MINUTES OF ARC MEETING SUNDAY 13TH JANUARY 2002

If you have any questions on the minutes please contact james@arcnews.co.uk.

22 groups or areas of the country, from the South West to the South East, Midlands, and North of England, were represented at the meeting, held at Veggies’ Sumac Centre in Nottingham.

The meeting started with everyone at the meeting introducing themselves.

  1. The first item on the agenda was a up date on the Covance, Newchurch and SHAC campaigns
    a) Covance mentioned that they are now working with two new campaigning groups, one in Germany and another in Poland, who are protesting at their own Covance labs.
    b) The Newchurch campaign thanked those who had attended the previous day’s national demo in Lichfield. The campaign believe they are near to closing Newchurch down, with a big push needed from around the country.
    c) A SHAC representative updated the meeting on the situation with Stephens and mentioned the next national demo will be back at the lab. (nb actually at Huntingdon Town Centre on 16th February).

2) Next on the agenda Ronny from Animal Aid gave a talk on AA’s veggie month and how people at the meeting can help, including their new school kids questionnaire.

3) Next the full meeting had a small discussion on RSPCA’s so called ‘Freedom Foods’ and how the Cambridge group knew where one of the FF’s farms were in Norfolk, and how they intended to liase with the Norfolk group about having a demonstration at the farm. People mentioned that campaigners should keep an eye open for farms in their area advertising that they are a FF farm.

4) Next Elaine from Animal Aid told people the arrangements for their demonstration at the Grand National, and how they want to make it the biggest demo seen at Aintree. They are putting on transport from around the country and are looking for drivers to drive mini buses. Contact elaine@animalaid.co.uk if you can help.

5) Neil then spoke about a new project he is putting together on the Internet, a version of the animal free shopper. He mentioned that he needs volunteers to input the information. A draft is at www.realfood.org.uk

6) Next the Newchurch campaign mentioned that this year's Jill Phipps memorial day will be at the Newchurch farm, at the behest of the family. As well there will be a memorial at Coventry Airport from 11am to 1pm on Friday 1st February. There will also be a benefit gig on 15th February (See Animal Rights Calendar for details)

7) Alex Bourke next mentioned that he needs volunteers to send me information about places around the country were you can get veggie food for his new UK veggie guide. He then plugged the new edition of veggie London that will be out very soon.

8) Elaine from Animal Aid then told the meeting that Bird Fayers are illegal and how she needs people around the country to help stop bird fayres in their area.

9) Next the Cambridge group asked if people thought it would be a good idea to have a big demo at the proposed site of a new primate lab on Saturday 26th January. The meeting agreed and a demo will take place from 12 noon on that day, a huge attendance is needed.

10) We then spoke about whether people wanted an ARC weekend gathering, and everyone agreed. A site for the gathering is being sort. Alex Bourke spoke about his experience at the Animal Rights gathering in the US. Their gathering takes place in a hotel with people sharing rooms and is sponsored by PETA. He would like to see us having an equivalent gathering in the UK next year. We are looking for somewhere to hold an ARC gathering in the summer. However this year we would like to hold it somewhere where people can sleep in a bed or camp. Eg a Hotel with camping facilities or a hostel. If you know of somewhere or have other ideas please email james@arcnews.co.uk


11) A rep from POWA spoke about the campaign to stop hunting and how they blamed Tony Blair and it was likely that they will aim their campaign against him.

12) After a break, we started with ‘any other business’.

Ronny mentioned that fish are given a raw deal and she would like people to think about the subject for the next meeting.

Someone mentioned the up coming TV programme Jobs from Hell.

Ronny and Elaine mentioned that people were needed to run a national campaign to stop pigeon culls.

The rep from POWA gave a small speech about the new DEFRA welfare Bill which was being set up to tighten the 1911 Protection of Animals Act and how DEFRA were looking for ideas of what the animal welfare movement wanted.

13) The chair asked the meeting to push future ARC meetings with any activists they see. Patrick gave out the Waterloo Cup - dates from the Animal Rights Calendar.

14) We finished the meeting with two discussions.

  1. Alex spoke about the Vegan Society and how he sees a bright future for the organisation. A small discussion about the society took place.
  2. We spoke about whether people agreed that there is too much emphasis on vivisection in the movement and not enough on the meat trade. Some people did agree that there is not enough campaigning against the meat trade but very few agreed that it should be a vivisection or meat trade and vivisection is not stopping campaigns against meat eating. It was mentioned that there are plenty of people campaigning to persuade people to go veggie but it is done in a different way to in your face vivisection campaigns.

15) Someone put on the agenda "should pets be fed on meat by A/R folk" but after a very short discussion it was agreed that this was not the meeting to speak about this.

16) The meeting then finished with everyone feeling positive and looking forward to the next meeting.


If you were at the meeting and feel I missed something from the minutes or feel I misrepresented a subject please email james@arcnews.co.uk

The next meeting is Sunday 31st March again at Veggies’ Sumac Centre in Nottingham, arriving from noon for a prompt 1pm start.


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