Report of meeting – 9 March 2011
On Wed 9/3 there was another small but productive meeting of the youth sub-group of BADACA. There was some discussion around how the cuts will affect youth services but the meeting was mainly dedicated to organising action. It was decided that for the next month the main focus of the group would be leafletting to build awareness for March 26th demo and the group’s next meeting. A leaflet was designed (attached). Leafletting sessions were planned around the town centre/waterfront, meeting at the Hippodrome at 7pm, Sat 12/3 and at the City of Bristol College (central campus), meeting outside at 8.30am on Tues 15/3. Leafletting of both universities will also be planned. To volunteer to help or for more info on activities contact Tom on 07986951527 or email tomobaldwin@gmail.com
The next meeting will be at 7pm, Thursday 31st March in the Bristol County Sports Club, 40 Colston St, BS1 5AE.
Report of meeting – 9 February 2011
The youth sub-group met for the first time on 9/2. The meeting focussed on discussing and organising action. We were addressed by Mike Wheeler from PCS young members network, Dan Pover a young activist from Unite and Jack Jeffery from Youth Fight for Jobs who spoke about how the cuts were affecting young people and what their organisations were doing to fight back against them. Unemployment amongst 16-24 year olds stands at almost 1 million and is more than double the overall unemployment rate. Benefits already pay less to the young and this will be extended, for example you will soon have to be 35 before you can claim the full rate of housing benefit! Cuts will make this situation much worse, young people are often in much less secure employment and having less length of service are often the first jobs to go. The plans to withdraw full employment rights until 2 years of service will also make this worse. When similar plans were introduced in France a few years ago the government was forced to retreat by a mass movement. Cuts also affect specific youth services such as Connexions which provides employment advice to young people but will lose a third of its staff in the region. On top of this are the attacks on education, particularly the scrapping of EMA and tripling of university tuition fees, the fight back against these isn’t over yet.
We then discussed building for the 19th Feb demonstration and planned leafletting at the City of Bristol College and Connexions. Meet at the college 8.30am on Thursday 17th Feb. We also made plans to contact youth organisations in the city about the demo and other upcoming events. We decided to get a link added to the BADACA website to give people contact details for their councillors so they could add to the pressure to vote against all the cuts on 22nd Feb. A date of Thurs 3rd March was set provisionally for the next meeting of the group.