ORGANISING ACADEMY » Andrew

Thanet Love Music Hate Racism Website Now Online

Andrew — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 10:28:05 +0000

Thanet LMHR website is now online… wow!!! Go to: www.thanetlovemusichateracism.com and preview some of the great acts performing live at East Kent Love Music Hate Racism Festival – including our headliner Lowkey and local acts Spookasonic, The Assembly Worker, Colt 44 and loads more great acts!
www.thanetlovemusichateracism.com

Everyone is invted to come and join NUT and Thanet LMHR for East Kent Love Music Hate Racism Festival on Saturdaty September 11th.

This community coalition was initiated by Thanet NUT - along with a range of political and community organisations and other local trade unions - to address the ongoing issues of racism and Islamophobia, which are a concern for the teachers of Thanet.

The project is helping to engage teachers in a variety of forms of union activity - making the local NUT Association relevant and vibrant through tackling an issue which is widely felt by members in schools locally. It has proved a particularly successful campaign, as LMHR provides a vast range of means through which teachers can engage with the trade union movement; leafleeting and activism, school based anti-racism assemblies and workshops and arts projects involving students at the festival and in school itself.

As trade unionists, fighting racism and Islamophobia has been, and must remain, one of our top priorities. Islamophobia has, in the last 10 years, become a sometimes acceptable form of racism. The criticism and scrutiny which the Islamic community has had placed upon them has manifested itself in a whole range of ways – calls from mass media newspapers and members of parliament to ban the burkah being just one example. This climate of Islamophobia promoted by politicians and the media for the past decade has provided the arguments and foundations upon which extremists and the far right have been able to grow. This has resulted in the unfortunate increase in support for the British National Party (500, 000 votes at the last General Election) and the English Defence League street thugs, who target Islam and Mosques for their disgraceful displays of racial hatred and violence.

Kent is a key building ground for the EDL – Kent EDL division having lead one of their recent racist protests.

It is in this context that LMHR is all the more important for Thanet and East Kent. Challenging racism provides an important opportunity to demonstrate our committment to the equalities agenda, whilst also developing new union activists who share our commitment to cultural diversity and multiculturalism and take this agenda back into the school environment.

Thanet LMHR will also be organising events after September 11th including a Battle of the Bands Project which is being organised in coalition with NUT snd Margate Dreamlands Project. We are a growing local community campaign which is here to stay and with the support of the trade union movement - we can help eradicate racism and fascism in Kent, for good!

Thanet NUT Donates £2000 to Oppose Racism

Andrew — Thu, 06 May 2010 13:24:15 +0000

Thanet Love Music Hate Racism, in association with Thanet NUT, are holding a massive festival in Margate on Sat Sept 11^th!

At a well attended meeting of local teachers, Thanet NUT Association voted unanimously to donate £2000 to the anti-racism project.

NUT Organiser Andrew Robbins commented after the meeting, “Today’s historic vote by Thanet NUT sends a clear message that local teachers want Thanet to remain an inclusive and multicultural place for children, teachers and parents of all backgrounds”.

In the run up to the main festival, Love Music Hate Racism and the NUT will be working with local schools, to run workshops and competitions which promote an anti-racism message. Thanet pupils will be given the opportunity to enter a contest to design a Thanet LMHR logo. There will also be an anti-racism poetry competition and local pupils from a number of schools will each design and make the festival banner – to be displayed at the event.

Furthermore, there is currently talk of holding a local Thanet’s Got LMHR Talent contest!

There will be food, drink, prizes, music and dance on the day! Local school choirs and performing arts departments are invited to come and perform.

To find out more call Andrew Robbins (NUT) on: 07872564938 or Bunny La Roche (LMHR) on: 07947424505 or email: a.robbins@nut.org.uk. You can also join the Thanet Love Music Hate Racism Facebook group.

Anyone can get involved in this exciting community project and schools are particularly welcome. Get in touch to join us at our next planning meeting and help us throw the party of the year in Margate this September!

Andrew Robbins – NUT Organiser!

Andrew — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:01:47 +0000

Andrew Robbins – NUT Organiser!

Somewhere around the summer of 2008, I took the difficult decision to leave behind my blossoming future as an Elvis Presley impersonator and take up the gauntlet of organising full-time in the labour movement!! A tough call you might think – after all it’s hard to beat Elvis when it comes to rock ‘n’ roll! The problem was, Elvis didn’t much bother with picket lines or the peace movement – and I certainly do! So I downed my white cape and shiny Las Vegas glasses, sung my last Suspicious Minds, and headed straight to the Graceland of the workers – the TUC Development Centre, Exeter…

It certainly was a tough weekend, but clearly someone in the sky (most probably Elvis) was shining down upon me that fateful Sunday afternoon, when (wearing my favourite Beatles T-Shirt – mainly for the benefit of Carl Roper) I was told I had been selected for a TUC interview! Two weeks later I had passed and it wasn’t long before I had been selected as the NUT organiser for Kent and East Sussex!!! Finally, I was going to do for trade unionism what Elvis had done for music… (Make it fashionable again, get the masses involved and inspire other people to great things)!

As a long standing socialist, anti-privatisation, community and peace activist, I have engaged in numerous campaigns. At the age of 17, you would have found me occupying the University of Luton. Following the decision to abolish the humanities department, I and a group of students elected an occupation committee and engaged in direct action lasting two days (I was the look out)! This provided a valuable first experience of organising. The action made the press and highlighted the market-driven disruption to higher education, which Luton students were experiencing.

I have organised a number of campaigning and community projects over the years. In 2005 I founded ‘Musicardo’ – a now well established community arts project in Luton. Together with Beds Senior Citizens’ Arts and Recreational Forum, University of Bedfordshire Student Union and Luton Sixth Form College (amongst others) Musicardo has supported International Older Persons’ Festival and continues to organise multicultural community projects such as ‘Community for Humanity’.

In 2009, I founded Luton Love Music Hate Racism – in response to the recession, rising social inequality and the potential for far-right growth in these circumstances. Luton Trades Council, SERTUC, Kelvin Hopkins MP, Esther Rantzen and a host of other trade union, community, political groups and performers – have all supported Luton LMHR. It represents successful organising on a profound scale! When English Defence League gangs invaded Luton in May 2009 – unleashing racist violence and hatred towards the local community – Luton LMHR was ready and prepared! I and the committee organised a huge 2000 strong, one-day music festival. We recruited massively and made the racists look pathetic. Shortly afterwards the Home Office granted an order banning the EDL from marching through Luton.

Luton LMHR – 1 Racist Bigots – 0 !!!!!

My ambitions from here onwards lie with the NUT. I view the union’s role within the school environment as invaluable. The union’s commitment to fairness for teachers and students alike; it’s principled stand against privatisation and its support for the environmental movement, is what makes it such an important trade union. With the NUT, I will be working hard to organise, expand and involve teachers in a progressive agenda – making sure the union remains the powerful force for good which we can all unite behind!