Beslutsunderlag, 2015-03-14: Ecotopia biketour 2015

Bakgrund

Hey!

Ecotopia Biketour is a self-organized, international community that organizes a yearly biketour in different regions of Europe and has done so since 1990. During the tour we visit projects of an environmental or social nature and we practice forms of activism and sustainable living. We follow a vegan diet, practice consensus decision making and encourage skill-sharing. Ecotopia Biketour is for anyone interested in travelling by bike, community life, DIY, environmentalism and experiential learning. The region where Ecotopia Biketour 2015 is going to take place is Scandinavia and The Baltic States and could include Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Find out more at https://www.ecotopiabiketour.net/.

We are an always changing group and, in the sense of political backgrounds, quite diverse. Usually our group includes everything from anarchists to employees of green NGOs to people who just like cycling. Traditionally, the whole range of experience levels concerning the community lifestyle that we try to follow can be found among us, from experienced activists to people for whom this is the first contact with non-hierarchical community living. We also bring different sets of skills with us, from farmers to experienced bike mechanics to professional mathematicians. We try to share our skills with each other and with the projects that we visit.

On our way, we visit projects and groups, to make connections, to share skills, learn about local situations and struggles, and to help out with tasks where a big group of people can be handy. We are interested in projects where we can stay for a couple of days as well as for groups that want to meet up to make connections and exchange knowledge.

Usually we are between 15 and 40 people. We are carrying everything that we need on our bikes, including our pots and rocket stoves to cook with. We all sleep in tents which we carry with us. We have rotating daily tasks and cook for ourselves.

We are interested in visiting you on our way! Until now, our route is completely undecided, everything that we know is that we will possibly pass through your region some time between June and September 2015. We are currently in the process of contacting different projects and will make a decision on the route at the end of March based on the responses we get. We have a couple of questions for you:

- Are you generally interested in our visit, to tell us about your situation and maybe hear about our trip? - Are there any time periods in which we cannot visit you, or in which it would be particularly good to visit you? - Do you have space to host us for a couple of days? If no, do you know of any projects/wild-camping spots close by where we could stay? If yes (please answer as much as you know):

 - Is there enough space for us to camp, or to sleep somewhere under a

roof?

 - Is there access to drinking water?
 - Is it possible to make a fire to cook, or is there a kichen that we

can use and that would accommodate our big pots?

 - We try to be open for people with little money, so we generally

oppose the idea of paying for sleeping (apart from covering the costs for electricity and water that we use). Instead, we like to make use of the abilities of a big group in exchange for the hospitality of our hosts, so if you have any construction or harvesting work to do, or any other work, we are happy to help out. Do you have any work for us?

Looking forward to hearing from you, the Ecotopia Biketour Collective

Nästa mail:

Hey people from Kulturhuset!

We are expecting to stay in Jönköping for 3 full days. In our current calculation, we would arrive in the evening of the 14th of July and leave in the morning of the 18th. This might still be moved by a couple of days, but we will know the definite dates in one or two months.

In the big cities that we visit, we will make an info evening about our tour. Do you think something like this would make sense in Jönköping as well, or is it too small of a town to get people interested?

Are there any other interesting projects in Jönköping to visit apart from the Kulturhuset and the Cykelköket?

Greetings, Candid

Förklaring

Dessa två mail har vi fått och för den som inte orkar läsa så är det 15-40 pers från olika länder som cyklar runt i norra Europa och vill hjälpa oss med saker i utbyte mot logi. De vill sova hos oss 14-18 juli och arbeta dagarna därimellan.

Förslag till styrelsemötet 2015-03-14

• Att styrelsen utser en grupp eller en ansvarig som är kontaktperson för gruppen.
• Att styrelsen verkar för att det ska sammanfalla men en "arbetshelg" även att det inte är helgdagar.