Post-Gathering Eclipse: A Review

It’s been over a month since the Eclipse network held our first gathering in Liverpool, and we’re now in the process of shaping the project’s future. 47 organisers active in 34 projects showed up, from 27 towns and cities across England, Scotland, and Wales, for up to three days of workshops, discussions, and networking, keeping a broad focus on revitalising anarchism and anti-fascism on these islands. This isn’t the first time such a gathering has been attempted here, but many of us came away hopeful all the same for Eclipse’s prospects.

We provided six meals – vegan, gluten-free, nut-free, and sulphite-free, thanks to a tangled web of dietary stipulations – organised by volunteer kitchen teams, and served with domineering zeal courtesy of the local youth. The event was entirely self-funded, with collective subsidies on travel and food costs available, and we were able to make £400 in solidarity donations to our venue, facilitation team, and BSL interpretation team, with a couple hundred put by for future events.

In the days following, the project’s initial roster of four working groups more than doubled, with a focus on increased interconnectivity, strategy, radical education, and forthcoming action. It’s likely that most involved found it a useful step in connecting disparate groups, especially with increased collaboration between anarchist media projects.

It’s perhaps useful now to share some of the gathering attendants’ feedback here (the majority positive, though not without constructive criticism):

• the tour of the hosting housing co-op was well-received (for whom we organised volunteer work crews to help with home improvements), as were the morning nature walks
• folks were especially happy with Tripod, the facilitators, though some wished that even more sessions were held by them
• the DeafAnarchy workshop went down really well, as did Plan C’s strategy games
• the gathering’s largest issue was that the agenda was too overstuffed, not allowing enough time for discussion – directed or informal – or to introduce ourselves properly
• the disruption to sleeping arrangements was a real problem for some, with short-notice changes to late night spaces forcing early-sleepers to relocate
• a lack of childcare was a particular problem, with no designated physical kids’ space or dedicated childcare team
• another problem was a lack of communications by the organiser team in the gathering’s immediate run-up

Some of the above problems were unforeseeable and specific to that weekend, but many of these are things we can and (almost definitely) will improve on in future.

It’s fair to say that Eclipse isn’t as refined at this time as everyone in the network would like; as is the nature of such a decentralised and motley beast, we’re still working out our organisational kinks – including the tensions between structure and structurelessness, and we’re not yet in a position to describe what the Eclipse actually *is* with any authority. Alongside the working groups’ ongoing activities, there’s planned a series of monthly online meetings to resolve some of these questions, and we’re aiming towards a second in-person Gathering, this time during late summer.

There’s every chance this second gathering should be somewhat larger, as there were – alongside the usual last-minute cancellations – a growing collection of folks who couldn’t make it in-person, or who hadn’t heard about Eclipse in time for the event. And we’re still likely to want to keep the focus on face-to-face and real-space organising, as opposed to remote attendance, as it seems to us an effective vehicle for improved trust and communication; but nothing is as yet set in stone.

Our numbers have mushroomed up now from our original handfuls of organisers, but (now we’re mostly recovered and back up to health) we’re immensely grateful to all who attended and took part. The minutes will soon be getting out to those concerned.