NEXT HFC EVENT: SOMETHING OF SIGNIFICANCE, Monday the 30th April 2012, from 7pm

The next event will be at the Sportspersons Pub, Huddersfield, on Monday 30 April, 2012, from 7pm.

It’s been far too long since we held an event so to get things going, we’re inviting everyone to a Something of Significance Social.

The Sportsman pub have kindly offered us a room for our exclusive use. The idea is that people bring along an object (can be anything at all, as long as it’s portable – and not too big) that they can talk about in terms of its significance to them from a feminist viewpoint. Just a couple of minutes for each person, not a presentation, depending on how many people want to do this on the night. It’s a way of getting to know each other a bit better by sharing things that matter to us.

Hope you can come!

NEXT HFC EVENT: READ MY LIPS, Monday, the 30th January 2012

tyrannosaurWell, we decided we wanted a book group. And a film society. Oh, and a song club too. That would also discuss zines, blogs, art, TV shows and other types of media and look at them from a feminist perspective. And so Read my Lips was born!

Next get-together:

Monday 30th January 2012

Tyrannosaur (18) Paddy Consadine

Join us to watch the film Tyrannosaur at the Lawrence Batley Theatre, then stop for a discussion of the film in the upper bar afterwards.

Click here for more info about the film and how to find the LBT.

Film starts at 7.30, tickets £6. Look out for us in the foyer from 7.15 or let us know you’re coming so we can look out for you!

* * *

Everyone’s welcome. Items for discussion can be anything – the only things we ask are that they are short enough for busy people to read/watch/otherwise digest, and that they are relatively available so people can get hold of them in advance of our get-togethers. They do not need to be ‘feminist’ in themselves, the idea is that we discuss things from a feminist point of view.

We hope to meet around monthly at appropriate venues in and around Huddersfield.

To make suggestions or to find out about our next get-together, drop an email to us at info@feministcollective.org.uk and we’ll let you know the venue and what we’re going to be talking about next.

EVENT: Human trafficking road show in Leeds (Saturday 14th January 2012, 2-5pm)

leeds anti-traffickingPlease see the poster advertising a road show in Leeds (January 2012) which my friend and I are helping out with. It seeks to raise awareness around the issues of human trafficking, and is being led by Stop The Traffik. (http://www.stopthetraffik.org/language.aspx)

Trafficking is a massive issue and this workshop seeks to get the issues ‘on the table’ so we can enter into useful dialogue about it.

I really hope you can make it, or spread the word. Alternatively, there is scope to put on your own road shows!

Thanks lots,

Fran McFarlane

ACTION: UK abortion rights – latest news

Below is a campaign update from Abortion Rights – to recieve updates, visit www.abortionrights.org.uk and sign up for emails.

Welcome to our latest round-up of campaign news and pro-choice issues on our radar – abortion counselling, public health reform, anti-choice protests, global news and a look at what Abortion Rights has been up to recently. Where next on counselling?

On the abortion counselling front, there has been little movement from the Department of Health since the Parliamentary debate. As many of you will know, amendments to the Health and Social Care bill tabled by Nadine Dorries, which sought to strip abortion providers of their role in counselling women about their pregnancy choices, were comprehensively defeated in Parliament in September. At that time the Department of Health committed to holding a consultation on abortion counselling to further examine whether any change was needed. Since then, there has been little in the way of public pronouncements on the issue from the DH. When Diane Abbott sought clarification from Public Health Minister Anne Milton, she was told they were still ‘developing proposals’.
However, it now seems that the Department of Health aims to complete their planning for the consultation but the end of 2011, suggesting a launch in the New Year. We have also learned that that Departmental officials are conducting site visits to inspect current counselling systems. As we would expect, abortion providers BPAS and Marie Stopes have received visits, but alarmingly, the officials are also visiting the pregnancy counselling services offered by anti-choice groups LIFE and Care Confidential.

It would seem that ministers are seriously considering allowing these organisations, which are ideologically opposed to abortion and which have a track record of providing misleading and judgemental advice to clients, to be formally involved in NHS abortion and pregnancy decision-making care. Although it now seems that future changes to counselling regulations will not strip abortion providers of their right to advise patients on their choices, which is a victory in itself, allowing anti-choice groups to join them in offering this service would be an extremely negative step, undermining the right to accurate, unbiased information, as well as creating many practical problems and in all likelihood, serious delays. Abortion Rights will keep you updated as we hear more about the consultation – this is an issue that hasn’t gone away and we need a robust response from pro-choice supporters and groups.

Why pro-choice supporters should care about Public Health reform

Another key campaign issue which pro-choice advocates will need to focus on in the coming months is the government’s planned reform of the public health system, which will potentially have far reaching consequences for the delivery of abortion services. The plans, laid out in the government’s Public Health White Paper, mean that responsibility for abortion and most sexual health services will be transferred from Primary Care Trusts to Local Authorities. Abortion Rights, alongside healthcare professionals and sexual health groups, is concerned that this move threatens to turn the commissioning of abortion and sexual health services into political issues at local level, potentially resulting in some areas of the country voting to severely limit abortion service provision on financial or ideological grounds. Allowing elected local counsellors or even representatives of anti-choice or religious groups to serve on planned ‘Health and Wellbeing Boards’ opens up clinical commissioning decisions to political and ideological influence. Have a look at our briefing on the issue to find out more.

The issue is starting to attract the attention of MPs and anti-choice advocates. Following Parliamentary Questions on the issue, anti-choice group SPUC have started a campaign to ensure that Local Authorities are not required by the Department of Health to commission abortion services at all. Abortion Rights is raising these concerns with colleagues in health, equalities and trade unions groups and is urging them to include the issue in their campaigning work on NHS reform. We will also be discussing the issue at a Parliamentary Group meeting this month and will update supporters on what we find out.

Continue Reading…

NEXT HFC EVENT: READ MY LIPS – reading (and more) group starts next week! (Tuesday 20th September 2011)

Microsoft Word - Book group.docWe’re starting a reading/film/art/culture discussion group! Like a reading group, there will be one managable ‘text’ each month, and we’ll get together informally in different locations to discuss it.

First up:

Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber (click here to read on Google books)
A book of short stories – please read the title tale, and any others are a bonus!
Tuesday 20th September, 7.30pm, Upstairs bar at the Lawrence Batley Theatre, Queen Street, Huddersfield.

If you arrive before 7.30 one of us will be hanging about in the foyer to show you where to go! The venue is wheelchair accessible and refreshments both hard and soft will be available in the bar 🙂 This is a free event. Bring your ideas, plus any suggestions for future texts.

All welcome – hope to see you there!

ACTION: Stand up for abortion rights!

my choiceWe mentioned this a while ago, but it bears repeating – if you haven’t contacted your MP yet, please do so using the link below. We CAN make a difference – please don’t let the government slip this one through without raising your voice.

The following is re-blogged from The F Word

Abortion Rights Action Alert

by Laura Woodhouse // 14 August 2011, 11:08

Abortion Rights have issued the following Action Alert encouraging us to contact our MPs to ensure women are not forced to seek counselling from anti-choice organisations prior to obtaining an abortion:

As many of you will know, plans are afoot to introduce new pre-abortion counselling requirements – opening the door for anti-choice organisations to receive public funds to advise women facing unplanned pregnancy. We need as many supporters as possible to contact their MP to urge them to vote against these proposals if they are debated in Parliament on 6th September.

We’ve set up an easy-to-use lobbying facility on our website. It only takes a minute to do – all you need is your postcode! It’s so important that we stop these anti-choice plans in their tracks. Just last week we saw further evidence of the appalling misinformation and bad practice used by some faith-based pregnancy counselling groups in their quest to deter women from having abortions.

What’s more, Nadine Dorries is already indicating that she wants to reopen the debate about the abortion time limit.We have to send a clear signal to politicians of all parties that our rights are not up for negotiation and we must make sure anti-choice MPs are not emboldened to continue chipping away at abortion access.

Please contact your MP via the AR website, or write a personal letter/email if you have the time/ability, as these are much more effective than templates.

NEXT HFC EVENT: SUNDAY SOCIAL, Sunday 21st August 2011, from 1pm

Microsoft Word - 5HFCSSposterAug11.docYou are very warmly invited to drop in and join us at our fifth SUNDAY SOCIAL
21st August, 1 – 4, downstairs at Coffee Evolution, 9 Church St, Huddersfield (click here for a map)

  • ‘Oh yeah!’ help us write a zine – bring your thoughts on sexism in our community
  • What’s happening to the UK abortion law?
  • Knit a blanket for the Poppy Project
  • Zine library for your perusal
  • PLUS our favourite books, and general hanging out

All welcome!

Hope to see you there… it’s kind of our first birthday!

EVENT: Aldermaston Women’s Peace Camp (8th – 11th July, 2011)

*Aldermaston Women’s Peace Camp * invite you to *Long Weekend Camp

When: Starting at noon on Friday 8th July and ending at noon on Monday 11 July.

Where: “Dingly Dell”, outside AWE Aldermaston, (opposite Young’s Industrial
Estate) near Tadley, Berkshire.

How to get there: see http://www.aldermaston.net/camp/visit

Welcoming, relaxed and inclusive skills sharing and discussion that will nurture and inform us in our daily resistance to violence in all its forms; weapons, cuts to services, violence against women, destruction of the earth’s resources.

An extended weekend of women only non-violent discussion and activity,
including:

-A large banner that we make over the weekend which maps our thoughts and
discussions and that all women can contribute to

Discussions
-Why women only?
-Women’s Non-violence
-Inclusive action – looking at the common hierarchies of arrest
and not arrest and the criminalisation of resistance and how we can find
ways to address these issues.

Practical workshops
– tripod -everyone climbs
– dancing (with extreme ironing)
– blockading

Both Saturday and Sunday will include practical workshops and discussions
Please contact us if your group would like to contribute to the weekend
programme, or to any particular workshop.

Please bring vegetarian/vegan food to share and cook.
If you don’t want to camp, please let us know, and we can provide
information about local accommodation.

This is a women only event.
Further information will be sent out after 12 June or contact
info@aldermaston.net

EVENT: Leeds SlutWalk (Saturday 23rd July 2011)

Saturday July 23rd – 1200 – 1500

Meet at Victoria Gardens in front of the art gallery, Leeds. You may have heard of the success of the recent Slutwalk marches that are happening across the world! We are organising a march in Leeds for the 23rd July and we really hope you can join us! Please invite all your friends to march and rally and confront the rape culture that we live in.

With the rape conviction rate stuck at a shocking 6% (of reported rapes), 1 in 10 survivors never engaging with the criminal justice system and rape survivor survices being cut left right and centre now is the time to stand together and protest against the shameful victim blaming. It’s amazing that the comments of one ridiculous police officer in Toronto (who told students that if women wanted to avoid being raped they should “avoid dressing like sluts) can spark off a global movement. Lets celebrate the birth of a response to survivor/victim blaming, stand together and say that rape is NEVER the fault of the victim/survivor. For those on FaceBook here’s a link to the FB group https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=140250409386868

HELP: Forced marriage campaign – ‘Because I am a Girl’

forced marriagePlan UK’s “Because I am a girl campaign”, by Josephine Tsui // 30 June 2011, 11:06

The charity Plan UK would like your support for the ‘Because I Am A Girl Campaign’ being launched asking the UK public and government to #TaketheVOW by signing an online petition to end early and forced marriage.

You might have already heard about the campaign (which went live yesterday) as The Guardian very recently published a story on it, “10 million child brides each year, charity warns: UK must help to cut level of forced marriages for girls under 18” (25/06/11).

Plan UK wants to inform you of the launch because the campaign will have more impact with the support of influential feminist bloggers like yourself. We hope that the issue of early and forced marriage is of interest to you and your followers and that you will back our campaign.

Lend your voice through a quick and simple action of ‘taking the vow’ today, in support of raising the voices of the millions of girls married young, against their will in the developing world.

One girl is married off every three-and-a-half seconds worldwide. We think forcing girls to marry young is wrong. Please help put a stop to this.

Help us spread the word about our #TaketheVOW action on Twitter – we’re hoping you take your vow before millions of girls in the developing world are forced to take theirs.

** Take your vow at http://www.plan-uk.org/what-we-do/campaigns/because-i-am-a-girl/vow
** Please use our Twibbon, Facebook and blog badges to show your support!
** Use #takethevow to tell friends about the vow and urge them to take theirs!