Sheffield Anarchists launch local community news sheet

The Fargate Speaker | 08.06.2007 15:38 | Other Press | Workers' Movements | Sheffield

The Fargate Speaker is a community based anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, libertarian publication designed to engage with the real issues that effect local people. We also hope to offer practical solutions on how to tackle these problems and advice on strengthening ones own community.

Issue 1 (Summer 2007) of the Fargate Speaker is now available on-line. If you have any comments, contribtutions or would like to get involved please email:

fargatespeaker@googlemail.com

http://www.afed.org.uk/sheffield/fargatespeaker.pdf

The Fargate Speaker
e-mail: Fargatespeaker@googlemail.com
Homepage: http://www.afed.org.uk/sheffield/

Comments

Hide the following 6 comments

Your vision of Anarchism say everything abt the wrong intepretation u give it

08.06.2007 17:03

what reactionary fucking stickers on the website! You do nothing to take away from the impression that all that "anarchy" stands for is violent upheaval. Upheavel, yes, Insurrection, surely. But violence for violence sake is what becomes synonamous with anarchism and is the reason why your intepretation of these ideas will never go further than a small bunch of mean spirited, politicoes into class struggle who are rallying against the world because they have life-time chips-on-their-shoulders for whatever reason.

We have to be cleverer than this.

A slight re-design of these leaflets would go along way to promoting the struggle so much more.

Maybe your isolationism is your intention.....

Pragmatist

Advice

08.06.2007 18:11

Good luck with this, a wee bit of advice though...

Content

- Needs more/shorter articles (if it's a two-page freesheet should have six minimum)
- Needs more localised stuff (only the quick mentions of how the BNP did qualify in this issue)
- Needs unique stories as a draw
- Need less ranting and more facts.
- I don't know any more about Sheffield now than when I started reading.

Design

- Logo should be simpler and smaller
- You only need to use one font, use dividers and tinted boxes to mark separate articles
- Don't run stories onto the back page, don't place small stories inside the text of bigger stories where possible, use picture stories on the front for better initial impact
- Lead headline should be bigger, downpage headlines (ie. non-lead stories) smaller
- Three columns is generally better than two for A4 pages. One column looks awful.
- Leading (distance between lines) should never be as large as in the ballots story. Find a pic or something to fill it our if necessary, or for preference, find an extra story to go undreneath
- Be consistent and proof it thoroughly, you've got two different caption fonts for example, and two different subheads on the front page.

Rob Ray
mail e-mail: copy@freedompress.org.uk
Homepage: http://www.freedompress.org.uk

'Pragmatist' = lowest common denomentator liberal

08.06.2007 20:04

I've printed it off, so I'll look forward to reading your news sheet later. By the way, love your stickers!

Neon Black
Homepage: http://dreaming-neon-black.blogspot.com

fair play....

09.06.2007 04:30

fair play for a first issue, don`t agree with it all, but I`d be worried if I did!. Don`t be put off by preceeding comments, Rob Ray`s comments are constructive criticism, and I would agree with most of what he says. As for pragmatist, he is of course right about `violence for violence sake`, so all ya need is context to provide any justification for dem who aren`t quite sure where you`re coming from. Violence is and always will be a misunderstood topic, as w see yet again in Germany at the minute- where the press (mainstream and leftist) are creaming their pants about blackblok violence whilst conveniently forgetting about the institutionalised violence of state and capital. What I`m tryin to say is that even though you might know that what you advocate is pure ting dem, some people don`t uzndertstand it even when, or maybe because, it is forced down their throat every day. A couple of sentences somewhere will sort this out, puts yimg src="/img/maillink.gif" border="0"/> 325collective@hushmail.com (available in magzine format too.... yo, yo, yo, blatant advertising in the area!)

chimp23
mail e-mail: chimp23@hush.ai
Homepage: http://325collective@hushmail.com

comment fukked up at end

09.06.2007 05:52

That comment seems to have lost about four lines in some weird formatting error, I can't remember what I wrote exactly and can't be arsed to try and remember, but I have sent a longer comment direct, yes, that`s direct, to your e-mail address. Hope that makes up for the formatting error that I didn't make- cheers

chimp23

stickers = agitprop

09.06.2007 09:12

the stickers shouldn't really be seen in conjunction with anything else, they are agitprop. After considering who the stickers will speak to and who they won't we went for confrontational stuff.

Libertarian politics will find its real powerbase in communities and workplaces, but that kind of work will never be initiated by stickers. What the stickers can do however is give anarchism a presence and speak to the large number of people who do have anarchist sympathies as a contact point. I hate to say it, but its no different from advertising's product recognition; the more times you see it, the more its on your mind.

Some more placid and thoughtful stickers could definitely be in the works, eyes peeled now...

Rob Ray:

Nice one, thank you for the advice.

Wevie Stonder