Brighton & Hove planning notes

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If you'd like to involved in organising or promoting this ride, please join the WNBR Brighton & Hove Yahoo group.

Jobs

Volunteers wanted

To really make this ride happen, people are wanted to get involved in organising and promoting the ride. The following jobs need to be taken on by eager volunteers:

Before the ride

• Pre-ride event organisers (1 volunteer)
• Police liaison (URGENTLY NEED MAIN VOLUNTEER!)
• Press release writing and media liaison (3 volunteers – press releases written and distributed by Press Dispensary)
• Flyer and poster printing and distribution (1 volunteer)
• Legal support
• Outreach (see interest groups, below)
• Publicity
• Web editors and designers (for this wiki and the main site)
• Fund-raisers (funds needed for advertising, flyer/poster printing, legal costs etc)
• Communications officer – email-outs, mailing list etc

On the day

• Body painters
• Cycling marshalls, front and back (with walky-talkies?) (1 coordination volunteer)
• Stationary marshalls at key junctions
• Stewards (non-riding), to set up and clear start point etc
• Bike/skate mechanics
• Sound system bikes and riders
• Trailer bikes to carry clothes?
• Refreshments provider at end of ride (nudist beach?) (ice box with beer, fruit etc?)

Interest group representatives

Individuals and representatives from the following interest groups are also sought:

• Activists
• Body arts practitioners
• Cyclists
• Environmentalists (1 volunteer)
• Lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender community (1 volunteer)
• Naked protesters
• Naturists/nudists
• Performance artists
• Skaters
• Students
• Sustainable transport advocates

See also: the Related Interest Groups section of the WNBR Brighton Yahoo! group.

Event clearance

• The event and route will be cleared with Sussex Police Planning & Events Department
• It may also need to be checked with the Brighton & Hove Council Events Office
• We will have free public liability insurance through Bike Week
• We might be able to hook up with the BASS (Brighton Alliance of Sound Systems), who staged a festival by the Peace Statue last year, on 10 June 2006

Police ”censorship”

Full nudity (exposure of "rude bits", ie: genitals) was banned at the 2006 ride by Chief Superintendent Jeremy Paine. He has now left this post, replaced briefly by Graham Cox, then Alan Ladley, and now Kevin Moore (soon to move on too? – 14/3/07).

A strategy needs to be established for overturning this ruling in 2007.

Pre-ride events

Planning meetings

Planning meetings to discuss this ride will be held on the last Friday of each month between January and May (the months before the ride). They start at 8pm, and are timed to follow the Critical Mass Brighton bike ride. The venue is the Caroline of Brunswick pub (formerly The Leek & Winkle). Please come along if you'd like to get involved!

The following venues are also under consideration:

• The Branch Tavern, London Road (contact: Sue) – has upstairs function room for hire
• The Bat & Ball pub, Ditchling Road – quiet, "old man's" pub by the Level
• Salvation Army hall

Solidarity event, Saturday 10 March

If a sufficient number and gender mix of hardy cyclists can be found, a publicity stunt ride is being considered on Sunday 12 March. This is in solidarity with the Southern Hemisphere rides happening that day, as well as a means of publicising the June ride.

Film screenings

Films

WNBR Brighton & Hove 2006 films (5-10 minutes each) – see Brighton & Hove footage#Video

Other WNBR, naked protest and Critical Mass documentaries considered:

• World Naked Bike Ride, London, 11 June 2005, by Keith Roberson (5 mins)
• World Naked Bike Ride – The Documentary by High Altitude Films (30-min film about the London 2005 ride, narrated by Jon Snow)
• Naked (Canadian naked protest documentary, 30 mins)
• Other naked protest documentary (5-min London naked protest documentary available)
• Still We Ride (Critical Mass documentary, 37 mins)
• We Are Traffic (Critical Mass documentary, 50 mins)
• Car Nation, episode 2: 'Of Course I Can Have Five Cars' (?) (Denham Productions)

Venues

Venues considered:

• Ali-Cats Bar, Brighton
• Cineworld/UGC, Brighton Marina
• Cowley Club, Brighton – possible link-up with their weekly film night (Tuesdays, 8.30pm)
• Duke of York's Cinema, Brighton
• Brighton Fringe Basement
• Gardner Arts Centre, Falmer
• Odeon, Brighton
• Sanctuary Café, Hove
• University of Brighton
• University of Sussex, Falmer – possible link-up with University of Sussex Environmental Society (meets weekly during term: Wednesdays, 5pm, Training Room 1, Falmer House)

Volunteers

Please get in touch if you can help organise these screenings: Do you have connections with he venues? Can you lend or borrow a video projector? Would you like to give a short talk to introduce each film?

Pre-ride cycle confidence training session/s

Ian at Bike For Life has offered to organise pre-ride training sessions to boost people's confidence with riding bikes, prior to the June ride.

Company promotions and endorsements

• The Big Lemon have expressed an interest in chartering a double-decker bus for the ride (to transport riders from and to London? Clothing-optional?)
• Brighton & Hove Council's Walking & Cycling Officer (Abbie Hone) has offered to set up a 'Dr Bike' session at the start of the ride
• Natural Balance Foods are intersted in promoting their Nakd cereal bars at the ride (thanks to Liz Wakefield from the Green Party!)
• Sustrans might be persuaded to set up a stall at the start of the ride

Taking part

Participants should be reminded to bring bags to carry clothes, but just in case, organisers should bring some!

Bike and skate hire companies need to be contacted about the possibility of hiring out bikes and skates. (Eg: Planet Bikes?)

Pre-ride body-painting workshop

To be held in a building (possibly the Salvation Army hall) or covered enclosure close to the start location (possibly the Level), at around 9am.

Volunteers wanted: Body Painters

Route

Start

The following locations, in order of popularity, are being considered as a starting point for the ride:

1. The Level, Brighton. (Advantages: Critical Mass start point, central. Disadvantages: quite public.)
2. The Peace Statue, Hove. (Advantages: traditional meeting point for protests, good for seafront start. Disadvantages: very public.)
3. The Floral Clock, Hove. (Advantages: in traffic island away from pedestrians. Disadvantages: not well-known?)
4. Black Rock naturist beach, Brighton. (Advantages: nudist location. Disadvantages: out of town, not in traffic, intimidating for non-nudists.)

Volunteers wanted: People to put up rider enclosure ribbon barriers, information desk etc

Route

2007 note: The pedestrianisation of New Road is due to finish on 4 May, and the roadworks on North Street are due to finish on 1 November, although the latter may not be a problem as west-east traffic is still permitted.

It is proposed that the route should go past some or all of the following Brighton & Hove landmarks and tourist attractions, giving the ride a "naked sight-seeing" feel:

• The Seafront
• Brighton Pier
• The North Laine, Brighton
• The Lanes, Brighton
• Churchill Square, Brighton
• The Royal Pavilion, Brighton
• The Peace Statue, Hove
• West Pier, Hove
• George Street, Hove

Draft route map: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=143955 (old draft: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=37724)

Please take a look at this map and post your comments to the WNBR Brighton & Hove Yahoo! group.

The route starts at the Level and ends at the Black Rock naturist beach. It passes the following landmarks (in route order): Royal Pavilion, Old Steine, Brighton Pier, Brighton & Hove seafront, West Pier, Peace Statue, King Alfred Leisure Centre, George Street, Hove Town Hall, Floral Clock, Western Road, Churchill Square, Clock Tower, the (south) Lanes, North Laine, Jubilee Library, Kemptown. The route is 6.9 miles long (Critical Mass Brighton usually goes between 5 and 7 miles).

This route was tested on 22 April 2006 by Nick, Tamsin, Mike, Miriam, Mandi and Ian. This proved very productive, with many issues being brought up. The main effect on the route was to turn in to Church Road at Fourth Avenue rather than Seafield Road (too far into Hove, difficult traffic!).

It would be a good idea to make stops along the route in case people want to take off more clothes. The best potential places for this are: the Peace Statue, the bottom of Fourth Avenue, Hove Town Hall and the Floral Clock (+ maybe New Road/Victoria Gardens?).

Thoughts:

• Is this route too long?
• Would it be better to avoid the Western Road bus lane?
• It misses West Street – is there a way to include this?

An alternative route also needs to be planned, in case of bad weather or small turn-out.

Eric's suggestions:

• "Riding anticlockwise reduces the number of times you cross the traffic."
• "Make sure that no other event/s are going to clash with your route on the same day."

Volunteers wanted: Ride Marshals/Stewards, Bike Mechanics

Finish

Black Rock naturist beach will probably be the finish point for the ride. Brighton Train Station was initially considered as it would allow quick travel to the London ride. However, this was thought to be a logistically difficult place to finish, and it didn't have the possibility of continued nudity offered by the beach.

Post-ride event

A post-ride party or gathering should be organised for riders to wind down after the World Naked Bike Ride.

If the ride finishes at the Kemptown Nudist Beach, the event can be clothing-optional and involve a swim!

Local companies could endorse the ride by providing prizes (eg: Best Slogan, Best Body-Painting, Strangest Bike etc).

Volunteers wanted: Post-Ride Event Organisers

Publicity

Flyers, posters, stickers etc

Printing

Please print and distribute posters and flyers around Brighton & Hove, Sussex, London and the UK. Download PDF files from the Files section of the WNBR Brighton & Hove Yahoo! group site.

WNBR London have had postcards, business cards and fridge magnets printed for free, or very cheaply, at VistaPrint.

The Brighton Resource Centre has computers available for cheap printing and photocopying.

Can any printers offer to do a cheap/free print run? (Preferably using recycled paper and/or vegetable-based inks.)

Distribution

Suggested places to put flyers and posters:

• On bikes (trap under brake levers/cables etc)
• Bike racks at the train station, library, colleges and universities
• Infinity Foods noticeboard
• Brighton Fringe office window noticeboard
• Café noticeboards (eg: Dumb Waiter, Sanctuary Café)
• Shops (Brighton shops often accept A3 posters)

Web links

A list of links related to this ride is maintained at the WNBR Brighton & Hove Yahoo! group.

If you know of any related sites that can link to us, please ask the site administrators to do this. The link text should be "World Naked Bike Ride, Brighton & Hove, UK", and the link URL should be http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wnbr-brighton/. To link to the global site, please use the link text "World Naked Bike Ride", and the URL http://www.worldnakedbikeride.org/. Blurb:

On Saturday 10 June 2006, in locations around the world, people will be riding naked to celebrate cycling and the human body. The ride demonstrates the vulnerability of cyclists on the road and is a protest against oil dependency. Be there, as bare as you dare!

Please also add related links to the Related Interest Groups section of the WNBR Brighton & Hove Yahoo! group.

Media coverage

WNBR Brighton & Hove press release, produced by Press Dispensary (print/PDA versions)

The following media have been contacted about covering the event:

• The Argus newspaper [1]
• Attitude magazine
• BBC Southern Counties radio – interview on 23 May 2006 at 12 noon
• Blue Guide To Brighton – post-ride editorial planned for July 2006 edition
• Don't Panic – article in the Transport issue [2]
• EasyJet magazine
• G Scene magazine – promised to publish article in June 2006 edition
• The Latest magazine
• London Cyclist magazine
• Radio Reverb
• Rocks magazine – promised to publish article in June and July 2006 editions

Film crew/s

The Latest magazine's film division have offered to film the event if we can find a rickshaw for them to do this from, and if we buy digital video tapes for them to use. Does anyone know of a rickshaw or tandem we can use?

Potential contacts: Bugbugs (London), The Bike's The Business (Brighton)