TSC News Autumn

Travelers’ School Charity Newsletter Autumn 2002

The classroom is undergoing maintenance readying it for the next mission which is hoped will be to the Gypsy site in Bedfordshire. They have requested the computer classroom to help women on the site with their driving theory test and provide Internet access for teenagers. Using the computers to do this they will also receive computer training.

Funding applications have also been submitted in the hope that we can keep the classroom going.

Police check forms have been submitted for all staff planning to work with the charity.

Piet Defoe is now working for the charity on the New Deal and has taken on responsibility to maintain the equipment, administer and build the computer network and produce the newsletter. This is the first newsletter produced by Piet. What do you think? Any ideas, suggestions or stories would be appreciated.

If any more funding comes through then it is planned to set up a computer network and improve Internet access. Setting up a network will offer more flexibility when teaching and will increase the functionality of the existing computers.

Greetings cards made by the children visited last winter During the tour one thing the kids did was make greetings cards using the computers art programmes. We thought that it would be a good idea to try and publish some of these cards to raise funds for the charity. This idea hasn’t happened yet but if anyone is interested in taking it on or has any ideas or suggestions we’d love to hear from you.

The long awaited report of the first phase of the computer classroom is now available. This document is a detailed report of the mission carried out between January and March 2002. It includes details, findings, suggestions and ideas on all aspects of the tour from how to protect computer keyboards from sticky fingers to the complexities of living on the road. The document costs £7 if you are interested send a cheque/PO payable to “TSC” to Kaye Angus at the address on the back

Computer training
A 2 day computer training workshop is to be given by Piet for all people working with the computers. The course will cover many aspects of computing and it is hoped that after the course people will be able to keep the equipment running. The course is also open to other Trustees and people involved with the charity who want to expand their computer knowledge. Get in touch if you want more information.

Heres an idea for a new logo, let us know if you like it. If you have an idea for a new logo please send it to us. Let us know if you want to keep the original.

MUMS WITH KIDS HERE. LEAVE US ALONE!

Not you! The council. They want to evict us.

Come November 1st, Mid Beds Council intends to chuck us out on the road. "Go and live on a lay-by", they said in the High Court. All 200 of us.

No matter our kids are going to school. And we bought this place ourselves, to settle down. We'd like to get them under the Race Relations Act and Human Rights!

We're Romanies see, and SUPPOSED to have rights. But they still deny us a place to live. It's coming down now to a sort of ethnic-cleansing - right in the middle of England's green and pleasant land.

We bought l7 acres of it, because the government said we should set up our own caravan parks (The councils don't have to any more, since they brought in the Criminal Justice Act).

WOODSIDE is our home. Lovely spot in Hatch, near Sandy, off the A1 in Bedfordshire. Only someone in Hatch wants to build a row of posh detached houses here. So we must go.

BUT WE THINK WE CAN STOP THEM. WE ARE GOING TO STICK - AND MAKE OUR STAND HERE. NOT JUST FOR OURSELVES BUT FOR THE HOMELESS AND NEEDY EVERYWHERE.WILL YOU JOIN US?

Tents and campfires, and cups of tea, is all we can provide you. But you will be lining up (we say) on the right side of our barricades against injustice, intolerance and racism.

A hundred good people have already added their names to the RED ALERT "Cascade", willing to come to Woodside on getting a phone call to say the eviction attempt is starting (or coming up to stop with in the Tent City the night before).

SEND IN YOUR NUMBER and PLEASE PUT THIS MESSAGE OUT FOR US!

Phone: 01206 523528

Or: 01767 689736

Posted on behalf of Janey Codona

National Travellers Action Group, Woodside