Sound of Mu Workshop

We held another very successful workshop in Sound of Mu yesterday. The workshop was attended by around 25 volunteers. After a lively discussion we divided into several groups and started working on various areas of the campaign:

• We began the process of forming a new organisation. It is called "Grünerløkka Kultur og Næring" and will act as an umbrella for all our planned activities. As soon as the organisation is founded we can start raising funds. The committe was voted in as follows: Chairman: Paul Thornton, Treasure: Caroline Roka, Secretary: Kristian Krohg-Sørensen.
  
• The graphic design group will be holding their own workshop to develop a logo for "GKN" and will also be working with the flyers group to come up with some eye catching leaflets, T-Shirts, posters etc to raise awareness of the campaign.
• One of our new members agreed to start contacting borettslags (housing organisations) and asking them to show their support of our campaign.
• Our petition group told the meeting that we have now reached 7500 petition signatures with a lot more still to be collected.
• Several people will be contacting the press to gain greater coverage of Grünerløkkas plight.

If I have forgotten anything I hope that somebody will let me know and I'll update the blog.

From now on we will be organising a bi-weekly meeting in Sound of Mu so that everyone can get together and discuss their progress. I will post the date of the next meeting here and on facebook in the next few days.

Art and iHus!

Knut and I have just returned from a meeting with iHus in Thorvald Meyers gt. Knut initiated contact with iHus some weeks ago to try to come up with a way for them to better serve the community.

The result of the negotiations is that iHus will work with local artists to promote and exhibit their work. I can't say much more right now as the deal has not yet been finalised. What I can say is that it is VERY exciting.

We will be talking a little more about the deal at the meeting tomorrow in Sound of Mu. Kudos to Knut for his excellent initiative.

A couple of new links

We have a new referer. It's Eddi... Thanks!

There's also a small underskog post about the meeting on Friday here.

Meeting/Workshop in Sound of Mu

We will be holding another meeting/workshop in Sound of Mu (bottom of Markveien) on Friday 11th May between 17:00 and 20:00. If you would like to offer your help to the campaign, please turn up and introduce yourself.

It's ok if you can't make it at 17:00, just turn up as soon as you can.

Presentation to Bydels Utvalget 03/05/2007

The campaign gave a brief presentation to Bydels Utvalget on 03/05/2007. The meeting was very interesting, with Kristian Krogh doing a great job explaining the case and answering questions.

Below is a brief overview in Norwegian of what happened during the meeting (thanks for the transript Kristian). There is also a version in English kindly translated by Tereza.

--- Norsk -------------------------------------------------------

Referat fra møtet i Bydelsutvalget (BU), torsdag 3. Mai 2007

Til stede fra foreningen:
Paul Thornton
Lene Middleton
Arvid Holmgren
Bodil
Kristian Krohg-Sørensen

Møtet fant sted i bydelsutvalgets lokaler i Markveien. Vår appell ble avholdt umiddelbart etter at motet satte I gang, under posten “åpen halvtime”. Appellen ble holdt av Kristian Krohg-Sørensen.

Etter appellen ble Kristian stående for å besvare spørsmål fra Bydelsutvalget. Politikerne så ut til å ta appellen alvorlig, og det ble stilt spørsmål fra alle partier.

Ikke uventet kom de mest umiddelbare støtteerklæringene fra Ap, SV, og Venstre. Ellers ble det vist interesse for våre generelle synspunkter: RVs representant ville vite i hvilken grad vi støttet regulering av skjenketider/hvorvidt vi anså dette som relevant ift kioskene; Frps representant lurte på hvorvidt vi var motstandere av alle kjedebutikker (som eksempel ble nevnt etableringen av Expert og –nille i Markveien); en representant fra Høyre spurte om ikke mesteparten av initiativet ligger på forbrukerne som bruker kioskene.

Interessant er det også å merke seg at Høyres Ulf Granli luftet ideen om å gå i dialog med Grünerløkkas gårdeiere.

Bydelsutvalget lovte å se på tiltak for å kartlegge problemet, men ingenting konkret ble vedtatt. Imidlertid har vi ved over 300 innsamlede underskrifter mulighet til å levere inn et lovforslag til Bystyret.

I etterkant av møtet har vi gått i dialog med Per G. Dahl, en av Arbeiderpartiets representanter i BU, for å se på realistiske løsninger til lovforslag. Dahl har også hjulpet oss med informasjon om pengestøtte i forbindelse med tiltak av typen alternative Grünerdager.

--- English ------------------------------------------------------

Bydels Utvalget meeting 03.05.07

Present:
Paul S. Thornton
Lene Middleton
Arvid Holmgren
Bodil
Kristian Krogh–Sørensen

The meeting took place at the BU offices in Markvn. We were asked to present our appeal in an “open half an hour” setting straight after the meeting started. Kristian Krogh was appointed to hold the presentation.

After the presentation was over, he was asked to stay and respond to any questions by BU. Politicians took our presentation very seriously and questions were asked by all parties.

As expected we were shown the most support from AP, SV and Venstre. Politicians were interested in our general direction: A RV representative asked about our view on the regulation of opening times and how we think it is relevant to food chains; A FRVP representative was wondering who does our opposition of chain stores include (Expert, Nille in Markvn); A Høyre representative suggested that perhaps the most responsibility lies on the individual consumers shopping in food chain stores (kioskene).

It is also interesting to mention that Ulf Granli came up with an idea to contact Grünerløkka’s property owners.

BU promised to take actions to point out problems but nothing concrete was decided. As we have over 300 signatures we have the opportunity to approach the city council with a proposal for a new law.

One of the outcomes of the meeting was the we started a dialog with Per G. Dahl, Arbeiderpartie’s representative in BU, to find a realistic approach to a new law proposal. Mr. Dahl was also very helpful with information regarding financial support for “Alternative Grünerløkka days”.

How to join the "members only" facebook group

Some people are having trouble joining the members only facebook group. Here's what to do:

1. Join facebook. It's free and painless.
2. Log on to facebook.
3. Fill in your profile with all the relevant information.
4. Join the "Norway" network.
5. Now, you need to find somebody that is already a member of the members only group to invite you to join. If you can't find anybody, email me at grunerlokka+at+gmail+dot+com with a brief description of what you can offer the campaign/why you want to join. You should receive an invite to the group within a few hours.
6. Try to make the group as active as possible. Post ideas, pictures, meetings, events etc.

You can find the members only group here.

Self referencing update

I sent out an email to our mailing list explaining what has been going on with the campaign over the last week. For completeness I've copied it here although it is a little self referencing :o) The emails will be a less frequent now I am writing this blog. If however you would like to subscribe to the mailing list send an email to "grunerlokka+at+gmail+dot+com" with the word "subscribe" as the subject.

___________________________________________________________________

Hi Everyone,

It's been a week or so since the last update. So much is happening that we can barely keep up and it has become clear that a mailing list is not the correct medium for getting the information out to those that are interested. Therefore, we have set up several other means of disseminating information and organising meetings and events.

BLOG

I have set up a blog that will be updated regularly. It contains a running commentary of what is happening in the Campaign to Save Grünerløkka as well as links to related information, other blogs, underskog posts, media articles etc. You can even subscribe to the blogs RSS feed if you like. Please feel free to make lots of comments and tell us what you want out of the campaign.

The link to the blog is http://darkwinters.blogspot.com.

Facebook Group

You can join our facebook group to share ideas and meet likeminded people. The group already has over 1000 members and can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2396621897. We also have a private facebook group for those that want to offer their help. You can only become a member of the private group by being invited by one of the current members. If you don't know anybody that is in the private group already send an e-mail to grunerlokka@gmail.com with a description of the skills you can bring to the campaign.

A lot can happen in a week

Since the last e-mail we sent out a great deal has happened, most of which is detailed in the blog. Here's a quick roundup of the news:

• We held a meeting for people interested in helping out with the campaign in Villa Paradiso. The meeting was very productive and we gained many strong new members.
• We are in the process of setting up a new, non profit organisation that will likely be called "Grünerløkka Kultur og Næring". It will be possible for both businesses and individuals to join. I will discuss more in a future blog posting.
• We presented our case to local politicians and got a very favuorable response. They seemed amazed that we had already collected over 6000 signatures. That was nearly a week ago though, now we're close to 7000 names! Let's see if we can hit 10000 by the end of the month. Please ask all your friends to sign and send the link to the petition to everyone you know. The link can be found on my blog.
• We have met several politicians from various political parties and discussed how they can help save Grünerløkka.
• A borettslag in Grünerløkka agreed to only rent their shops to small businesses and not chain stores. Aftenposten ran an article that you can find here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/44240/Aften-04-05-2007
• Due to the campaign, one of the businesses that has had a lot of citisism, has agreed to our demands for them to integrate better into the community. I can't say too much yet as we have not finalised the deal, but when it is signed and sealed informatation will appear on my blog.

Urgent!

You have probably heard about the plight of Sultan, the grocery shop in Thorvald Meyers gt. They have had a 1000% increase in rent over the last few years and may be forced to close their store. If, like me and many others, you rely on Sultan please show them your support. Time is running out. Do we really need another 7-11 in Grünerløkka? Especially another 7-11 across the road from a Deli de Luca!

Want to help?

We still need lots more volunteers. If you would like to join the campaign and fight for a great cause, simply reply to this e-mail, visit the blog and leave a comment or join the facebook group.

Cheers,
Paul Thornton
Save Grünerløkka Campaign.

___________________________________________________________________

Barry's Blog

Many thanks to Barry from Sound of Mu for posting a couple of features about the campaign on his blog. You can find them here:

Grünerløkka vs. the Chain Stores
Grünerløkka vs. the Chain Stores (part 2)

If you know of any other bloggers writing about the campaign please let me know and I'll include links to them here.

Interlopers

We've been getting reports of unauthorised persons collecting petitions from the shops, restaurants and bars around Grunerlokka.

If you are in the least bit suspicious about the person collecting your petition sheets please get in touch with myself or Lene.

Online Petition

Oops! Almost forgot the most important link of all. The online petition. You can find it here:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/grunoslo/index.html

If, after signing the petition, you are asked to donate money, you will be donating to the hosts of the petition site, not to our campaign. The wording of the page after you have signed is a little ambiguous and can easily be misunderstood. Whether you donate or not, your signature will still have been added to the petition.

If you prefer to sign the petition in person, you should find one in almost any small shop in Grünerløkka. If it's not there, ask them why!

Recent articles

Still playing a little catch up with the blog. Here are a few links to articles about the McGentrification problem in Grünerløkka and what our campaign is trying to do to combat it. They're both in Norwegian, but non Norwegian speakers can still look at the pretty pictures.

The first article was written by Annicken Vargel and appeared in Dagbladet in March. The Save Grünerløkka Campaign came into existence when this article was published. It made me realise how strong peoples feelings were about the situation and gave me a reference point to start discussions. The article can be found on sribd here.

The second article by Gabrielle Graatrud was in Aften on 12/04/2007 and can be found here. This article is an introduction to the Save Grunerlokka campaign and contains comments from several shop owners and politicians.

Finally, another article by Gabrielle appeared in Aften on 04/05/2007. It describes the campaigns first little victory. One of the borettslaget (housing associations) in Grünerløkka has agreed to only rent out it's shops to businesses that comply with the existing cultural environment i.e. no big chain stores, no real estate agents etc. The article can be found here.

Future links and articles will be posted here as soon as I see them. If anybody else spots any that I miss, please send me a link.

First campaign TV appearance

Apparently an interview with me about the Save Grünerløkka Campaign appeared on TV2 news on Monday morning around 08:00. If anybody happened to record it (does anybody record TV news?) please add a comment here as I was too lazy to get out of bed and watch it!

Stranger things have happened

I never thought I would have the time or inclination to set up a blog, I'm usually too busy to actually write anything down. I've gone and done it though, mainly to document a campaign I am running that is taking up a good portion of my life. More of that later though.

First, I'll start with a little background.

My name is Paul Thornton and I live in a little village within Oslo, Norway called Grunerlokka. I'm originally from Preston, England but got stranded here several years ago when my Norwegian girlfriend and I parted ways.

After several years of single life in Oslo I met my Czech girlfriend, and very soon to be wife, Tereza. Tereza and I (mostly Tereza) have been running a little shop called Trabant for a couple of years now and it has become quite popular with the locals. We sell vintage and retro clothes, funky T-Shirts and a variety of alternative apparel.

We knew that our shops contract was expiring in October 2007 so we contacted our landlord's intermediary and told him that we would be happy to extend the contract for several more years. To cut a long, drawn out, story short we were (eventually) told that our neighbours, Nille, wanted to expand their new shop into our little shop and that we would not be given the chance to extend our contract. We tried to negotiate but we were basically told that Nille is a huge company and we don't stand a chance to match what they will pay. So, we were out!

At this point I started thinking about how our street, Markveien, had begun to change very quickly over the past months and years. The small, alternative, exciting shops owned by enthusiastic individuals were rapidly being replaced by large, bland, corporate chain stores.

Why was this happening?

It all started many years ago with a wonderful phenomenon called gentrification. Gentrification is a process by which run down areas become popular due to an influx of young people, artists, cafes, shops and, of course, money. Eventually the gentrification matures and turns into McGentrification (you won't find that in a dictionary). McGentrification occurs when all the big chain stores realise that there is a quick buck to be made by moving into the areas made popular by the small stores, artists etc. As McGentrification takes over, the rental prices sky rocket and the small shops are forced out of business as they cannot afford to stay in the area any longer. The rents often rise faster if many of the stores are owned by only a few landlords that can easily fix the level of rent that shops have to pay.

This is what has happened to us and is happening to the rest of our neighbourhood. In Grunerlokka the rent on some shops has increased by 1000% in only a few years.

It's already too late for Trabant, we have to move. It's not too late for the rest of Grunerlokka. All we have to do is join together as a community and start pushing back a little.

Thanks for stopping by :o)