Join us on Tuesday 1st November as the year turns.

We'll be celebrating year one of the Govan Free State and seeing out GalGael’s 25th year.

There'll be a fire at sundown, feasting from 6 and a ceilidh from 7 and other moments of delight.

Please let us know you’re coming (so we know how many we’re cooking for) here.

Meet the Real Monster in the Loch

Billiard Room, Pearce Institute

Join Scottish CND for a virtual tour of Faslane, the naval base just outside Glasgow, where the UK government hosts its nuclear weapons against Scotland’s will. Unravel the links between nuclear weapons, climate change and environmental degradation – from the impact of uranium mining and nuclear waste on land and sea, to the daily danger of nuclear disaster right here in Scotland, as a result of convoys bringing nuclear weapons to the base. This film brings the reality of nuclear weapons, and their planet-destroying capacity, close to home, and demands action now.

Click Here to Register

See more of the CHE Programme here.

@scottishcnd

An extended version of GalGael’s weekly gathering with a book reading from Hugh McArthur from his recently published Close Encounters of a Natural Kind. A collection of short wildlife stories, spanning back over sixty years of living in Glasgow and travelling in the West Scottish Highlands and Islands.

Hugh, blends history, mythology and socio-political commentary with true life encounters, and reflects on where human society has been, is now, and where we might be heading in the future.

This will complement our usual old-style ceilidh format of sharing songs, music and poetry together - you might want to bring an instrument!

You're welcome from 5 pm to have a look around the space. You might like to print yourself a passport or just look at the banners and other happenings around the workshop just now.

At 6 pm, (or thereabouts) we’ll serve a simple meal (part of our weekly gathering)

At 7 pm, Hugh will do a reading from his book. Then stay around for some craic, singing, music - more passport printing and declaration signing - and perhaps a second pour for our casting objects of state and currency using ancient bronze casting techniques.

The space has limited heating, so please dress warmly!

Books are available for sale here… or from usual outlets.

Please book here!

Can we bring together a grassroots-led response, the like of which we have never seen, to a threat the like of which we have never faced?

Using a range of practices that enable us to think creatively, and to draw on the deeper knowledge of our bodies, our imaginations, our collective energies and the wisdom of the earth, we will come together to attempt a creative and courageous leap of imagination and faith in our collective ability to wake up and respond in new ways to our shared predicament.

Together we’ll be asking:  

“What is needed to parachute our economy off a carbon emissions cliff edge, taking all of us safely down to a high quality / low impact life that prioritises health, water, food and shelter for all, and in ways which respect the earth?” 

This isn’t about focusing on reducing carbon emissions but about exploring how – materially, in terms of need-meeting processes – we address the root cause and so end the system driving social and ecological breakdown.

We’re inviting people from diverse communities, including those with lived experience of practices, processes, skills and solutions that are low-impact, low-emissions and high-respect for people and planet. If you would like to join us please contact Eva – evaschonveld@gmail.com – to briefly let us know why you’d like to join, and if you’re bringing any skills, hands-on experience, and/ or simply your curiosity/ desire to achieve this transformation. All are welcome –  we need a diversity of perspectives and approaches to this fundamental question!

Facilitated by Eva Schonveld, Justin Kenrick, Kate Dyer, Scott Herrett and Dita Vizoso of Grassroots2Global, and Gavin Crichton of Active Enquiry, Andy Smith of ProcessWork and Ed Tyler of bioregioning

Part of the Centre for Human Ecology, Clydeside Sessions

Lunch from Soul Sisters costs £7 a head. We can’t guarantee it unless you can let us know in advance by emailing Eva at the email above. If you can donate something towards your own and maybe others lunches, then great. If you can’t, that’s no problem.

Find out more about Plan; Pause: Reset.

Book for ‘Managing the Crash’ here

Come to the first in-person exhibition of the Workers’ Stories Project. There will be large-scale versions of our virtual submissions and short talks from our contributors!

Over the last 18 months, the Workers' Stories project has collected stories about COVID-19 from across Scotland' We've published stories from care homes, hospitals, supermarkets, trains and from furloughed workers.

The exhibition will include a selection of images and texts blown up on the walls as well as brief talks by some of our contributors and others who have assisted with the Workers' Stories project.

Light food and drink will be available.

All are welcome to attend.

Read more at www.workersstories.org.uk

Please book here

Ending Impunity and the Climate Emergency: Indigenous Autonomy and Defending Territories of Life in the Amazon - Part 2

MacLeod Hall, Pearce Institute

How are Amazonian Indigenous Peoples organising to confront threats to their collective rights and the dispossession of their territories for logging, agribusiness, illegal mining, oil and gas extraction and narcotics production? What are their proposals for strengthening the self-government of their territories, protecting the climate and ensuring the good life for all the peoples of the Amazon?
Join this session with Indigenous leaders from the Shipibo-Konibo, Wampis and Wapichan nations and peoples to explore their struggles in defence of their territories and forests and to build Indigenous autonomous territorial governments.

Forest Peoples Programme (FPP), UK

South Rupununi District Council (SRDC), Guyana

Autonomous Territorial Government of the Wampis Nation (GTANW), Peru

Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP), Peru

Click Here to Register

See more of the CHE Programme here.

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/forestpeoplesprogramme

https://www.facebook.com/South-Rupununi-District-Council-112754680191423

https://www.facebook.com/NacionWampis

https://twitter.com/NacionWampis

https://www.facebook.com/aidesep

@aidesep_org

A virtual-reality encounter with the real-life impact of nuclear tests

Billiard Room, Pearce Institute

Join us for a screening of 'Collisions', the Virtual Reality film which allows you to experience the impact of Britain's nuclear tests in Western Australia, through the eyes of a man who lived it: Nyarri Morgan. Through this film, we learn of his life as part of the Martu tribe, about the world-changing impact of nuclear testing, and about Martu perspectives on humankind and the environment.

Click Here to Register

See more of the CHE Programme here.

Twitter:

@scottishcnd

@SCNDeducation

@scottishcnd

Rob the Robin and the Bald Eagle, a book by Madge Bray

In this event, Madge will read from her book, Rob the Robin and the Bald Eagle which is based on true events in the lives of a number of children who touched her own life as a play therapist and social entrepreneur. Through the book, Madge hopes that those of all ages will identify with Rob’s epic struggles with the mighty Bald Eagle and find the courage and strength to face challenges in their own lives. Addressing traumatic disassociation and speaks subliminally to those who've experienced trauma.

Please help us manage numbers by booking here.

Ending Impunity and the Climate Emergency: Indigenous Autonomy and Defending Territories of Life in the Amazon - Part 1

MacLeod Hall, Pearce Institute

How are Amazonian Indigenous Peoples organising to confront threats to their collective rights and the dispossession of their territories, such as logging, agribusiness, extractive industries, infrastructure megaprojects and conservation via dispossession linked to carbon offsetting projects? What are their proposals for strengthening the self-government of their territories, protecting the climate and ensuring the good life for all the peoples of the Amazon?
Join this session with Indigenous leaders from the Kichwa, Nɨpodɨmakɨ-Uitoto and Awajun peoples to explore their struggles in defence of their territories and forests and to build Indigenous self-government.

Forest Peoples Programme (FPP), UK

Ethnic Council of the Kichwa Peoples of the Amazon (CEPKA), Peru

Federation of Kichwa Indigenous Peoples of Chazuta Amazonas (FEPIKECHA), Peru

The Uitoto people of the Colombian Amazon

Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP), Peru

Click Here to Register

See more of the CHE Programme here.

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/forestpeoplesprogramme

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100012324820109

https://www.facebook.com/fepikecha

https://www.facebook.com/aidesep

@aidesep_org

Macleod Hall, Pearce Institute

A public talk and workshop during COP 26 with Maria Latumahina, Sharon Inone and Alastair McIntosh. Talk and overview: Over the past decade, Maria, Alastair and colleagues from the CHE and Seventy Three have brought together civil servants and grassroots community leaders from Papua in Indonesia and Scotland to learn from each other’s experiences of land reform, community empowerment and climate change. This talk will share what was learned through that exchange. Comparing those experiences with testimony from the Solomon Islands, the talk will explore what more is needed to strengthen understanding of the climate crisis, and to build resilience, among vulnerable coastal and small-island communities.

https://www.73-ltd.com/

Click Here to Register

See more of the CHE Programme here.

Macleod Hall, Pearce Institute

Launch of Peace Education Scotland’s new film on the Environmental Hazards posed by Nuclear Weapons followed by reflections on the life of Kenneth McNeill - former Scottish CND Secretary and Peace Education Scotland committee member who appeared in the film before he sadly passed away in March 2021. Everyone who is interested is welcome to this event - particularly those who knew Kenneth McNeil and wish to mark his contribution to the Peace Movement in Scotland.

In remembrance of Kenneth McNeil

https://www.peaceeducationscotland.org/

@SCNDeducation

Click Here to Register

See more of the CHE Programme here.

Some old Free Staters (mainly Neil McDonald of Common Wheel) thought with COP26 happening, it’d be an idea to offer a tour of the site of Pollok Free State and find out about the 1994/5 protest against the building of the M77 motorway.
Members of the Free State Protest Camp will be there to tell you what a wonderful and magical place it was. It's now returned to nature, so dress for the outdoors. It's not accessible for wheelchairs, but you can get close to it on the pavement.

Meet on the corner of Barrhead Road and Fairchild Avenue at 2 pm

More info on the event page here

Ireland's Premier Literary Journal at COP26 Edited by Chris Agee, Meg Bateman and Kathleen Jamie

MacLeod Hall, Pearce Institute

Delegates, media and the public are cordially invited
to the launch of the new issue of IRISH PAGES prepared for COP26

“The Anthropocene”
(Volume 11, No 1)

Chris Agee in conversation with Garry MacKenzie, Alec Finlay & Robert Alan Jamieson

IRISH & SCOTTISH TRADITIONAL MUSIC - The Paddy Callaghan Trio

THOUGHTS ON COP 26
from the author, activist and poet
Alistair McIntosh (TBC)

Click Here to Register

See more of the CHE Programme here.

Reflections on music, song and folk tradition in protest and processing grief

Singer Peggy Seeger in conversation with Rosie Kane, and tradition bearer Madge Bray with piper Allan MacDonald.

Music, song and folk tradition have long played a role in every aspect of civil society. Following the day of civil action around COP26, we invite people to join us for an evening to explore related themes and gather ourselves after the events of the day. Songs have a long and rich tradition in protest - expressing ideas, emotions and resistance in ways that have become enmeshed within popular culture. Peggy Seeger, is a well-known figure in folk music and no stranger to protest. Rosie Kane, entered Scottish politics following the motorway protests known as Pollok Free State. Through conversation, they will explore these threads in the midst of COP26, our recently declared Govan Free State and in the face of the unprecedented challenges for communities posed by climate catastrophe. 

After a life working in the field of trauma, Madge Bray has immersed herself in recovering keening rituals - the tradition of collective grieving of the Scottish Gàidhealtachd. She has been working with piper Allan MacDonald to piece together lost fragments embedded in pibroch piping tunes. In the face of so much loss, the need to recover our traditions of grieving have never been more acute, as a deep process to transform pain and strengthen us for the challenges of the times we are living through.

Free/donation

Please help us manage numbers and avoid disappointment by booking here

Fan the Flames of Discontent

Bonfires formed a central part of many traditional gatherings in Scottish culture and were often seen as cleansing, making way for the new. Join us round the brazier to temper our spirits for the big demo on the 6th. And witness our experiments with primitive bronze casting technologies - casting objects of state and minting Free State coins. No value, of course...

Free/donation

Please book here

An extended version of GalGael’s weekly gathering with tradition bearer Madge Bray bringing songs of grieving and lullabies.

This will complement our usual old-style ceilidh format of sharing songs, music and poetry together - bring an instrument!

You're welcome from 5 pm to have a look around the space. You might like to print yourself a passport or just look at the banners and other happenings around the workshop just now.

At 6 pm, we’ll serve a simple meal (part of our weekly gathering)

At 7 pm we'll invite Madge to share her songs with us.

The space has limited heating, so please dress warmly!

Please book here!

A special edition of GalGael’s monthly assembly. Our tribal council. Deliberation and dialogue on the things and themes that matter to our community.

Join Alastair McIntosh, Kathy Galloway and Alison Phipps for a conversational experience weaving together the threads of the 9 Sutras of Raimon Panikkar, the Iona Community, Riders on the storm, bound by the spirituality latent in each.

31 years ago, Kathy Galloway of the Iona Community and Alastair McIntosh of the Centre for Human Ecology helped run a conference in the Pearce Institute. The speaker was the great Hindu-Christian thinker, Raimon Panikkar. His influence shapes Alastair’s most recent book, “Riders on the Storm: the Climate Crisis and the Survival of Being”. He left Glasgow with 9 Sutras, prayers that now explode with COP26. Alison Phipps, the UNESCO chair of Refugee Integration at Glasgow University, will hold this space of sharing, hospitable to the soul.

Click here to register.

See more of the CHE Programme here.

www.AlastairMcIntosh.com

https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/education/staff/alisonphipps/

https://www.ionabooks.com/product-tag/kathy-galloway/

Macleod Hall, Pearce Institute

Justice for All, Peace Not Conflict, End Greed and Lies

MacLeod Hall, Pearce Institute

Join us for the launch of WILPF's Climate Crisis exhibition, which explores the close links between militarism, warfare and climate change, and the possibility of peaceful and feminist responses to one of the most important challenges of our time. Following the launch event, the exhibition will be available to view throughout most of COP26.

@WILPF

@UKWILPF

@scottishwilpf

@scottishcnd

This is an invitation to bend back the branches of our respective traditions, to dig deep to find life in place of destruction, look up to face and undo empire, and meet to make hope across our territories.

Free Territories of the Pearce Institute

Maria Leusa Munduruku, Munduruku Indigenous Women's Association, Amazônia, Brazil

Ana Laide Barbosa, Amazônian fisherwoman, great-granddaughter of the enslaved, member of Xingu Vivo Para Sempre movement

Col Gordon, farmer, researcher, Scotland

Gehan Macleod, co-founder GalGael

Iain MacKinnon, researcher, University of Coventry

Music from Nelson Wilson and Alistair Macfarlane

facilitator: Brian Garvey, University of Strathclyde

Hosted by Centre of Political Economy of Labour at University of Strathclyde with GalGael and Centre for Human Ecology and as part of the declared Govan free state for COP26

Click here to register.

See more of the CHE Programme here.

www.politicaloflabour.org

Film Screening

Centre for Human Ecology

Macleod Hall, Pearce Institute

Since 1999, InsightShare has pioneered the use of participatory video and storytelling to support the self-representation and self-determination of Indigenous peoples. We enhance Indigenous capability to gather and influence civil society through the powerful medium of video.<br>In September 2021, young first-time filmmakers from southern and eastern Africa embarked on pilgrimages to sacred sites, forests, oceans and local communities to speak with elders about the impacts of climate change. The journeys undertaken by the 6 Indigenous video hubs with their elders and cultural singers, have reinforced culture and spirituality, promoted intergenerational and intercultural exchange, and we are now ready to share those learnings with global audiences at COP26.

Join us for the world premiere of 7 short films made this month especially for a Glasgow audience in honour of COP26.

Screening will be followed by an informal discussion with InsightShare Founder and Director Nick Lunch.

Click Here to Register

See more of the CHE Programme here.

Birdman of Pollok/Curaidh na Coille

BBC Alba (first screened Dec 2019) 59mins

Screening

Colin Macleod was a modern-day land raider who gave a voice to the people of Pollok in the 90s. The M77 was being driven through their park, cutting the local community off from their only green space. Instead of Greta Thunberg or Extinction Rebellion, they had Colin Macleod. He started by staying up a tree for nine days to grab press attention. This grew into a full-blown protest camp and the Pollok Free State was born. 

The Free State became a community. It was an escape from the gangs, drugs and poverty of Pollok. Even though the motorway eventually went through, the Pollok Free State had become more than a protest camp. Colin and his fellow activists went on to found GalGael, a trust based in Govan which provides support to people with addictions or mental health problems, offering healing through reconnection with their culture.

Through colleagues, friends and family, we come to know Colin Macleod, a visionary whose work is still a beacon of hope.

Thog Cailean Macleòid a ghuth sna 1990an agus e a’ strì gus aithne a thoirt do mhuinntir Pollok nuair a chaidh an M77 a leudachadh. Cha robh leithid Greta Thunberg no Extinction Rebellion aca ach bha Cailean, a chuir 9 latha seachad ann an craoibh agus a thug Stàite Neo-eisimeileach Pollok gu bith.

‘S e fìor choimhearsnachd a bha seo agus ged a chaidh an rathad a leudachadh, bha an iomairt air cothrom a thoirt dhan choimhearsnachd a thighinn còmhla.

A’ tarraing air na dh’ionnsaich e, stèidhich Cailean agus a charaidean GalGael, iomairt a tha a’ leantainn chun an latha an-diugh.

Please book here

A gathering to mark the turning of the year in Celtic tradition; the start of GalGael's 25th year, and the birth of a new state!

Present yourself to border control and declare yourself welcome! 

Enter the independent territories of GalGael for music and musing on twenty five years and climate (in)action, with a dose of ceremony and solemn speeches... visit the passport office and print your own passport. Declare oaths to wild things, lost species, dear green places wherever they may be. 

Tradition has it that the veil between worlds is thin at this time of year. Join us as we imagine we're living in the early days of a better world, or at least in a better state!

As well as the declaration of independence and interdependence, we’ll have an address from Alastair McIntosh, founding director of GalGael, Pollok Free State passport carrier and writer/activist. And music from the talented Tam McGarvey and Pollok Free State resident, Tartan Heather! Oh and stew for some feasting!

To help us with numbers and avoid disappointment, please book here