Hi Comrades, 
In the 6 months since our last blog post, things have been very busy here at GAS. Thanks for all your support and patience at the moment. Since the opening party in June, we now have a rolling values statement, a new booking process, and have made lots of improvements to our new space, which are still ongoing. We also have an accessibility checklist that is constantly being improved and updated! We’re a new group of volunteers making up the current GAS committee, hopefully the blog posts will be more consistent to keep everyone updated. And most importantly, after the big move to our new cosy location in Govanhill, we’ve had over 200 events hosted in the space and over 2000 people through the door since we opened! 

• Community meal
• New GAS groups
• Funding update
• How to get involved

Funding update
In December, GAS reached out to the community to help cover our outgoing rent and utility costs; this was a big success and another step towards financial freedom from institutions and funding bodies for this space. If you’re interested in making a monthly donation, you can do that here. 
In the last few weeks, we’ve also come into some project specific funding. Big thank you to the kind students at Hollybrook Academy (on our street) who made an art project about GAS community meals and we were awarded £3000 in their school philanthropy competition.


We will be donating a percentage of this award to our friends at LGBT Unity, the remaining funds will go to our community meal team to cover bulk supplies, equipment and ingredients.  Thank you so much to all the pupils at Hollybrook Academy for all your kind words about GAS, it means the world! 


GAS Groups
Do you want to book GAS? We are keen to support grassroots projects this winter; did we mention the central heating sort of works?
Our regular groups include:


This Is Rigged, weekly Mondays
This Is Rigged returns to GAS on Monday the 27th of January for a special Burns Night Supper. If you haven’t been to a soup night for a while then come along and bring some friends too! Our first demand, for the Scottish government to oppose all new oil and gas projects, has been met. As we begin phase two of our campaign, there could be no better time to come along and get involved.
Date: Weekly Mondays (from January 27th)
Time: 6pm
More info: Just turn up!

Language Exchange, weekly Wednesday 
English Speakers Needed! Drop in to volunteer 
Language exchange is back! We are so happy to be hosting our language exchange on a weekly basis again. Every Wednesday, a casual evening of snacks and socialising is held where English can be practiced and languages from the globe across shared over snacks and games. There is always room for more volunteers at these sessions, and to get involved, simply turn up on the day as it suits you! Follow our Linktree to join the Whatsapp group.

Date: Weekly Wednesdays
Time: 6 - 8.30pm
More info: Linktree (English speaker/organiser Whatsapp and General participant Whatsapp)

GAS Community Meal, weekly Thursdays
An autonomously run group of volunteers have built momentum for our weekly GAS community meals. They are a warm, social, pay what you can (no one turned away for lack of funds)evening happening every week on Thursdays (takeaway only on the 4th Thursday of the month). All meals are fully vegan and halal, and aim to be gluten free, but to guarantee this is a work in progress. Any further dietary restrictions or takeaway requests can be made on this form. While there is no obligation to pay for these meals, any donations to help fund future meals can be made via a bank transfer QR code, or in cash on the evening. 
The volunteers WhatsApp chat is at 100 people and counting, and you can join it here. If you are interested in anything going on here at GAS, or simply just want to see what the space is like, the community meal is the best way to do that and meet some friendly faces. Our kitchen crew are offering takeaway options for all meals in compostable containers.

Date: Weekly Thursdays (fourth Thursday of the month takeaway only)
Time: 6.30pm
More info: Turn up, booking system in progress 


Movement in Thyme, fortnightly Sunday PM
Movement in Thyme offers free and pay-what-you-can herbal medicine workshops including their Solidarity Medicine Making sessions on the 2nd and 4th Sunday of the month. Remedies made during the workshop are available at Community Apothecaries in GAS and Milk as well as sent to partner organisations like Refuweegee and Mobile Herbal Clinic Calais. All year round, herbs can provide deep nourishment and support, but they are especially important in the winter months to support immune function and soothe symptoms of colds, flus, fevers and more. Please yourself to the remedies available on the front of the cabinet in the main event space, any donation you can give is welcome but they just want to get herbs to the community, join the Sunday sessions to get stuck in, and keep your eyes out for announcements about the new GAS GARDEN coming soon! 🌿 Follow @movement_in_thyme to stay updated.


Unity Sisters, bi-monthly
Unity Sisters coordinated by our GAS committee member Virginie, it’s a grassroots group of refugee and asylum-seeking women providing each other with support, community, and peer advocacy. They host a range of community building activities in GAS, Unity Sisters use the GAS kitchen to bake together in the morning. Get in touch with us if you or anyone you know would like to join.
​

LGBTQ Sober Socials, fortnightly (dates tbc)
LGBTQ sober socials offer fun, exploratory creative writing sessions at GAS fortnightly on Tuesdays. We will update our calendar (on our website) once 2025 dates are confirmed.

Industrial Workers of the World, monthly Sundays
Monthly meetings for the members of the IWW’s Glasgow branch, who very kindly make donations in support of the running of the space.


Glasgow Prisoner Solidarity, fortnightly Thursdays
​
Glasgow Prisoner Solidarity is a small group of people working to connect with people inside prison in Scotland and beyond, and raise awareness outside about prison expansion and abolitionist principles. 
We have a pen pal group, where you can be matched with someone inside and write letters together, open to all. These meetings run on the second Thursday of the month at GAS (next date: 13th February), from 5.30-7pm, with all materials provided.
We also have collective meetings at GAS or online on the 4th Thursday of the month, where we work on our other activities - email us at [email protected] if you want to come along to one of these or find out more. We are currently putting together our first inside-outside newsletter and supporting other groups with campaigns. 
You can also follow us on Instagram @glasgowprisonersolidarity for occasional updates.


What’s Coming Up at GAS this month?
You can check our calendar here. 
GAS volunteers are in the process of streamlining the booking process for one-off events, in the hopes that many intersecting communities will get to use the space. We are excited to welcome a grassroots soup kitchen who will be using our kitchen to provide weekly hot meals to a homeless shelter in the west end of Glasgow. 



How you can help!
-  Paying the rent at GAS is entirely funded by its users and patrons, and small amounts go a long way. If you’d like to donate, you can head to our GoCardless page here.
-  If you don’t want to donate, you can help us by simply sharing posts or coming to any of our events throughout the week!
Thank you for your continued support and kindness this year! 

Solidarity, GAS

 Instagram - Linktree

First Up: Admin Bits

​Mailing Lists
We are creating a new newsletter mailing list, which can be signed up to here: https://forms.gle/T8PfqFGEPWdgGCo89 

Regular Donations 
Our Patreon is no longer active! 
You can now sign up for regular donations via GoCardless.

GAS would not be able to host groups without your help. The space is free to use and we want to keep it that way, so if you have money to give, however little, please donate and help keep the space alive and well!

Our outgoings (rent, utilities, sundries) come to just over £1200 per month. We generate our funds through events, support from independent funding bodies, donations from groups that use the space and donations from individuals like you.

We suggest donating roughly an hours wage.
 
One-Off Booking System 
We’ve now opened our One-Off Booking System. If you’d like to book the space or know anyone who does, please forward them this form. 

GAS Groups 
We’ve already had a few groups use the space during renovations including Language Exchange, This Is Rigged, Climate Camp Scotland, IWW and Refugee Week. It has felt great to see GAS thriving and full of people again in its new home! 

GAS Bookfair first planning meetingThursday, February 6, 2020 at 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Glasgow Autonomous Space
53 Kilbirnie Street, G5 8JD Glasgow, United Kingdom
​
Come along to find out more about the last GAS bookfair and create this years together. This is the first meeting so we will be focussing on getting to know each other, what skills and interests we have, and developing a plan to move forward. It will be an interactive meeting rather than a sit around in a big circle one!

We can cover bus fares
If childcare is an issue please let us know and we will support you to join us.

Going from strength to strength, the GAS printmaking collective meet regularly on a Tuesday evening. Once you get to know them there is also opportunity to drop in at other times. For more info check out their facebook group at ​https://www.facebook.com/GAS-Print-Collective-309391203050034/

GAS will be hosting a Book Fair in March, and we are excited to get the Ball rolling already with some great stalls already lined up. If you are interested in running a stall please contact us on [email protected].

The dream is for the bookfair to reflect the ethos of GAS, non-hierarchical organising and the diversity of the people and organisations who use GAS, but also about things unique to Glasgow. 

If anyone is interesting in joining in with an organising group we would welcome that, and suggestions for stalls, speakers, meetings and workshops would be great.  So far we have suggested workshops from Herbal Unity ( navigating the NHS workshop for people caught up in the immigration system), a printing workshop, and badge making. We want to get away from some of the habitual things you get at Anarchist/Radical type bookfairs that have made them not very diverse in the past. 

Given recent events at these bookfairs we want to stress here at GAS that we don't support transphobia and are explicitly in support of reform to the gender recognition act and of people's right to self identify their gender.

We are looking for volunteers for the supervising a creche, the social in the evening and the food at the event.

​Facebook event can be found here at glasgow autonomous book fair

​Action, Friends, Fun, Childcare, Talks, Food, Stalls, Loads Of Books!, So Many Books!, Screenings, Discussions, Workshops, Tea Coffee Cafe, Zines, Rattle Library.

PROGRAM
​
Saturday 22nd

10am Coffee and tea served, 
10.30 Tour of GAS and welcome
This first session will be a chance ot introduce ourselves, get to know one another and have a think about what we want to achieve over the weekend.
11am. This session will be based on small groups exploring the subjects of Fundraising, Sustaining energy, The physical Space, and how we organize. Each group will have a chance to tackle all the topics.
12.00. Tea break 
12.15. Working groups - based on previous discussion, move into working groups based on what you are interested in contributing too. If you are itching to do something practical at this point the there will also be a chance to spend some time helping the Rattle Library to categorise their zines. 
1.00. Vegan Lunch – Rattle Library, Printmakers workshop and Garden will be open to explore
2.00. Group defined session- what do we want to discuss? Perhapss working with the idea of designing the ‘perfect’ social centre. Potential topics of discussion:
– Setting up social centres
– Making social centres last
– Making autonomous spaces in unusual places
as well as:
– Safer spaces
– Conflict resolution and solving general disputes
– Getting started / Problems and pitfalls when starting a social centre
– Making Social Centres in unusual places
– Building networks of support / Developing connections between Social Centres
– Issues around maintaining a Social Centre (visioning, decision making)
– Social centres and the neighbourhood / engagement or colonization?
3.30. Round up, how are people feeling, learning from the day. 4.00. Finish day activity

7.00 till 1am 
Dinner, Music and social 
GAS's Autumn Fundraiser!
Featuring:
By donation Barbershop with Barber GABRIEL LGBTQI+ Trans friendly Barber. Get a fresh cut! Printmaking collective out in force / Banner making / Rattle Library Open
TASTY FOODZ, mocktails cocktails
Performances and DJS
(https://www.facebook.com/events/176314246493910/)

sunday 23rd 
10.30. Coffee for all 
11.00. Inhaler making with Herbal Unity. The Herbal Unity Collective was set up in response to restricted access to healthcare for people without papers. They run a free clinic for people in the asylum process and their allies. The collective is made up of qualified & lay herbalists, grass roots campaigners and people in the asylum process. Our politics are aligned with the Unity Centre, and No Borders. In this session we will be helping to restock supplies of remedies which the collective hand out during clinics.
12.00. Reflections on yesterday, making a plan for going forward as a network. Working on the Social centres Network zine 
1:00pm Lunch
2.00pm One group will work on Clearing waste ground for woodland fringe extension to the herb garden or herb processing if heavy rain
another will continue work on the social centre Network Zine
3.00 Finish and Thankyous


Accommodation wise, there are some spaces at shared houses nearby GAS who are up for hosting, let us know if you can host!

GAS is partly wheelchair accessible and the majority of activities will take place downstairs. If you would like to discuss this with someone please email [email protected]

There is GAS a agreement which will be upheld during the event and which attendees you are asked to agree on before entering the space.

Please let us know if you would like to attend so that we can plan lunch numbers, by emailing [email protected] Please let us know if you would like childcare or if there is anything else we can do to support your attendance.

WE ARE LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEERS to cook, tidy, support, be a friendly face. let us know if you want to get involved.

Donations of £10 for the weekend are gratefully received for food and drinks, but everyone is welcome regardless of money!