Falkirk For All

Singing at start of ral­ly and march in sup­port of asy­lum seek­ers at Cal­len­dar House in Falkirk. Shereen will be lead­ing us. Please let me know asap if you want to come so we can sort trans­port etc. Sheila and Mar­garet will coor­di­nate the jour­ney, ral­ly and march. Send Sheila a text with your name and num­ber if you are com­ing. Ral­ly from 10.30am. March starts at 11am. We will need to be at Cal­len­der House for 10.15am so we can sing as peo­ple gather.

Get­ting there:
from Edin­burgh
8.45 Meet out­side WHSmith at Waverley.
9.06 Train leaves for Falkirk Gra­ham­ston Sta­tion. This sta­tion is on the line to Stir­ling, not the same line as last week if you were there.
9.38 Arrive Falkirk Gra­ham­ston. Jes­si­ca from FOSS will meet us there,
Walk to Cal­len­der House as a group with Jes­si­ca. We will need to be ‘on it’. It’s about a mile. If this is a bit much for you espe­cial­ly giv­en the time issues, I have 2 spaces in my car from Edin­burgh or Falkirk Gra­ham­ston. Don’t hes­i­tate to ask me 0784 508 1707.

From else­where
Aim to get to Falkirk Gra­ham­ston for 9.35 if you want to walk in with us. Please let Sheila or Mar­garet know if you will be mak­ing your own way to Cal­len­der House for 10.15am so we aren’t wait­ing for you. 

Affin­i­ty groups: We will be organ­is­ing our­selves into small affin­i­ty groups – this is a small ‘fam­i­ly pod’ so that you can keep an eye on each oth­er and check in with each oth­er. Then there are always 3 or 4 peo­ple who have your back specif­i­cal­ly. It’s impor­tant to let some­one in that group know if you decide to leave to make your own way back at any point. We are in process of find­ing out the route of the march.
I will hope to be there in advance with the PIH ban­ner as a ral­ly­ing point.
Final point: keep any eye on your emails in case of any last minute changes. 

From Penny’s brief­ing for singing at Clad­han Hotel 
What to bring The usu­al warm and water­proof clothes as need­ed, and water – a hot drink is ide­al. Bring ear plugs or ear pro­tec­tion of some sort, and if you are a hear­ing aid user, con­sid­er turn­ing them down or off. Here is a link to some well-regard­ed but afford­able musi­cians’ in-ear plugs that you might want to con­sid­er. With these you will still be able to hear the oth­er singers so we should still be able to sing in tune togeth­er, but they will still pro­tect your ears. https://www.alpinehearingprotection.co.uk/collections/music. Bring your phone, and be ready to film in case of any inci­dents of violence.

Who are we singing for? Fol­low­ing the first sing out­side the Clad­han hotel, there has been a rich and ongo­ing con­ver­sa­tion with­in PiH about how best to use our songs and our­selves in this envi­ron­ment. We are clear about want­i­ng to sup­port the local organ­is­ers of the week­ly ‘Falkirk For All’ gath­er­ings. ……..We have also talked about how we might find ways to con­nect (prob­a­bly in oth­er envi­ron­ments) with some of the peo­ple at the ‘edges’ of the anti-immi­gra­tion protests, whose main con­cern is real­ly the cost of liv­ing cri­sis and have much crossover with our con­cerns about the ris­ing pover­ty gap in Scot­land. So we are focus­ing on songs that are clear in their sup­port of asy­lum seek­ers and everyone’s right to free­dom, whilst try­ing to avoid songs that might make it a more com­bat­ive space. This is a work in progress! We will con­tin­ue to assess what we sing, and how, as these gath­er­ings con­tin­ue, so do take note of any reflec­tions so that we can keep shar­ing our learn­ings as we go along.

Falkirk Trades Union Coun­cil Stand Up To Racism — Edin­burgh Stand up to Racism Falkirk for All Scot­tish Trades Union Con­gress (STUC)

Please read this brief­ing doc­u­ment before attending.
Here is our song­sheet.