Thursday April 18th
Doors & drinks 6.30pm; Talk starts 7pm

The law is fundamentally conservative. And yet, approached creatively, it can nonetheless be used to achieve radical outcomes.

Barrister Jolyon Maugham KC is founder of Good Law Project and author of Bringing Down Goliath: How Good Law Can Topple the Powerful. Since 2016, GLP has been challenging the government through the courts on Brexit, political appointments, the PPE fast track, its net zero commitments and its clampdown on protest.

Jolyon will argue that rather than attempt to change the law to achieve radical social change, it’s far quicker and more effective to work within the law as it stands, and that by engaging with the legal system, citizens can begin to find their agency. He’ll explore the difference between a legal win and victory in the broader sense, and why many within the legal profession view him as a heretic.

Friday April 5th, 12th, 19th and 26th, 6.30-10pm

Our regular Club Drinks at 84 Tottenham Court Road is going weekly in April.

Many of you have asked for us to open more often in the evening, so what have been monthly Friday bar nights will become weekly throughout April. If weekly proves popular, we’ll continue through the summer. If attendance is poor, we won’t, so do come and show your interest!

No booking required, but if you’d like to tell us you’re coming that would help with our planning.

Thursday April 25th
Doors & drinks 6.30pm; Event starts 7pm

What would the education system have to look like for it to move us to a culture that is functionally able to address climate breakdown? If we accept that capitalism is the central driver of climate breakdown we cannot continue to overlook school as the backbone of global capitalism.

Artemis D Bear worked in climate change policy in a previous life but left because they found it frustratingly ineffective, given not only the scale but also the depth of the issue. They came to understand that we can’t begin to address the environmental devastation wrought by this system of governance until we create a less adversarial and hierarchical culture.

Eight years ago they started a Self-Directed Learning Community called The Garden, which was the first of its kind in the UK. They also now work for Phoenix Education running the Freedom to Learn programme, supporting a network of over thirty SDLCs.

This interactive workshop will show not only a roadmap to a different education system but a different system of governance and a society that can both mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Thursday May 2nd
Doors & drinks 6.30pm; Talk starts 7pm

For thousands of years, humans have pondered their nature and what follows from it. Despite all the diverse human cultures and origin myths, one idea has prevailed: humans are made of two parts, a spiritual and an animal part.

Through this idea, we have shaped a world in which being animal is often seen as threatening, even debasing, whereas being human is viewed as uniquely precious, and morally and spiritually elevating. Even today, when we face a world in which we are the agent of environmental change and destruction, the idea of being animal remains contentious or morally confounding.

In this talk, Melanie Challenger, non-fiction writer and author of How To Be Animal, will ask what might a world look like in which we took a different view of our animality? How would our ideas and our democracies shift if we took seriously the possibility that we live in a world of rich beings who should be respected and included? And how would the idea of our own animal nature get us there?

Tuesday May 7th
Doors & drinks 6.30pm; Talk starts 7pm

Talk and discussion with Wild Card cofounder Joel Scott-Halkes, ahead of our day walk across Knepp Wildland on Saturday May 11th.

The British countryside is dying. Pollinator numbers are falling, ecosystems are collapsing and species are dying out fast. But how can this be happening in a nation of nature lovers? The answer is simple: Everyday citizens like us have lost control over the land we love.

With 50% of Britain owned by less than 1% of its population it is aristocrats, royalty, corporations and large institutions who now decide the future of our landscapes. This puts us in a truly precarious position. As we stare down the barrel of the climate and nature emergency, we find ourselves with no democratic control over our most important environmental resource: land.

In this politically and ecologically charged talk, Joel will take a deep dive into the practice of rewilding, the astonishing mismanagement of our countryside by private landowners and the ambitious but practical ways we, as citizens, can take back our land. From radically democratising the UK’s huge areas of common land to executing “citizen take overs” of the UK’s big institutional landowners like The Church and National Trust, Joel will lay down a route map for a wilder and fairer Britain.

Thursday May 9th
Doors & drinks 6.30pm; Talk starts 7pm

In the last two decades it has become increasingly common to hear about existential risk, the possibility that humanity may be heading for extinction or global collapse. This risk is very real and deserves to be taken seriously, but risk is only one way that we can look at future possibilities.

SJ Beard will explore what happens when we shift our focus and think about the same problems in terms of ‘existential hope’, the possibility that humanity may be the first species in the history of our planet not only able to contemplate the possibility of our annihilation but to shape our own futures to avoid it.

They will argue that focusing on the opportunities of existential hope, rather than the anxieties of existential risk, can help us change our own relationship with the many global problems we face; calling our attention to what actually needs to change and how we can all seek our own way of making that happen.

Building existential hope is not something we can do over night, but is a long-term process, building on many generations of dreamers, engineers, and activists who have taught us how to explore speculative futures, identify and respond to complex hazards, build cooperation and consensus across boundaries, and work together to achieve our collective aims.

Saturday May 11th, 10.30am-4.30pm

The Knepp Wildland is a 3,500 acre rewilding project in Sussex, now 20 years old. Formerly conventional farmland, the Kneppe estate is now a dynamic ecosystem, home to endangered species such as nightingales, turtle doves and purple emperor butterflies as well as herds of old English longhorn cattle, Tamworth pigs, Exmoor ponies and red and fallow deer.

Join us for a walk across the Knepp estate led by Helen Locke of XR Walkers.

We’ll take a manageable 6.5 mile route along the public footpaths (a total of about three hours walking) with breaks to observe the wildlife and detours to visit the various treehouses – to spot stork nests and for views across the estate -, the bird hide and the castle ruins. We’ll also take a break for lunch.

Tuesday May 14th
Doors & drinks 6.30pm; Event starts 7pm

For the first in a new series exploring the common ground between two apparently differing positions, we’re focusing on UK climate activism.

What are the points of disagreement between the moderate and radical wings of the movement and how can they be overcome or navigated in order to build solidarity?

The radical position will be represented by Indigo Rumbelow of Just Stop Oil and the moderate position by Rupert Read of the Climate Majority Project, with contributions from a range of people from throughout the climate activist ecosystem.