Dear Ecotopians!
This is the first newsletter from the 2014 coordination collective from Thessaloniki and everywhere! Quite a lot of things have happened since most of you have last got some news, so we want to get you updated and involved in this year’s planning! Here are the topics we are going to cover:
- Quick update on route and theme ideas from the spring meeting
- Send us your project proposals for the Southern Balkan region
- Call to help with artwork
- Call to help with translation
- The ecotopia biketour booklet/zine 2014 needs contributors and editors
- Join collective coordination
Quick update on route and theme ideas from the spring meeting
It is now already quite a way back, some of you may have read the news on the webpage, for those who haven’t checked anything on ecotopia biketour for a while here is a very short update – for more detailed info go to www.ecotopiabiketour.net
The Ecotopia Biketour 2014 will take place in the Southern Balkans from mid of July until end of September 2014, the exact route is not yet fixed but you can take a look at our route ideas here: https://wiki.ecotopiabiketour.net/Biketour_2014#Route_possibilites_from_spring_meeting_2014
We had a long discussion on what is going to be the topic of the tour in 2014 and in the end came up with three very broad themes: Sovereignty and Exploitation, and Borders (for a second year running). Read in more detail and see our graphic here: https://www.ecotopiabiketour.net/?p=4197The three topics contain lots of sub-topics, among which we felt it quite difficult to decide. So we are looking to contact projects in all those fields and it will mostly depend on who will host us in the end which will be the most predominant topic. But like in previous years we are sure that there will be a very interesting mix, especially seeing as how much there is going on around here.
Last autumn we started a discussion about Ecotopia Biketour becoming more self-reliant also in its coordination, so the aim is to get more people involved in its set-up. Find more info below and join us!
Send us your project proposals for the Southern Balkan region
We are in the process of contacting projects that we want to visit this summer. If you can contribute any please let us know via e-mail to team-2014 at ecotopiabiketour dot net
Call to help with artwork
Right now we are struggling with some creative designs/artwork for the webpage, flyers etc. If you like drawing, graphic design, playing around with images or whatever, please get in touch with us, send us your ideas! Ecotopia Biketour is full of creative people, don’t be shy! After an encounter with a wild living turtoise in the area that is supposed to be destroyed for gold mining, we would like to feature one on our logo this year, just to give you a little spark of an idea. Contact us for some drafts/ideas that people made, but we wouldn’t like to put on a public wiki yet.
What we have so far for 2014 can be found here: https://wiki.ecotopiabiketour.net/BT_2014_advertising_material – print the flyers and spread them!
Call to help with translation
The Biketour is transnational, however most of the information we have so far is only available in English. We know that people on this mailing list speak lots of languages, it would be great if you could contribute by translating flyers and the homepage. We are especially concerned with the languages spoken in the Southern Balkans, please forward this to anyone you know speaking one of these languages since these are mostly non-existent on our webpage so there is more to be done. Write to us at team-2014 at ecotopiabiketour dot net
The ecotopia biketour booklet/zine 2014 needs contributors and editors
Most years the Ecotopia Biketour has had a booklet to go with the tour. This may contain information on the topic, the regions we pass through, on the projects;it could be about cycling and fixing bikes and lots of other DIY stuff; or even experiences from the Biketour, stories or lyrics and chords to your favourite songs. Basically whatever people want to contribute – see here for some ideas: https://wiki.ecotopiabiketour.net/Booklet and adapt the page if you wish!
It would just need some people to put it together and it can, of course, be multilingual. There is actually already some material from last year, when there was the idea of a zine and several things were collected but never published. So you are welcome to review those things, add what you feel like, do some artwork on it and design the layout and maybe figure out ways to print it cheaply/distribute it. Contact team-2014 at ecotopiabiketour dot netso we can give you access to the bigger folder of existing material and get stuck in!
It would just need some people to put it together and it can, of course, be multilingual. There is actually already some material from last year, when there was the idea of a zine and several things were collected but never published. So you are welcome to review those things, add what you feel like, do some artwork on it and design the layout and maybe figure out ways to print it cheaply/distribute it. Contact team-2014 at ecotopiabiketour dot netso we can give you access to the bigger folder of existing material and get stuck in!
Join collective coordination
At the moment there are three people as a core coordination team for 2014, two of us based in Thessaloniki and one who is working on things remotely. We are open for anyone to join and help in setting up this year’s biketour, mostly by getting in contact with projects and thus setting the route. Also we are facilitating the things mentioned above like translation, booklet publication, artwork & design etc. – and the more people join in the effort the easier it will be! So if you have some time, want to come and help out from Thessaloniki or from wherever you are, just let us know to the collective mail-address team-2014 at ecotopiabiketour dot net! Add your voice and creativity to the coordination crew!
hope to see many of you this summer!
Candid, Christabel and Samuel