Taking a Moment to Reflect

When you’re involved with any kind of grassroots campaign or community group, it can be hard to find the time and space to reflect on how much you’ve achieved. We’re constantly looking ahead. When’s the next meeting? The next fundraiser? The next deadline?

But reflection is such a valuable tool. Looking back at successes and achievements is reinvigorating and provides a huge boost to morale. Taking the time to discuss any problems that you’ve encountered is also worthwhile, and can make the path ahead clearer.

As June comes to a close, so we are taking a moment to reflect on what Partisan has achieved over the last month.

The main focus for Partisan has been fundraising for our permanent space. Following a fantastic event at the Cities of Hope festival in May, we started off our fundraising efforts for June at Islington Mill with SLUT DROP x Force Majeure. It was great to be able to let our collective hair down and we partied into the early hours!

The next weekend we put on a clothes, record, and book swap at 3space. The day was topped off with delicious homemade cakes and our resident Partisan DJs playing some tunes.

clothing rails full of dresses and other clothes
Just a few of the clothes from the SWAP fundraising event

And the weekend after that was the Elevator Day fundraiser at Fallow Café, which was another successful and fabulous party. Looking back, we’ve been pretty busy with fundraising! And that’s sure to continue over the rest of the summer.

Having a boogie at the Elevator Day party
Having a boogie at the Elevator Day party

At the beginning of the month we had just about settled in to our temporary space at 3space Manchester. Since then, our meeting space has been used by so many wonderful groups: Manchester Radical Mental Health, Ladyfest Manchester, Manchester Punk Festival, Greater Manchester Housing Action, Picket the Profiteers, and Manchester People’s Assembly Committee.

Our temporary space has been getting a lot of use!
Our temporary space has been getting a lot of use!

The demand from this huge range of groups goes to show how valuable an established Partisan space would be to the artists, creatives and communites of Manchester.

It’s been heartening and inspiring for us to look back at our events calendar and see so many names there. We’ll be continuing to work towards securing a permanent space for these groups – and many more – to come together and create.

If you want to get involved with creating a much-needed DIY space in Manchester, come along to our next general meeting. Partisan will be meeting at 3space this Saturday (July 2nd) and will meet on the first Saturday of the month from now on. We hope to see you soon!

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