Actione Ecole!

Tonight's post bears witness to the creation of a community action group! a group with morals of steel and loin of cloth! This group shall fight the effort to undermine the School and persuade that most feared of adversaries - Sheffield City council, to relent its campaign to sell the School building from under its loyal tenants. Emotive rhetoric aside, will it work? Dunno, but its worth a try.

What am I rambling on about? well. The council have given notice to the tenants of the Heeley community centre building which is home to the School board. Originally we understood that we would be evicted by May 08, but we've all had letters to tell us to be out by the end of November. The building is home to a number of artists, 30 odd climbers and a number of community groups who use the downstairs bit. These include scout groups, sugar artists, womens writing groups, lesbians, martial arts clubs and a mystical group called the herbalists. They (the council) claim to loose £36000 a year on the building, and to be fair we don't pay much rent. There's something about a change in the management of the councils asset portfolio moving the management over to a group who have basically been tasked with cashing in some of these assets. So, this is how we get to the present. The building has been nominated as one of those that will be sold, and letters of intent issued. Thus far, there has been no formulated response as it wasnt known whether people wanted to fight for the building, but as of this evening, it seems people do.

Of the people at the meeting, Keith Hayman did a good job of chairing the meeting but the most useful input was from a dude from Heeley community trust called Andy. He had fought and lost a battle to keep St Annes grove (similar building, different area). His steer was that although St Annes had been fought and lost, there were less groups and users of the building in that case, and it was wilfully mismanaged into ruin. There was much more procrastination but ultimately Seb, Nic and Roy are our elected nominaries and we should feed our inputs to them for submission to the group. I plan to write a paragraph about what the school is, where it comes from and what it means. This is intended for inclusion any media coverage of whats going on. There was some discussion of involving a reporter from the star who is a climber apparently.

But will it do any good? well, I feel quite encouraged! I entered the meeting feeling rather that it was a done deal and that there would be no way we could change the councils mind. I still dont think we have a great case and that there is much chance to save the building, and to be honest, I have pretty much no spare time now, so worry about what I can contribute. But I do think there is a good chance we can at least extend the time before it comes to an end. I just don't think we will find anywhere else.

Anyway, climbing - was rubbish tonight. Felt good warming up but then tired fast when I started campussing. You need to be so on it to get anything out of Campussing. Nige looked amazing on the campus board, and Keith (arms like Legs) was doing one armers on the campus board! hellfire! got to get stronger! I want to be able to do one armers on the campus board rungs too! Think I need to take some weight off and train specifically for it! but then that makes me think - why do I want to do that? cos its cool! yes, but it doesnt translate into hard redpoints outside does it? or does it???? Anyway, got dead psyched for power endurance campus work and now think thats the way forward. Target is to get up 1-3-5-7-9 back down 9-7-5-3-1 then up and down again. Waddage!

Nothing really to report from the weekend except the excitement of finding a new finish to Ben's roof! dead exciting! after the hard cross to the good hueco, still move the left to the edge of the roof, only now bring right hand into undercut above the head, tension tension tension! and work those feet up before left go and go again to the penultimate hold, then finish with the right hand. Apparently this is how Ben Moon first did the problem. Ed 'I'm shit and weak' Robinson blazed through it nonchalantly. Rupert was on Evolution, Rich heap was filming, STONE IS ON MECCA!!! loads of people out. Not sure I like this populist revival of limestone. It was better when I had the crags to myself ;-)