-up time’ (planned for 1.00 pm) or where it is not viable or safe to have the scarf crossing roads or driveways.

5.3 Crossing roads
Although we asked the police to close roads and/or arrange for one way traffic along the demonstration route, but they said they don’t think it is necessary.

There are a few locations where the peace scarf will need to cross small roads or driveways. Most driveways are located between Rainbow Aldermaston and Purple.

Possible options include: i) lay the knitting on the ground with clear plastic covering it for vehicles to drive over; ii) have breaks in the scarf or connecting ribbons at those locations so that it is quick and easy to move the scarf aside if vehicles want to use those entrances or roads; iii) Link the scarf across roadways or driveways using ribbon or rope – e.g. at the crucial ‘link-up time’ planned for 1.00 pm, or where those at the location consider it is not viable or safe to have the scarf crossing roads or driveways.

There may be other options, and those at the location should choose what works best for their situation.

We have sent letters to all the households along the way, and will provide some leaflets for locals that you can give drivers to explain the demonstration to them if their journeys are disrupted.

6. PROGRAMME AND TIMINGS FOR NAGASAKI DAY, AUGUST 9TH

It would be good for Milestone coordinators to make copies of the basic programme for distributing on coaches and at your milestones.

8.00 am to 10.00 am: Pre-demo set up. CND has arranged for toilets, water etc to be set up at Milestones and along the routes around 9 am. Action AWE plans to mark the route with pink sticks and/or ribbons. Wool against Weapons is planning to get pinwheels to milestones that need more than they can bring themselves. Make sure you let Jaine [email protected] in advance, to say how much you can bring yourselves and how many additional pinwheels you will need. Milestone organisers are responsible for anything else they want to set up. Minibus shuttles will run from Mortimer station from 9.45 am to at least 4 pm.

10.00 am to 12.00 noon: Arrivals and Have Fun at your milestone, connect up the scarf sections – with music (if you have singers, musicians or speakers along your part of the route.
We encourage you to come as early as you can, but anticipate that most coaches will be arriving and dropping off their passengers and sections of scarf from 10.00 onwards.

12.00 - 1.00 pm: Aim to be fully joined along the whole route by 1.00 pm.
Joining up the scarf and spreading east and west (as appropriate) to link with activists from adjacent milestones will take time. There may be singers, musicians, speakers, cyclists, runners etc travelling the route, passing on news. Apart from the two ends at Aldermaston and Burghfield, the peace scarf should be stretched in both directions towards the milestones on both sides. We hope to have at least one walkie talkie at each milestone, as there are some mobile phone ‘dead zones’ along the way.

1.00 pm – LINK UP FOR THE WHOLE PEACE SCARF
When you’ve linked your knitted sections with those reaching out from adjacent milestones, ring bells for 5 minutes.

1.00 – 1.30/2.00 pm
It’s not always possible to get the timings exact, but if you are all connected, start ringing your bells at 1.00 pm. When bells have been ringing in your area for 5 minutes, we then want a 2 minute silence – if that is feasible - to remember everyone who has been killed or injured by nuclear weapons, from the bombs that incinerated Nagasaki and Hiroshima 69 years ago to people harmed by nuclear weapons production and testing, including some workforce and families living and working near AWE in Berkshire. Take some time for the scarf to be connected, filmed, etc.
Ring bells again for a few minutes before you start disconnecting the scarf and returning to your milestones, which will let others along the route know. Depending on how the timings have gone this could be at 1.30 pm or any time before 2.00 pm. The link-up needs to finish by 2.00 pm so everyone has time to disconnect, return to milestones, clear up etc.

2.00 – 3.00 pm: Disconnect the scarf and return to milestones, clear up and prepare to leave. This could also be a time for any additional milestone entertainment or speakers. Roll up pinwheels, label them for further transporting either back to your homes or to Wool against Weapons. Clear up and bag any rubbish and leave the milestones looking as they did when we all arrived!

From 3.00 pm onwards – departure.
Buses will start to pick up from the milestones from 3.00 pm.
In special circumstances if buses need to leave before 3.00 pm, let CND know in advance and they will try to organise shuttles to take people from the milestones to the coach park. However, as it will take time to roll up the scarf and get back to the milestones, it is best to plan for buses to pick up passengers between 3.00 pm – 4.00 pm

7. CLEARING UP AFTER THE DEMO
We are all responsible for being environmentally responsible during the demo, and for clearing up after ourselves and leaving the route and our milestones looking spotless when we leave.

CND is only responsible for the removal of the portaloos and water pallets. Anything else must be bagged up and removed from the demo site and route by US!

Please take enough bin bags (to sort and recycle rubbish), and get volunteers from each milestone to be responsible for making sure that milestone participants take back and/or dispose responsibly of everything we bring to the demo.

HOPE YOUR ORGANISING IS GOING WELL AND THAT WE ALL HAVE A FABULOUS TIME AS WE PROTEST AGAINST THE CONTINUING NUCLEAR MADNESS ON AUGUST 9TH.

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