Dear all, 

I have posted the following event on the TAP Facebook page (TAP = Taxpayers Against Poverty)

COUNCIL TAX ENFORCEMENT, BAILIFFS, CANNOT PAY ???

On the 6th Janurary 2014 from 7 pm to 9 pm, 

North London Community House, 22 Moorefields Road,Tottenham N17 6PY

Come to this meeting at 7 pm on the 6th January if you are receiving nasty letters from the council, threats from the bailiffs and you are struggling to pay for food, gas, electricity, rent and the council tax. 

Rev Paul Nicolson is on the receiving end of council tax enforcement himself and will be giving free advice about how to cope. 

People who can pay their council tax who are willing to stand in solidarity with people who cannot pay will be very welcome too

North London Community House is next to Bruce Grove Station.

https://www.facebook.com/events/597374046978020/

With very best wishes for a happy Christmas and a worrying 2014. 

Rev Paul Nicolson

Taxpayers Against Poverty

93 Campbell Road, 

Tottenham, 

London N17 0BF

0208 3765455

07961 177889

also at www.z2k.org 

also at www.prohousingalliance.com

www.taxpayersagainstpoverty.org.uk

www.facebook.com/pages/Taxpayers-Against-Poverty/299911526728884

Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group

next and last 2013 meeting 19/12/13

We are having Pilgrim Tucker Unite Community Organiser as guest speaker

(SHE WILL SPEAK AND ANSWER QUESTIONS 3.30-4PM)

ALL WELCOME if a claimant, or trades unionist, community activist or just interested in organizing to stop cuts to people who can ill afford it.

EVEN MICHELLE OBAMA LOOKS DISGUSTED AT SUCH BRAZEN SMUGNESS

(1^st 2014 KUWG meeting will be 9/1/14)

If you are having any problems with any of your benefits and require our support, then we want to hear from you! WE ARE in the same boat. Come along to our free weekly meetings. Free Tea, coffee and nibbles provided. FIGHT BACK!!

Thursdays 3pm – 5.30pm Small Hall, Kingsgate Community Centre, 107 Kingsgate Rd, NW6 2JH -Disabled access available-

Or call: 07709 932 267 All cheques and donations for ‘KUWG’ to:

85 Webheath, Netherwood Street, London NW6 2JS.

From our friends at Crossroads Women's Centre

Hammer-Smith's Universal Cock-Up

Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group's contribution to Boycott Workfare Week

Time: 11am-12 noon Wednesday 4 December
Place: Hemmersmith Jobcentre, 1 Glen House, 22 Glenthorne Road W6 0PP

Hammer Smith's Universal Cock-Up
Kilburn Unemployed Workers group are calling a demonstration in support of the Boycott Workfare Week of Action outside the Hammersmith Jobcentre, in protest of the introduction of Universal Credit. Hammersmith is the sole London Jobcentre using Universal Credit, a project that has already wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayers' money. Yet Iain Duncan Smith and Co carry on – despite Universal Cock-up's aim to disenfranchise many claimants due to a monthly payment to a sole individual within a “household” and trapping workers receiving Working Tax Credits or Housing benefit top-ups in the DWP's harsh sanctions regime.
11am-12 noon Wednesday 4 December
1 Glen House, 22 Glenthorne Road W6 0PP

the Age UK London Older People's Manifesto for the 2014 Local Elections Consultation Event.

The details are as follows:

Date: Thursday 28th November
Time: 11.00am (10.30am registration)
Venue: Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, Shaftesbury Avenue,  235
Shaftesbury Ave, London WC2H 8EP
Transport: Nearest Tube Stations - Tottenham Court Road(Central Line,
Northern Line) 0.2 miles walk OR Holborn (Central Line, Piccadilly
Line) 0.3 miles.
Bus: Number 134 stops right outside the church. Many other buses stop
on New Oxford Street/Tottenham Court Road including numbers 7, 8, 10,
25, 55, 73 and 98.

Free lunch is provided. Registration is from 10.30am and the event
will start promptly at 11.00am.

Also, as a reminder, this event is for a manifesto covering the 2014
Local Elections and only policy and issues dealt with by local
councils will be relevant to the discussion.

Some areas of discussion will be:

• Social Care and Health
• Learning and Leisure Services
• Housing
• Local Economy
• Other Local Council Services

If you would like to discuss one of these issues predominately, please
could you reply to me as soon as possible and we will endeavour to
meet your request.

(Further details and registration)

I look forward to seeing you on Thursday.

Kind Regards

Danny Elliott
Communications and Campaigns Officer
Age UK London

E: delliott@ageuklondon.org.uk
T: 020 7820 6778

Older People's Manifesto for Local Elections 2014: Consultation

Hosted by Age UK London

Thursday, 28 November 2013 from 11:00 to 14:00 (GMT)

Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, 235 Shaftesbury Avenue, WC2H
8EP

Save the Co-operative Bank!

From Save Our Bank

Newsletter 26 November

Crunch time at the bank - help spread the word

While the media has been focused on the revelations about former Co-op Bank chair Paul Flowers, the Co-op Bank itself has been worrying about how to ensure that investors accept the proposed rescue plan. The first deadline is at the end of this week, and all votes must be in by the following week. No one really knows what will happen if the investors don’t vote for the plan. If they accept then there will be rapid movement to seal the deal with the hedge funds. Save Our Bank could have an important influence on how that works.
It is vital that Save Our Bank campaign can speak for as many customers as possible. Thousands have already signed up but the next week is crucial and we need your help to reach critical mass. Then we can push for our aims: a way to ensure that whoever owns the bank implements customer-led ethical polices, and plans an eventual return to co-operative majority control.
We are asking all supporters urgently to take action:
Please Forward this email to 10 people you know who might bank with the Co-op, and ask them to pass it on.
If you're a social media user then
Tweet now, asking people to visit our site and sign up to the campaign:
Support #saveourbank campaign, sign up at http://saveourbank.coop and help us make the #CoopBank stick to its principles
Contact your Facebook friends and ask them to sign up to the campaign:
Let’s all support the Save Our Bank campaign to make the Co-op Bank stick to its ethical principles  - sign up at http://saveourbank.coop

No change to Save Our Bank message

The revelations about Paul Flowers have shocked many people but Save Our Bank supporters already knew that something had gone badly wrong at the bank. Whatever the promised enquiries discover, the bank has new managers and will soon have a new ownership structure. Our priority is making sure it sticks to its principles and that the door is left open to an eventual return to co-operative majority control. We still say to customers: don’t switch yet, join our campaign. We can make a difference.

Bank proposes way to fix ethical principles

New proposed articles of association were published by the Co-operative Bank on 14th November. These have generally escaped media attention because of the furore about Paul Flowers. We welcome some aspects of the articles such as the creation of an ethics committee, but we do not think it will be enough to withstand the commercial pressures in the bank while it is majority owned by private investors. We need to push for a real ethical policy guarantee.
You can read our response in full here.

More organisations back our Ethical Declaration

Our Ethical Policy declaration has now been signed by 20 NGOs and other organisations that use the Co-operative Bank, including Oxfam, Greenpeace UK and Friends of the Earth. If your organisation would like to support the declaration, sign up here.

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Women Together Crossroads Women’s Centre, Saturday 9 November 2013
Women have a lot to say and sometimes are not shy about saying it!  They crowded into the Crossroads Women’s Centre in Kentish Town on Saturday 9 November, for ‘Women Together Speak Up – Making Community, Tackling Problems’.  Crossroads Women, the local charity hosting it, aimed to “give a voice to those women whose needs are most likely to be neglected, especially in these hard times”.
	Children were made welcome by the ever popular Colin the Clown who provided entertainment throughout the meeting. Women of many diverse backgrounds, from teenagers to grandmothers, movingly described events and experiences.  Most felt mothers and carers were being devalued and impoverished. They raised economic problems.  A pregnant woman was fearful of the future as her husband had lost his job and she had no independent income.  A single mother had been threatened with benefit sanctions despite applying for 150 jobs.  Another was doing sex-phone work to feed her children. Many had found care services uncaring.  A mother grieving the death of a son had had her breastfeeding baby taken away by social services.  A woman recounted her difficulties getting support in place on leaving a mental health hospital.  Relatives were struggling to ensure loved ones who were sick or had disabilities received the attention they were officially entitled to.  Support for breastfeeding was being cut and new mothers and their infants were not being helped. Violence and discrimination were also recurrent themes.  A woman had witnessed sexual harassment by guards while in a detention centre; a mother complained of police targeting her Black son and other Black men for stop and search; a lesbian woman said many LBGTQ young people were homeless and faced attack. Many of those present were from Camden, but some had travelled from other boroughs.  And some from Scotland and Wales – they had come for an earlier meeting and had decided to stay to listen and contribute. The indignity of food banks, loss of play centres and other cuts, juggling jobs, job search and study with childcare and housework, homelessness, bailiffs, unaffordable fuel bills and rents, rape, racism and other discrimination made for a grim framework. The meeting aimed at sharing not only problems but solutions, and women proved creative and determined.  The woman whose child was taken from her, had fought alongside breastfeeding advocates and got her daughter back – she was at the meeting and thriving.  Others were campaigning to get re-housed or stop police injustices.  A rape survivor had written a play to highlight her experiences and wanted volunteer actors to help stage it.  A woman recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis had started a parents’ support group.  More than one woman said that a successful outcome depended on not giving up, and getting together with others.  All agreed.  Supportive men described how much they owed their mothers and partners.  Norway was mentioned as an example of breastfeeding success – a mothers-led campaign had reversed a downward trend and 99% of infants are now breastfed.  A petition for a living wage for mothers and other carers received a warm welcome.  The Women’s Centre was praised for providing a space where women and their families could meet, volunteer and support each other.  Solveig Francis of Crossroads Women, commented: “Women shared truths rarely heard in public, and came out informed and fortified.”  A sign language interpreter, who volunteered her services, ensured that deaf people present could participate.  Women filled in a ‘Mothers/Carers Have Your Say’ questionnaire, which was launched at the event alongside two ‘Did You Know?’ fact sheets: ‘Poverty & Wealth in the UK’, and ‘Caring for Children & Adults in the UK’.  (All are available at www.crossroadswomen.net.) On Saturday 7 December, the Women’s Centre will be hosting a Living History Meeting where two East End survivors of the London blitz will recount their experiences of working class endurance and rebuilding during World War Two.  And there will be a Christmas Fair on Saturday 14 December (11-2pm).