Join the Wingnut Anarchist Collective!
For a little over 3 years, the Wingnut Anarchist Collective has existed and consisted only of people who live at the Wingnut house in Southern Barton Heights.
Not only has this restriction of membership been restraining the growth of our organization, but it has been ignoring the many contributions to various projects from people who don’t live at the house. Well, we’re tired of shooting ourselves in the foot, and not empowering people to participate and organize with us!
We want to give credit where credit is due, and organize, as anarchists, with people who can’t for whatever reason, live in the Wingnut house.
To this end, we are separating the household aspects of our collective from the political ones, and opening the collective up to people who identify as anarchists and want to organize with us in this space. Folks who live at the Wingnut house will still have veto power over how many and what type of events are hosted at 2005 Barton Avenue, and residents will still be paying the mortgage and utility bills. The change will be that non-residents can identify as members of the Wingnut, organize events in the space, and help expand existing programs and develop new ones.
Some of the things we have done in the past include: hold Memorial Day bbq’s In Memory of People Who Were Murdered by the State, started Copwatch, facilitated Copwatch and Know Your Rights trainings, distributed anarchist literature, held demonstrations outside of the Richmond City Jail, hosted zine readings, hosted political plays, hosted anarchist speakers and presentations, hosted puppet shows, hosted musical acts, held potlucks, screened political movies and fun movies, held craft nights, playing games with kids, distributed a Wingnut newsletter, created anarchist literature, etc.
Some of the projects we are currently engaged in include: hosting Food Not Bombs every Sunday, the monthly Mobile Food Pantry in Southern Barton Heights, starting the SMART Recovery sobriety group, organizing with the neighborhood association, organizing the Wingnut Radical Lending Library, Southern Barton Heights FNB Grocery Distribution, etc.
Some of the things we would be interested in doing/expanding in the future include: self care workshops, consent workshops, mediation trainings, sobriety support, increasing volunteer support of Open Hours of the space and radical lending library, woodshop open hours, screenprinting workshops, collaborative zines, etc.
Some of our core values include: consent, creating a safer space, anti-oppression work, respecting pronouns and identities, accountability, supporting the growth and education of members, maintaining a sober space, etc.
If you would like to be involved and join the Wingnut Anarchist Collective, we will be holding the first meeting of the political collective on January 28th.
We are putting the word out ahead of time so that there will be plenty of time for people to come talk to the current Wingnut Residents (Dave, Eris, and Mo) about what we are thinking, how this might look, etc.
We are generally thinking that we would have monthly meetings of the Wingnut Anarchist Collective to make decisions and plan events, an email listserv thing, and our mission statement/principles to guide us. We would also like to develop some expectations of participation, so that everyone
We welcome folks who identify as anarchists and are willing to organize around those principles and our core values. We would like to develop things like a Mission Statement and Principles or something similar as a political organizing group.
