ATC Summer Report 2009

A long summer for the AT Collective this year, our second of existence.
We learned from many mistakes made last year, and made a whole
load of new ones, yet, on the whole a successful year, with a
lot of events covered.

The highlight was not an event as such, but the training weekend we put
on in May, where we had a load of eager Climate Campers up to learn how
to put on a site. The first day was all theory, while the second day was
quite practical, and hopefully gave everyone a grounding in just how
demanding being site crew could be. Also it made us realise just how much
knowledge is locked up in our heads.

We also developed our recipe book further, translated it into
French and it was used in various camps including No Borders in Calais
and the New Zealand Climate Camp, something which gave us a lot of
satisfaction. We crossed the channel to help with logistics in the run up
to the No Borders camp, providing training and practical advice.

We started with a wedding in June before heading onto the Peace News
Camp and then Big Green Gathering where we had some of our toilets and a
marquee. Which went up only to come down. The ramifications of that hit
our entire logistic plan for the summer - never plan! It only provides
something else to go wrong :)

Anyway, we recovered from that and flashed our wares at the Scottish,
Welsh and London Climate Camps, showed our face at Earth First and
finally at the '69ers party in Hereford. By which point we were all
trashed.

The big purchase of the year was a shipping container to go along with
the three lockups we now possess - it took us an entire week to sort
everything out, but at over 30 tons of equipment which would cost in the
region of £25K to replace, that's not bad. We've got most things anyone
would ever need now, though the marquees took quite a battering.
Financially we are keeping our head above water.

Other plans are developing so some new possible adventures next year,
including 'SolAIDarity' a new project in tat collection and distribution
as well as the next round of training from the 1st to the 9th of May.
Watch this space.