REGISTER by MONDAY MAY 31 with CKC to check out the ALLIED MEDIA CONFERENCE JUNE 17/18-20

LISTEN UP PEOPLE!

It's time to get yourself hyped for the The Critical Knowledge Collective's 2^nd annual fieldtrip/training to the AMC! Its coming up fast so get it booked off work and clear in your calendar!

Thursday June 17- Sunday June 20, 2010

*** if you can't make it for that whole time- don't worry, but get in touch!

*** if you plan to travel with CKC we need your confirmation of registration by Monday May 31 so that we can make all the right arrangements for vehicle rentals and registration - email ckc@uoguelph.ca with AMC in the subject line

AMC - Say what? The Allied Media Conference is organized by and for people who are interested in using participatory media as a strategy for social justice organizing. By media we're talking zines to video-blogging to breakdancing, to communicating solidarity and creating justice, drawing strength from our converging movements to face the challenges and opportunities of our current moment. You can see the program from last year HERE - check out conference themes for this year HERE or read more about the mission statement--> We are ready to create, connect and transform.

SO ... Whats the plan ckc? Last year CKC supported a group of around 9 people to go and we’re hoping to do it again- with more of us. You book the time and confirm with us, and we'll take care of organizing registration and transportation. We can for sure cover the cost of vehicles to get us all there. What we need from you --> send us an email by Monday May 31 to ckc@uoguelph.ca with AMC in the subject line. We will follow up with info on how we can subsidize the costs for everyone! Remember that you NEED YOUR PASSPORT TO CROSS THAT DANG BORDER! (even if you've already talked with us- please send the email!)

$$$$? CKC has funds to help us all get there. Registration for the AMC is on a sliding scale from $30-$100 based on what you can afford. We want to make this as accessible as possible so we will be helping to subsidize transportation for sure, as well as registration costs based on need. If you can afford the registration fee, that's great. If not, don't worry - let us know we'll try to cover it! If you are a U of G student, let us know when you email us to register and we can include that in a group "PDR request" from the CSA (for more info on how that works or to help out with that, send us an email!)

Accomodations The crash space is $15 for the whole conference and is usually in a church or gym. The floor is hard so we suggest some sort of padding on the floor. There are also no showers in the space, but we will have a hookup during the conference for those who want access to one! There are also spaces in the campus residences for a cost of approx $45/night. If you are in need of this type of accomodations, CKC is happy to support affordability of that - please get in touch with us as soon as possible so we can prioritize it in our budget!

Food Its expensive to eat out and Detroit isn't an exception. Don't get me wrong, theres lots of delicious and semi-affordable places to eat, and the conference provides your standard muffin/sugar/bagel breakfast during the weekend. But we're gonna be packing some big coolers. If you want to bring your own food or help us make some snacks to share, there will definitely be the opportunity to cut down on costs that way.

Kids The AMC this year has a full-on kids track- that means free childcare is provided! We are nurturing the next generation of creative, critically-thinking media makers. These sessions empower kids to assert their voices and imaginations through media as a form of protest, action and self-expression. There will be sessions for preteens (ages 8-12) and kids (ages 4-7), as well as all ages. All sessions should create a safe space for children to work and learn together. The kids track will be collaborating with Allied Media Childcare, which will be an open, safe space where any young person can hang out. Childcare will be supervised by caregivers with experience caring for infants (ages 6 months and up). Childcare volunteers will also support parents to bring their children with them to non kids-track sessions and all sessions will be rated for kid friendlieness.

***If there are any concerns or requests regarding accessibilty (either the trip to detroit or during the conference), please contact us!

MORE ON WHATS GOING DOWN THIS YEAR AT THE AMC

This year its featuring over 100 hands-on workshops, panel discussions, film screenings, art and music events including:

• Media Strategies to Expand Access for Disabled People
• TOUR: Eco-Media in Motion: Messages from Detroit
• How To Make Radical Comics ... and Why?
• What's Your Internet Story: Learning Lab
• Tell Stories With Pictures: Collaborative Mural Design
• CAUCUS: Trans & Queer Youth Media
• Indymedia Innovations: Tools, Technology, and Tips for Protest Coverage
• Community Radio Against Poverty and Prison Expansion
• Common Ground: How Community Media & Community Businesses Can Work Together to Foster Transformative Public Discourse
• Your Phone is Your Microphone
• Community Accountability In Real Life
• RED DUST: A film about the unexamined side of China's economic development
• The Way We Move: Embodying Resistance Dance Workshop
• Re-Thinking Communication / Repensando La Comunicacíon
• Building an Intergenerational Filmmaking Community
• Octavia Butler Strategy Symposium
• Open Source Internet Radio with Flujos-Vivos Live CD
• Mud Stencils for Tactical Media Campaigns
• The Next Generation of a Queer/Trans Youth Narrative

For more info go to the website of the Allied Media Conference: http://www.alliedmediaconference.org/

MARK YOUR CALENDARS JUNE 25-27

From g20.torontomoblize.org ....

"The so called ‘leaders’ and bankers of the twenty richest countries are meeting in Huntsville and Toronto on 25-27 June 2010 at the G8 and G20 Summits. They are meeting to make decisions that will result in more exploitation of people and the environment. They want to ensure that the systems that increase colonization, wars and displacement are maintained. In direct resistance, we are coming together to create a just world that puts people before corporate and elite profit.

The Toronto Community Mobilization Network is collaborating for change in Toronto and in the world. Join the process; everyone is a part of this work.

The network is a collection of Toronto-based organizers and allies, that will use the fleeting moment of the G8/G20 meetings in Toronto in June 2010 in Ontario to come together and share the work that we do every other day of the year. We will build the momentum for a movement for Indigenous Sovereignty and Self-Determination, Environmental and Climate Justice, Migrant Justice and an End to War and Occupation, Income Equity and Community Control over Resources, Gender Justice and Queer and disAbility rights.

With power and vision, people of colour, indigenous peoples, women, the poor, the working class, queer and trans people and disabled people will create and lead alternatives; will decide for themselves; will transcend."

Join up with CKC to go to the AMC

The Allied Media Conference cultivates strategies for a more just and creative world. We come together to share tools and tactics for transforming our communities through media-based organizing. Over 100 workshops, panel discussions, film screenings, art tours, and music events June 18-20, 2010!

Thats why for the second year in a row, CKC is organizing a contingent from Guelph to go check it out and bring back the firey inspiration, and media justice skills that the AMC brings out! This year, theres even even a whole track just for little-ins so participants can bring the kids too! Last year we went for free and now we're checkin out the budget to see how much we can subsidize for you, so get in touch with us, send an email if you wanna come! ckc@uoguelph.ca

Vision of the Allied Media Conference

Participatory Media to Transform Our Selves and Our World
The Allied Media Conference advances our visions for a just and creative world. It is a laboratory for media-based solutions to the matrix of life-threatening problems we face. Since our founding in 1999, we have evolved our definition of media, and the role it can play in our lives – from zines to video-blogging to breakdancing, to communicating solidarity and creating justice. Each conference builds off the previous one and plants the seeds for the next. Ideas and relationships evolve year-round, incorporating new networks of media-makers, technologists and social justice organizers. We draw strength from our converging movements to face the challenges and opportunities of our current moment. We are ready to create, connect and transform.

Create
The AMC supports learning of all different kinds and at all different levels. The workshops are hands-on and participatory. Knowledge is passed horizontally rather than from the top down. Everyone teaches and everyone learns. At the AMC, media creation is not only about personal expression, but about transformation – of ourselves and the structures of power around us. We create media that exposes, investigates, resists, heals, builds confidence and radical hope, incites dialogue and debate.We demystify technology, not only learning how to use it, but how to take it apart, fix it and build our own. We do it ourselves and as communities, connecting across geographic and generational boundaries.

Connect
The AMC is a network of networks – youth organizations, international solidarity activists, anti-violence organizers, technologists, educators, media reform advocates, alternative economists, musicians and artists, disability activists, and many others – all using media in innovative ways. Some of these networks have sprouted from the conference, grown over the course of the year, then reconvened in Detroit larger and healthier. Others have adopted the AMC as an annual point of convergence and a space to forge new relationships. Through cycles of collaboration, question-asking and experimentation, our networks continue to grow, bringing new analysis, and new tools to the AMC every year.

Transform
The deeper our networks grow, the greater our capacity grows to take collective actions to transform our world. We recognize that transformation happens through our everyday movements. At the AMC, we develop new leaders and new forms of leadership, design new methods of problem-solving, cultivate the visions of our communities and build our power to make those visions real. Our strategies for transformation don't begin or end with the three days of the conference. They evolve in our lives and our work throughout the year.

REBEL DIAZ: STORIES OF STRUGGLE

What what! Rebel Diaz is coming to Guelph!

"If you not down for revolution what you waitin for?" -Rebel Diaz

As hip hop-head-organizers, nothin spells out good times to us like a political hip hop show. Last year we did it with Climbing Poetree and it was a huge success in terms of warm vibes and bringing together a diverse audience that otherwise might not be interested in politics-which is exactly the beauty of joining art with activism. This year, with help from the African Society of Guelph, the C.J. Munford centre, Fuerza/Puwersa and the Sikh Activist Network, we hope to do it again.

So what's up for the show?

Rebel Diaz is gonna rock a set! Comin up from the Bronx, Rebel Diaz is made up of Lah Tere, Rodstarz and G1, three hype MCs. Their energy at live performances is so high, and their beats are bumpin. What's even better is that they are keepin hip hop real: Their poltically-loaded songs stay true to the meaning of hip hop; hip hop is about uplifting people in the struggle. Positive music safe for children and adults alike! We need more music that feeds us real food-most of the shit on the radio is like eating McDonalds.

Check out these links for a sample of their songs as well as an interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Dr05tXktSo&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WEmClMGehc

And their website:

http://rebeldiaz.mvmt.com/

To open the night, we've got food, provided by the Sikh Activist Network, some kick-ass local openers such as Malik IM and Noyz from Toronto, Testament from London, and Steve, Amina, Aidan and Jasmeet from Guelph. In between sets, Guelph community groups will be answering questions about their work, issues of concern, and how people can get involved.

Hip hop like it's supposed to be!

Wednesday March 24th

Doors 6:30

The Vinyl-52 McDonnell st. Downtown Guelph

***All ages, alcohol free until 11pm, free/pay what you can

and wheelchair accessible (we're gettin ramp custom made..cause that's how we do)

"H.I.P H.O.P: Her Infinite Power Helping Oppressed People" -KRS-ONE

Haiti: A Proud and Turbulent History

Haiti Action Guelph, in collaboration with the Critical Knowledge Collective, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) a free public screening of Aristide and the Endless Revolution

WHAT- Documentary screening and Speakers from Canada Haiti Action Network


WHERE- The Bookshelf

WHEN- 1pm


Film Description:

"Only an hour south of Miami, the elected president of the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation, Jean Bertrand Aristide, has twice been forced from office with the complicity of the international community. An intelligent and engrossing examination of the oft-suppressed story of the 2004 coup d'etat in Haiti, Rossier's film investigates the events that led to the second violent expulsion of Aristide from Haiti, and reveals the tangled web of hope, deceit, and political violence. Features Aristide, Sen. Maxine Waters, Noam Chomsky, Rep. Charles Rangel."

This is an awareness-raising event, however donations are graciously receieved towards Haitian-led and Haitian-directed relief projects.

Friday feb 24 - Documentary screening of "5 RING CIRCUS"

WHAT- Documentary and discussion

WHERE- CSA boardroom- 2nd floor of the University Centre (UC)

WHEN- 5pm-8pm

WHY....

Find out why increasing numbers of people are opposing the Vancouver 2010 games.

We will be showing the documentary 5 Ring Circus, which "exposes a side to the Vancouver Olympics which is not being revealed in the corporate media".

And a brief presentation by a Guelph activist who has recently returned from Vancouver.

Check out the trailer for 5 Ring Circus here

Presented by Left Film Night - Critical Knowledge Collective - Guelph Young Communist League

DROP FEES for a Poverty-Free Ontario...

The Case for Accessible and Quality Education

-In Febuary 2007 there was a poll done that showed that 75% percent of Ontarians agree that tuition fees should be reduced

-Ontario undergraduate university tuition fees have increased 195% since 1990. Ontario tuition fees are now highest in Canada

-Depending on the program, tuition fees are set to increase anywhere from 20 to 36 percent over four years. The highest tuition fee hikes in Canada

-This is much faster than inflation, It would take 40 years for inflation to catch up to the average undergraduate tuition fee.

-Ontario is ranked last for per-student funding in Canada.

-We are charged high ancillary fees and we face growing class and tutorial sizes, this is also a symptom of underfunding

-There has been a steady decline of provincial and federal funding for post-secondary education over the last 20 years. This has resulted in the provincial government and individual university and college administrations replacing the lost funding with tuition fees and other user fees. In the early 1990s, user fees accounted for an average of 21 per cent of an institution’s operating budget. Today user fees cover almost 50 per cent of the institution’s budget.

-Ontario's policy of tuition fee increases is a political choice that the government has made, and it deviates from other provinces that have frozen and reduced tuition fees. In fact, some countries such as Ireland, Brazil, Sweden ,and many more, do not charge any tuition fees for education.

-the main barrier to education is still tuition fees despite OSAP. “Researchers at the University of Guelph found that 40% fewer students from low-income families were attending University after tuition fees rose.” –Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

-The average student graduates with a debt of $30 000 dollars after and undergrad degree

All this and still our education is compromised!! U of Guelph cut a bunch of programs just last year including WOMEN'S STUDIES and is planning on cutting ORGANIC AGRICULTURE. Everywhere we look, they are cutting corners....it can't be for lack of funds given our tuition hikes. STOP POCKETING OUR MONEY BITCHES!!

The Recession Question

-According to a Statistics Canada report released earlier today students aged 15-24 faced the second highest summer unemployment rate on record at 19.2%, furthering concerns that many students will not have enough money to make it through the year.

-Most economists project a continued rise in unemployment over the next year and next summer things could be worse

-$3.3 billion Cdn, was the bailout offered to the auto industry last year by the federal and provincial government in December of last year. A similar amount is what it would cost to eliminate tuition for 2009! Student debt is a total of $13 billion in Canada. Where’s our bailout?!

-70% of job postings require post-secondary education


This last point makes it obvious how tuition fees are contributing to the cycling and worsening of poverty. With the price of everything escalating, and more and more costs falling on bottom majority, how can one get a job if they can't afford to go to school? If a person has access and chooses to take out loans, they will face years of paying off a debt, continuing the cycle of financial stress.

This situation is worse for women, who make on average half of what men make. And if you are a non-white woman, the average is less (non-white men make on average more than white women, but less than white men). Taking that with the fact that unemployment is much higher for non-white people, we see the same cycles perpetuating themselves. These groups will likely take much longer to pay back their loans, if they are so fortunate to land a decent paying job. This results in more interest accumulation which means that they pay MORE than white males for the same education.

Food for thought. If you are interested for more check out the Canadian Federation of Students and participate in your local NOV 5 DAY OF ACTION festivities.