Summer Solstice News

Dear Friends,

Summer is here, no doubts as we just had the longest day of the year! Hopefully this excessive heat is not affecting you too much, as some find it harder to cope than others. Do keep well hydrated, please.

Today I am forwarding a list of very interesting and culturally varied events that people might find useful.
Well done and all the best to all involved.


Special highlight...while Ronnie is occupying most of the screen in "Mad to Be Normal" (and giving some hope and satisfaction to all Laingians and anti-psychiatrist types), Londoners next week will have the chance to meet a true Loonies' hero that lived the tales and tragedies that took place at Kingsley Hall in the Sixties.
Please find below the info about the "Mary Barnes" play
csmevents.co.uk/

LOONIES FEST CALL OUT:
Join us at Kingsley Hall on Tuesday 4 July 4-6 PM for a briefing and mind mapping for the programme for our special day on Saturday 9 September as it is starting to shape up.

We'd like to invite anyone willing to exhibiting their art work in the dedicated show 'Survivors Stories'. We are also looking for stewards, first aiders, crew members with practical experience and initiative and volunteers. On the day there will also be a market place (Saturday 9 September 12-4PM) and stalls will be available for mental health groups and organisations. Please send queries and suggestions to nat.kingsleyhall@gmail.com
More info bit.ly/2sh1Bbk

Solstice Blessings to all!

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​HUGE FALL IN DLA TO PIP REASSESSMENTS (from Benefits and Work newsletter http://bit.ly/2sBArZY)

The number of people being summoned to go through their DLA to PIP reassessments has plummeted in recent months. The combined number of PIP new claims and reassessments has plunged from 104,333 in January of this year to 49,409 in April. Most of the fall is due to a huge reduction in DLA to PIP reassessments. The DWP have offered no explanation for the fall, saying only that “reassessment registrations have decreased due to DWP managing capacity within the system.” Anecdotal evidence from our members suggests that waiting times for assessments have risen in recent months. So the reason may simply be that a large backlog has once again built up and the DWP are doing their best to cover up the truth. We’d be very interested to hear from you about how long you waited for your face-to-face assessment.

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Post-Election Anxiety by Mental Health Under Capitalism - support and solidarity group 
Thu 22 June 18:45pm, Common House, Unit 5E Pundersons Gardens Bethnal Green, London E2 9QG

Following the horrific formation of a Tory-DUP alliance, many of us are filled with dread at the thought of further cuts to mental health services, financial instability and fractured communities. This is down, at least partially, to the somewhat uncertain role of the DUP; a party who are pro-Brexit, anti-choice, anti-LGBT rights, climate-change deniers with strong links to loyalist paramilitary groups. Little wonder so many of us are feeling anxious.

Join us at 18:45 for an hourly discussion of the 2017 General Election, followed by our solidarity and support group session. We hope to see you all there.

Mental Health Under Capitalism is a collective of anti-capitalists who are interested in the impact of how capitalism effects our mental health, creating communities of care and support for one another bit.ly/2sR6g31

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SECTIONED (1/2h play)

Saturday June 24th, 11am in The Orchard, White Hart Lane, Basingstoke. As part of Fluid Motions All in the Mind Festival.

Reading based Rose and Thorn Theatre Company are presenting 'Sectioned' about a gay man who has a breakdown and who is detained by the police under section 136 of the mental health act, the stresses that cause this, how the mental health system react and how things could improve.

John Hoggett, the author of the play, who is also acting in the play, said, "LGBT people have high rates of mental distress with gay men suffering twice the rate of psychosis as the general population. Services often ignore the causes of people's distress and section 136 assessments have massively increased in recent years due to cuts in budgets to services so all of these things are worth looking at." John Hoggett was also a founder of Speak Out Against Psychiatry which bought survivors of psychiatry together to protest against the injustices they felt they had suffered bit.ly/2mBFhWG

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Lords of Sounds and Lesser Things ​(Part of the East End Film Festival​)​
Sunday 25th June film screenings from 18.15 pm. The Castle Cinema, First floor, 64-66 Brooksby's Walk Hackney, London E9 6DA

Emerging artist filmmakers Juliet Jacques and Ker Wallwork present their film 'Approach/ Withdraw', which explores the intersection between queer love, sex and gender with biomedical science, alongside a selection of other works that were an influence on it, or form a dialogue with it. Inspired by the Queering Love, Queering Hormones project. This programme will consist of: Marina Grzinic & Aina Smid - Bilokacija Lis Rhodes - Light Reading VALIE EXPORT - Syntagma Katherine Arianello - The Interview (Parts 1 + 2) Stéphane Marti - Allegoria Eline McGeorge - A World of Our Own Andrea Crespo - Polymorphoses.

Presented in partnership with no.w.here. Tickets can be bought​ here​ bit.ly/2ttUFVs

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'Mary Barnes'

Final year students of the Drama Centre London (part of UAL Central Saint Martins) present the BA Acting Production 'Mary Barnes' an adaptation from the David Edgar playwright about Mary’s time in Kingsley Hall.

Directed by Georgina Sowerby (Dirty Market theatre www.dirtymarket.co.uk) at the Platform Theatre, 1 Handyside St, Kings Cross, London N1C 4AA
Mon 26 Jun, 7.30pm
Thu 29 Jun, 2.00pm and 7.30pm
Fri 30 Jun, 2.00pm
Sat 1 Jul, 7.30pm
Ticket Prices: Adults £12 | Concessions £9 | UAL staff / students £6
Suitable only for people aged 14 years and over
csmevents.co.uk/

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30 June 2017 Time: 7-9 PM Shoreditch Art Wall 17-19 Great Eastern Street, Shoreditch, London EC2

To Celebrate the 2017 World Para Athletics Championships Artist Michelle Baharier and the Artist group Vision with Action for Children, lead by Artist Sarah Hughes have created Murals To Celebrate the 2017 World Para Athletics Championships running 25th June - 23rd July 2017.

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​​Thai Boxing Fighters Academy (Service User Led) Annual General Meeting 2016-2017
Monday 10th July 2017 19:00-20:00 at Oxford House Derbyshire Street, Bethnal Green London E2 6HG

Buffet & Social 20:00-21:00 Guest Speaker: Marion Khalam (TBFA) Special Guest: Alan Green, Vicar St Johns Church. Please confirm attendance at 07769797916 thaiboxingfightersacademy@yahoo.co.uk​ www.thaiboxingfightersacademy.com/

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Interrogating Digital Capitalism: a series of events organised by Breaking the Frame
Event 1: Digital Technology and Neoliberalism – the Basics
July 6th 2017, 7.15pm. Apple Tree pub function room. 45 Mount Pleasant, Clerkenwell, London WC1X 0AE

How does digital technology function in and shape neoliberal capitalism? Is it just a question of corporations using technology to their advantage or has digital technology fundamentally reshaped the whole system? Are we already, as a key anarchist critique, The Cybernetic Hypothesis suggests, enmeshed in a control system in which conventional resistance just strengthens the system? Ursula Huws (University of Hertfordshire) will describe the nuts and bolts of how digital capitalism works.

Richard Hall of De Montfort University will look at a critique of digital capitalism developed by French anarchists in the 1990s. Free/donation. We apologise that this venue has no wheelchair access. Other events will be at accessible venues. For more information contact info@breakingtheframe.org.uk, or visit breakingtheframe.org.uk/category/events-listings/


Event 2: Digital Technology as Heavy Industrial Technology: iSlavery and Environmental Destruction
September 6th 2017, 7.15pm. Feminist Library meeting room, 5 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1 7XW
Digital technology is often seen as ‘immaterial’ and ‘smart’, defining a new industrial and social paradigm. Yet digital gadgets are produced within an ‘old-fashioned’ highly exploitative regime that has been likened to slavery, whilst the industry creates massive environmental destruction and makes a major contribution to climate change.

Jack Linchuan Qiu, author of Goodbye iSlave will describe the conditions in Chinese electronics factories, such as Foxconn, which were brought to international attention by a wave of worker suicides in 2010.

Second speaker (TBC) will look at the environmental impacts of digital technology and its role in causing conflicts.
Free/donation. Venue is accessible, we would advise wheelchair users to contact us in advance if possible.

For more information contact info@breakingtheframe.org.uk, or visit breakingtheframe.org.uk/category/events-listings/ For later events in the series visit breakingtheframe.org.uk/category/events-listings/​