Who are the AT Collective?

We are a collective of individuals who have many years experience in putting on large and small outdoor events. Many of us will be familiar to you from the Climate Camps, Stirling Eco-Village, Earth First and Animal Rights gatherings and so on. Our backgrounds are quite varied and we have a wide range of skills and experience to draw on. To all of us, the AT Collective is the right way to move forward if we are to sustain grassroots change. We are all committed to radical social change as a way of combating the various problems facing society today such as climate change, peak oil, authoritarian politics and animal abuse.

Why the AT Collective are needed?

There is no one simple answer to this. The need for a group prepared to specialise in training and helping put on events has long been recognised, especially givne the ad hoc nature by which many events are organised. There has been a huge waste of resources (time & equipment) and money due to the absence of a group that ensures proper looking after equipment once the event has taken place and also that resources are able to be reused and stored. We estimate that between 2003 and 2007 over £100K has been wasted due to no long term planning.

How will ATC achieve this?

Through

(a) Acquring and maintaining equipment which can be effectively re-used and cutting down our dependancy on having to hire equipment again and again at exhorbitant commerical rates which strips money from the social change movement.

(b) Setting up storage for equipment and a professional managment system which cuts down on wastage of materials and increases the use of what we already have.

(c) Effective networking of the large amount of equipment already in the movement which is currently being underused as it is mostly known about by word-of-mouth only.

(d) Providing skill-shares and training in all areas (eg. electrics, plumbing, compost toilets, greywater systems).

(e) Providing a security net for those who have equipment and are concerned about lending it out to grassroots groups by being a trusted middle-person with a legal structure, professional attitude and effective management systems with deposits.

Putting on large scale events is a high pressure situation that takes it toll on campaigners. One of the reasons ATC has come into existance is to ease the pressure on the people putting on events, thus protecting our personal welfare and releasing time for actual campaigning.

Our ethics

Our various background are in environmental, social change and sustainability campaigning, cooperative living, anti-fascism, anti-capitalism and animal rights. We see these groups as being key to who we are and who we want to support. We believe in mutual-aid and working together to create positive change in the world around us.

We reject out-of-hand fascist and authoritarian groups or those promoting environmental or animal abuse, and will have nothing to do with them.

While we accept we have to do business in the world as it stands, and this might require us to engage in commerical ventures such as some festivals as fundraisers, our purpose in existing is to support grassroots campaigns fighting for real change. We are all campaigners and not doing this for profit.

See also

> **Getting involved**

> **Our legal structure**