Ladyfest Essex and my other projects

If you read this blog regularly, you may remember at the beginning of the year about all the projects I was hoping to do. Well most of them are happening! Only one has not really taken off yet. I was hoping to set up a feminist group in Southend, sadly after several months trying I had to give up as no one was turning up to any meetings. I tried to arrange with people on the facebook group but no one would commit to a date so I had to just pick a date, advertise it and see what happened. Nothing happened. I haven't completely given up though. I've given it up as Southend Fawcett Society and later in the year I'm going to try a different approach and give it a go as Grrrl Virus Southend and do things differently. I really want to meet other grrrls in my area, I know they must be out there somewhere!

One of the things that has succeeded, although slowly, has been making my own zine. I wrote it back at the end of December, it's called 'Dancing Barefoot' and is a perzine. In the first issue I've wrote about growing up and friendships. It took me a while to get printed versions. The quotes I got were very expensive, so I decided to make it into a free PDF. and then in the last few weeks I found out that a local stationary shop does double sided photocpying pretty cheap, so I got some copies made there last week! They are A4 sized, and are £1.75 to buy which is to cover the cost of printing and postage. If you're interested in buying one, just email me- moonlight.phoenix@gmail.com and I'll send you details on how to buy it. Hopefully I can get started on the second issue soon!

Lastly but the biggest thing of all, is Ladyfest Essex is actually happening! andf I have been working super hard on it!
It's happening Saturday June 11th, upstairs at The Railway Hotel pub, Southend, it will be £3 to get in with all proceeds going to the charity Refuge
Basically it is an all dayer event (2pm-11pm) with the main focus on the music. There will also be spoken word from Sundown Multimedia as well as stalls selling cds, zines, crafts, and other feminist related goodies! I'm also lucky enough to have someone from Refuge actually attending the event, to do a stall and also do a short talk about the charity!
The band line up is:
Art Gruppe http://www.reverbnation.com/artgruppe
Ten Tigers http://www.tentigersmusic.co.uk/
Femmepop http://www.myspace.com/femmepop
Candy Panic Attack http://www.myspace.com/candypanicattack
Calico http://www.myspace.com/calicobanduk
Death of the Elephant http://www.myspace.com/deathoftheelephant
The Scarlet Echo http://www.myspace.com/thescarletechomusic
Le Monnier http://www.le-monnier.com/

The only problems I'm having at the moment is trying to sort out a drumkit that we can use for the whole day, and volunteers! so far, only myself and one other person are doing anything. I need 3 more for on the door (2 people for each shift) people who can collect donations with tins, a photographer (identifed as female would be prefable in the spirit of ladyfest) and general help with promoting (flyers up, handing out etc)!