Amelia’s Magazine | Mint (Velvet) condition and aiming high

Who:  Trapese Popular Education Collective
When:  27th March 2010  to 3rd April 2010
Where:  Ragman’s Lane Farm, try website like this Forest of Dean, more about near Gloucester
Cost:  Deposit of £50 to secure a place will be requested with full amount payable before the start of the course.
Cost of course ranges from £175 – £350, depending on income.
Applications must be received by 12 noon Saturday February 27th 2010 at the latest.

reclaimpower

Trapese is a not-for-profit UK-based popular education collective.  Through workshops, film nights and training they aim to enable people of all ages to explore social and climate issues and develop practical alternatives and solutions. 

Popular education is based on values such as a commitment to transformation and freedom.  This means that rather than learning about the world and climate/social issues, participants empower themselves to actually transform their environment.  Unlike in traditional education, popular ‘history’ focuses on the history of the majority of the world (worker’s rights, peasant movements), and not uniquely on the kings and queens and military leaders whose names we had drummed into our heads in Year 9.

Popular education also aims to blur the relationship between teachers and students, instead creating an equal level at which everyone is learning from and teaching each other.  Social change is encouraged through developing critical awareness about the world and promoting social and environmental justice over economic gain, but debate is stimulated by encouraging free-thinking rather than dictating facts.

Past Trapese workshop topics have included: migration; food (history of industrial agriculture and understanding food crisis); climate justice; consensus decision making and non-hierarchical organising; reclaiming space (setting up a social centre and keeping it running); DIY, and understanding the economy (exploring the meaning of capitalism, recession and realistic alternatives).

TOOLS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE COURSE
diytrapesecollective

Providing an educational answer to the need for more grassroots social/ climate justice activity, Trapese have organised a weeklong course starting in March.  The course will aim to answer the questions: how we can move towards a more effective climate justice movement, how can we build more resilient communities and how can we achieve system change instead of climate change?

The course will provide training in grassroots organising, including tools for direct democracy, facilitation, using consensus, popular education techniques and how to plan, communicate and implement effective campaigns. It will explore how these tools can be used to set up community initiatives and ecological and social projects. 

No previous knowledge is necessary, but organisers ask that participants be committed to working co-operatively and respecting diversity.  Time to share ideas, work on practical technology projects around the farm, discuss current political debates, watch films and enjoy food together are also planned as part of the week.

The course draws on the ‘Do It Yourself Handbook’  and Trapese’s work since 2004, including their events at KlimaForum in Copenhagen.

Facilitators will include  Paul Chatterton, (MA Activism and Social Change, Leeds) Kim Bryan, (Press Officer, Centre for Alternative Technology) Alice Cutler, (Freelance teacher/ activist, Bristol).

 To register interest or ask any questions email trapese@riseup.net.
Who:  Trapese Popular Education Collective
When:  27th March 2010  to 3rd April 2010
Where:  viagra order +Forest+of+Dean, approved +near+Gloucester.&ie=UTF8&hq=Ragmans+Lane+Farm, decease +Forest+of+Dean,+near+Gloucester.&hnear=Ragmans+Lane+Farm,+Bishopwood,+Lydbrook,+GL17+9PA,+UK&ll=51.854442,-2.421799&spn=0.178128,0.438766&z=11″>Ragman’s Lane Farm, Forest of Dean, near Gloucester.
Applications must be received by 12 noon Saturday February 27th 2010 at the latest.
Cost:  Deposit of £50 to secure a place will be requested with full amount payable before the start of the course.
Cost of course ranges from £175 – £350, depending on income.

——————————————————————–

Trapese is a not-for-profit UK-based popular education collective.  Through workshops, film nights and training they aim to enable people of all ages to explore social and climate issues and develop practical alternatives and solutions. 

Popular education is based on values such as a commitment to transformation and freedom.  This means that rather than learning about the world and climate/social issues, participants empower themselves to actually transform their environment.  Unlike in traditional education, popular ‘history’ focuses on the history of the majority of the world (worker’s rights, peasant movements), and not uniquely on the kings and queens and military leaders whose names we had drummed into our heads in Year 9.

reclaimpower

Popular education also aims to blur the relationship between teachers and students, instead creating an equal level at which everyone is learning from and teaching each other.  Social change is encouraged through developing critical awareness about the world and promoting social and environmental justice over economic gain, but debate is stimulated by encouraging free-thinking rather than dictating facts.

Past Trapese workshop topics have included: migration; food (history of industrial agriculture and understanding food crisis); climate justice; consensus decision making and non-hierarchical organising; reclaiming space (setting up a social centre and keeping it running); DIY, and understanding the economy (exploring the meaning of capitalism, recession and realistic alternatives).

TOOLS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE COURSE
diytrapesecollective

Providing an educational answer to the need for more grassroots social/ climate justice activity, Trapese have organised a weeklong course starting in March.  The course will aim to answer the questions: how we can move towards a more effective climate justice movement, how can we build more resilient communities and how can we achieve system change instead of climate change?

The course will provide training in grassroots organising, including tools for direct democracy, facilitation, using consensus, popular education techniques and how to plan, communicate and implement effective campaigns. It will explore how these tools can be used to set up community initiatives and ecological and social projects. 

No previous knowledge is necessary, but organisers ask that participants be committed to working co-operatively and respecting diversity.  Time to share ideas, work on practical technology projects around the farm, discuss current political debates, watch films and enjoy food together are also planned as part of the week.

The course draws on the ‘Do It Yourself Handbook’  and Trapese’s work since 2004, including their events at KlimaForum in Copenhagen.

Facilitators will include  Paul Chatterton, (MA Activism and Social Change, Leeds) Kim Bryan, (Press Officer, Centre for Alternative Technology) Alice Cutler, (Freelance teacher/ activist, Bristol).

 To register interest or ask any questions email trapese@riseup.net.
For decades fashion has told us what women want and need in their lives to satisfy their latest ‘fix’. Brands spend millions on research to discover what us complicated and complex creatures truly want to fulfil our desire for the new. Many brands simply don’t get it right and there are those who have triumphed, help but while we are stuck in this hole of economic depression it seems unlikely that there could be an unknown brand that could confidently tempt us to part with our hard earned cash – or could there be?

106300Images throughout courtesy of Mint Velvet

Mint Velvet has filled us with this confidence. Launched only three short months ago in October of last year, site they have managed to start building a brand which seems to fit with the desires of modern women. Thinking back only 3 months ago it seems crazy that a brand could not only have a successful launch, price but have built up a solid following already. With new boutique style stores opening at a considerable rate, as well as creeping up on us in our favourite department stores it would look as if Mint Velvet is here to stay.

106301With 15 years of knowledge behind them, the minds behind Mint Velvet have had much experience within fashion and the high street. Liz Houghton, Lisa Agar-Rea and Jane Rawlings took this experience and focused on what they felt was needed within their lives: “Inspiring women to express their inner confidence in fabulously wearable pieces.” With all the collections being designed and manufactured in house in the UK, Mint Velvet are offering beautiful pieces designed for women by women – a great collaboration indeed.

106306The new collection for S/S 2010 brings a fresh, invigorating start to the year. As you flick through the pieces your senses are delighted with a scrumptious mix of soft palettes and textures, glamorous feminine design but with a modern woman’s confidence and attitude. Attention to detail, quality of fabrics, and shape appear to be the main focus. For me the love affair with this collection is the way each individual piece can become part of a layer of an outfit. A new vibrancy is brought to your wardrobe, and yet works elegantly next to every other garment in the collection itself, making you feel like a kid in a sweet shop again, mixing and matching all your favourite goodies.

119417Prices – from a student’s prospective – may seem slightly more than usual, but you get what you pay for: quality eco-conscious fashion. In a time when we are saturated with mass produced, too good to be true fashion, a new sobriety when it comes to buying our clothing is exactly what we need. If not only for the fact that we are fed up with our clothing wasting away after a week, also because we are morally and ethically more aware knowing that quality triumphs over cost and Mint Velvet is there to offer us just this. If natural beauty which oozes effortlessness and quality is your priority this spring then Mint Velvet is a step in the right direction… Most definitely worth checking out on your next shopping trip, you’re guaranteed to be in for a treat!

Categories ,Jane Rawlings, ,Lisa Agar-Rea, ,Liz Houghton, ,Mint Velvet, ,Stephanie Ellis

Similar Posts: