Sunday, May 27, 2018

Listings Update: Summer 2018

NHS at 70: Free, for all, forever
Saturday June 30 

Assemble 12 noon, Portland Place, London W1A

Global Justice Now will be joining the NHS at 70 demo to celebrate our free publicly-owned health service and demand the right to health for all.
We'll also be distributing leaflets and talking to other demonstrators about our campaign to put people before profit in the global drug industry.
In 2017, the NHS drugs bill was £4.4 billion bigger than it had been six years earlier. £4.4 billion is more than five times the NHS deficit in 2017. For the big drug companies, the NHS is a cash cow – they can hike the prices, knowing that most of the time the NHS will pay up.
Join Global Justice Now on the demo: Meet 12 noon outside the Polish Embassy, on the corner of Portland Place and Weymouth Street.
Demo organised by Health Campaigns Together, Trades Union Congress, The People's Assembly, Unison, Unite, GMB, British Medical Association, Royal College of Nursing, Royal College of Midwives, CSP, BDA, SoR. See the Facebook event for more info.
[From Global Justice website - many other notifications/affiliations are available, e.g. See also: www.ealingsaveournhs.org.uk; https://wfsonhs.wordpress.com/; www.unitetheunion.org etc.]
=========================

Chartism Day 2018


at University College London
Start: Jun 09, 2018 10:00 AM
End: Jun 09, 2018 07:00 PM
Location: IAS Common Ground, South Wing, UCL

On Saturday 9 June, UCL will host this one-day conference on the Chartist movement (1838-1858) for workers' rights and democracy.

Programme


10-10.45: Rhian E. Jones, “The Rebecca Riots: Gender, Culture and Popular Protest in Early Victorian Wales”
10.45-11.30: Emma Harris, “Bartłomiej Beniowski, the London Polish émigrés and the early Chartist movement”
11.30-11.45: Break

11.45-12.30: Peter Cox, “Transcribing the Land Company share register”
12.30-13.30: Lunch

13.30-14.15: David Kennerley, “Strikes and singing classes: The politics of sound in 1842 and after”
14.15-15.00: Mike Sanders, “Redemption Songs: From Charter to Rasta”
15.00-15.15: Break

15.15-16.00: Alison Denham, “A whirlwind of ideas in 1840s London”
16.00-16.45: Jacob Dengate, “From Euphoria to dismay: a closer look at Chartist responses to the Revolutions of 1848”

17.45: Meet at Kennington* tube station

David Goodway on 10 April 1848

Richard Galpin on the Kennington Chartist Project

Steve I. Martin on Black involvement in working-class movements in London and in Chartism

19.00: Drinks


Fees: £10 registration fee, including tea and coffee breaks and lunch.

Organisers: Joan Allen, Richard Allen, Malcolm Chase and Fabrice Bensimon
Contact: Fabrice Bensimon, f.bensimon@ucl.ac.uk
Please register via the UCL online store.

*Kennington Common, scene of the great mass meeting in 1848
Furthermore...
"Will You Fight For it?": A Radical History walk… 
from Camberwell Green to Kennington Park

A snapshot of Chartism in South London 
And other radical wanderings in the local rebellious past…
Thursday 14th June 2018 
Meet 6pm, Camberwell Green, London SE5
Completely free... all welcome

Join Alex from past tense on a ramble through some of South London’s Chartist past… and digressions into other related elements of the area’s subversive undercurrents…
Come along and contribute to the discussions as we investigate Chartist demonstrations, riots and revolutionary plots… discover some of the groups who preceded Chartism… the culture that Chartism inherited and built on… some of the movements that arose from the ruins of the Chartist movement.

Email: pasttense@riseup.net
For more info @_pasttense_
facebook: pasttensehistories 
pasttenseblog.wordpress.com
Part of the 1848 Kennington Chartist Project
========================

The First Annual Dave Gibson Labour History Lecture
Organised by Barnsley TUC and Barnsley College UCU
'Orwell and the Workers' 
With Prof John Newsinger (Bath Spa University) and author of 'Hope Lies In the Proles': George Orwell and the Left
Saturday 16 June 1pm The Civic, Hanson Street, Barnsley, S70 2HZ

"The first annual Dave Gibson labour history lecture will focus on George Orwell. Orwell visited Barnsley while researching ʻThe Road to Wigan Pierʼ and his collected works contain shocking details about the state of housing in Barnsley at the time of his visit. Dave Gibson used this information in his contribution to a Workers Educational Association course on labour history in Barnsley and Graham Mustin will give a short presentation based on Dave's lecture notes.
"The main talk, entitled ʻOrwell and the Workersʼ will be by John Newsinger, professor of history at Bath Spa University and an acknowledged expert on Orwell. John has written the highly acclaimed ʻOrwell's Politicsʼ and most recently ʻOrwell and the Proles: George Orwell and the Leftʼ a critical account of Orwell's politics exploring his anti-fascism, criticism of the USSR and enduring commitment to socialism."

FOR FURTHER DETAILS CONTACT: Email: garthu@gmail.com | Mobile: 07985 02800
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NEWS FROM NOWHERE CLUB
 invites you to our next meeting on
 Saturday 9th June 2018
7.30pm Buffet (please bring something veggie if you can) 8.00pm Talk

At the Epicentre, West Street E11 4LJ                       Enquiries 0208 555 5248

Allotment Gardens: A Surprising History. Speaker: Dr Lesley Acton PhD
"Think allotments are just about growing vegetables? Think again. Allotments have a long history & are reflective of the times in which we live. This talk will explore the many sides of allotment history: growing food, intrigue, lawsuits, government, politics, wars, land grabs, art, culture, recreation & not least of all, want & plenty. Lesley is the author of Growing SpaceA History of the Allotment Movement.She has worked for many years in the heritage industry as well as researching cultural history, urban agriculture, food security & culinary history."  
                 Free Entry    All welcome    Raffle
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The Vi Gostling Memorial Lecture 

Saturday 14th July 2018
 (part of the Leytonstone Festival)
Radical Hospitality, Personalism and Freedom of Movement:
A Catholic Worker Perspective
Speaker:  Nora Ziegler
Nora is a community member of the London Catholic Workers’ house of hospitality in North London. The London Catholic Worker is an ecumenical Christian community living together with 20 men who have no recourse to public funds and would otherwise be homeless. The community members work full time as volunteers running this inspiring house. They also take part in protests and non-violent direct action against war and the arms trade and in solidarity with migrants. Nora will speak about freedom of movement from the perspective of the Catholic Worker movement and her own experiences of “radical hospitality” as resistance to border violence.  
At the Epicentre, West Street, Leytonstone E11 4LJ
7.30pm Buffet (please bring something veggie if you can)     8.00pm Talk
Enquiries 0208 555 5248  roskane@btinternet.com
Free entry. No need to book. All welcome. Raffle. Donations welcome.
 Travel: Stratford station and 257 bus    Leytonstone tube and 247 or W14 bus
Leytonstone High Road Overground and short walk
Disabled access  Quiet kids welcome
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German Historical Society Annual Lecture
German Historical Institute 
"The German Historical Institute London (GHIL) is an academically independent institution and part of the Max Weber Foundation – German Humanities Institutes Abroad. It promotes research on medieval and modern history, in particular on the history of Britain, on the British Empire and the Commonwealth, and on Anglo-German relations. Its public library specializes in German history."
21 June
(5.30pm)
Ulrich Herbert (Freiburg)
The Russian October Revolution and the German Labour Movement
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New Anarchist Research Group
The next meeting of the New Anarchist Research Group will be held (as usual) on the fourth Saturday of the month, which this month is 23 June
We will be having an open discussion on the ideas of Murray Bookchin,
in the MayDay Rooms, 88 Fleet Street, London EC4Y 1DH 
2:00pm to 4:30 pm

“What has often been missing in contemporary anarchist thought is a vision of how an anarchist or libertarian socialist approach might transform society in practice. Bookchin proposes an alternative to two unpromising approaches that are common in recent anarchism. One is to focus almost entirely on resistance and oppositional work, while leaving constructive counter-institution building for possible future consideration. The second is to put one’s efforts into a variety of constructive but basically marginal projects, hoping that somehow this will transform the world. Bookchin’s crucial contribution was to help revive debate within anarchism and libertarian socialism concerning the possibility of a realistic program that had a meaningful and reasonably concrete vision of how society could be deeply transformed in the foreseeable future.” (John P Clark)

If you have time before the meeting, please read one or more of the four online summaries of Bookchin's ideas about Libertarian Municipalism listed below, or anything else by or about Bookchin.
Our meetings are friendly and informal. [ We do ask everyone who comes to make a small contribution to the cost of hiring the room.]
Murray Bookchin: Libertarian Municpalism: an overview
John P Clark: A Critical Introduction to Bookchin's Theses on Libertarian Municipalism
Damian White: Murray Bookchin's new Life
Joris Leverink: Murray Bookchin and the Kurdish Resistance
https://roarmag.org/essays/bookchin-kurdish-struggle-ocalan-rojava/
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Anarchist Research Group - July meeting 
Utopia as Process. Noham: A thought experiment
Saturday 28 July 2:00pm - 4:30 pm
Utopia as process.  Noham: A thought experiment
Hugh Barnard
"In 2016, I had a talk with someone from the Newham Greens and Rokshana Fiaz (who is now mayor of Newham) about systematic approaches to fly-tipping. As a result I spent a little time thinking and writing an essay about 'what the borough should look like' from the point of view of someone who is both 'technical'. 'ecological' and poised between federated anarchy and Bookchin's (later) municipalism. In 2018, I stood for the Greens and (as we expected) lost, but did quite well, ending up in front of the Tories and LibDems, so I am pushing for some of this in the borough.

"I regard it as being a work in progress and will probably do something more formal with it, this year as part of my degree. These kind of experiments are about 'how things fit together'. Non-prescriptive 'Utopia as Process' is very central for Ruth Levitas: https://www.cusp.ac.uk/themes/m/m1-5/ "

Hugh Barnard studied chemistry at Imperial College and then spent 40 years in the world of computers. He spent 20 years on the continent of which 10 years in Belgium as an 'expert en informatique' (a technical advisor) to the Commission and later to the European Parliament. He returned to the UK in 1997 and is currently a philosophy undergraduateat Birkbeck specialising in political philosophy, ethics and logic. He has maintained an interest in anarchy since reading Berkman's ABC ofAnarchy in about 1967, currently he is interested in Bookchin, 
eco-anarchists, utopia as process (Ruth Levitas) and the role of technology in radicalism.

Venue: MayDay Rooms 88 Fleet street, London EC4Y 1DH

Please note that there will not be a meeting in August.  
Our Autumn programme, which will be circulated in late August, will start on Saturday 22 September.
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Ella Baker School of Transformational Organising
Talk/Discussion:
Reflections on Knowledge, Learning and Social Movements: History's Schools
Thursday 21st June 6-8pm

National Education Union (NEU), Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, London, WC1H 9BD
We are delighted to announce that Dr. Aziz Choudry will be discussing his new book, Reflections on Knowledge, Learning and Social Movements, and thereafter facilitation a discussion on the relevance of historical materials in political education. This event fulfils the tradition of the school in helping facilitate inter-movement dialogue in shaping activist education.
We are grateful for colleagues at the NEU for providing a room for this event.
Please register here if you can attend.
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Reflections on Knowledge, Learning and Social Movements: History's Schools

"How do educators and activists in today’s struggles for change use historical materials from earlier periods of organizing for political education? How do they create and engage with independent and often informal archives and debates? How do they ultimately connect this historical knowledge with contemporary struggles?"
Aziz Choudry is associate professor and Canada Research Chair in social movement learning and knowledge production in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill University, and visiting professor at the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation, Faculty of Education, University of Johannesburg. He is author of Learning Activism: The Intellectual Life of Contemporary Social Movements (2015), and co-editor of Reflections on Knowledge, Learning and Social Movements: History's Schools (2017), Just Work? Migrant Workers’ Struggles Today (2016), Unfree Labour? Struggles of migrant and immigrant workers in Canada (2016), NGOization: Complicity, Contradictions and Prospects (Zed Books, 2013), Learning from the Ground Up: Global Perspectives on Social Movements and Knowledge Production (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), among other books.
========================
Striking Womenan event for Feminist Book Fortnight
Feminist Library
5 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1 7XW
Monday 25th June at 7pm

On 7th June 1968 the women workers at Ford Dagenham and Liverpool went on strike, while today the women’s strike is again becoming an international phenomenon. As #MeToo leads to more and more women outing their abusive bosses and co-workers, the time is apt to look at the history of striking women. From the 19th Century to today, what can we learn from their struggles? How can we rebuild women’s solidarity? What do modern women’s labour struggles look like?

Sundari Anitha and Ruth Pearson, the authors of Striking Women, Sally Groves the author of Trico: A Victory to Remember and one of the striking women, and Diana Holland, assistant general secretary of Unite the Union, will join us to discuss these issuesWith more speakers to be announced.

Trico: A Victory to Remember, Lawrence and Wishart  The remarkable story of 400 women who, in 1976, went on strike for 21 weeks to win equal pay with their male counterparts. This trail-blazing strike was essential to making women’s rights a central focus for the labour movement in the UK. Trico: A Victory to Remember is illustrated with stunning archive photos mostly unseen for over forty years, and anecdotes from some of those involved.

Striking Women: Struggles and strategies of South Asian women workers from Grunwick to Gate Gourmet, Lawrence and Wishart  Striking Women gives a voice to the women involved, as they discuss their lives, their work and their trade unions. Focusing on South Asian women’s contributions to the struggle for workers’ rights in the UK, this fascinating insight into two key industrial disputes uses interviews and rarely-seen archival material.

The Ascott Martyrs, Writes Hill Press Sixteen women, some with babies in arms, were imprisoned in 1873 for supporting their striking farm worker husbands in the Oxfordshire village of Ascott Under Wychwood. This traumatic event led to riots, a reprieve from Queen Victoria, picketing being made legal in 1874, and local religious leaders no longer being appointed as magistrates.

Suggested donation £3 on the door to support the Feminist Library. The best way to support the Feminist Library is by becoming our Friend <http://feministlibrary.co.uk/support/friends-scheme/>.

Our apologies, but owing to circumstances beyond our control you still have to climb six stairs before you can access the Feminist Library lift.
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The Sparrows’ Nest presents:
A talk by Iain McKay

The Revolutions of 1848 remain the most widespread revolutionary wave in European history. While remembered as essentially liberal in nature, aiming at ending the old monarchical regimes they were also note-worthy for the advent of the industrial working class as a factor in social struggle. So as well as political change, the social question was raised while the events of 1848 shaped the ideas of Marx and Proudhon. So on their 150th anniversary, we look at the 1848 revolutions and their lessons for today.

Saturday June 23rd 3pm at The Sparrows’ Nest, Nottingham.

Email if you need directions, hope to see you there! - info@thesparrowsnest.org.uk 
------------------------
Also remember, this weekend, Sunday 3rd, we are remembering and celebrating the 1968 Revolts from midday at Broadway Cinema.
-- 
Visit the Sparrows' Nest website: 

If you wish to contact the Sparrows' Nest please email: info@thesparrowsnest.org.uk
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Sheffield Public Meeting

NO WAR BUT THE CLASS WAR: PUBLIC MEETING/DISCUSSION

As capitalism’s economic crisis deepens our rulers are determined to make the working class pay for it by increasing exploitation and reducing wages and living conditions.
All across the world, the capitalists and their political puppets are also trying to prevent any united working class fightback by widening divisions in the working class, such as nationality, race, ethnicity, religion, gender and sexual preference. The xenophobia whipped up before and after the Brexit campaign, the Trump election campaign and the election campaigns of nationalist governments in Hungary and Poland are a few recent examples of what is happening and what is to come.
At the same time national states are trying to push the crisis onto capitalists of other states or blocs of states by trade wars. And history tells us that trade wars are the prelude to shooting wars. While imperialist proxy wars continue to rage in the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe, and while a new conflict with Iran is being stoked up, increasingly intense global conflicts are being prepared.
Nationalism is the main tool being used to recruit workers to support their rulers in these wars. No faction of the capitalist class is worth supporting and none is “a lesser evil”! The alternative is not to do nothing. There are already voices being raised under the banner of “No war but the class war!” to challenge the fate that the capitalists are preparing for us.
Join them in a public meeting to find out more and make your own contribution:

When: 30 June 2018 at 1400hrs
Where: The Rutland Arms 86 Brown St. Sheffield S1 2BS
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From IWCE
EDUCATION 4 ACTION
Politics, Pits and Protest
Saturday 7th - Saturday 14th July (The Big Meeting) 2018
Miners’ Hall, Redhills, Durham City. DH1 4BE

Including on Wednesday 11th July
"Miners and their unions: can we make the world a better place? "
6.30pm – 9.00pm.   (in Miners' Hall, Redhills Committee Room).
Organised by INDEPENDENT WORKING CLASS EDUCATION NETWORK



IWCE are a team of trade union tutors who campaign for social justice through educational sessions. This is about the international role played by miners and other unions in developing sustainable energy policies and international solidarity
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WCML
Working Class Movement Library
51 The Crescent,
Salford, M5 4WX

"We are a charity and we rely hugely on the generosity of your donations to keep the Library running. The support of you all, individually and collectively, is vital to our long-term survival."  
Annual individual membership is still just £10 (unwaged £5). More information here

Manchester Histories Festival
This year's festival, the fifth edition of the Greater Manchester-wide biennial event, has as its theme protest, democracy, and freedom of speech.  It runs from 7 until 11 June, and includes a TUC Day on Friday 8 June to mark the 150th anniversary, incorporating a radical Salford walking tour which starts at the Library giving participants a chance to see our TUC exhibition The Power of Unity (walk starts 10.15am, arrive at the Library any time from 9.30am), and Dave Haslam interviewing TUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady.
The Manchester Histories Celebration Day returns on Sunday 10 June from 12noon till 4pm at its new venue for 2018: Manchester Central Library. There will be choirs, talks and crafts as well as stalls from over 60 different groups.  Come and say hello to us at the Library stall!  We'll have a brand-new pop-up banner highlighting acquisitions we've been making as part of our Voting for Change project.

Walking tours
On Thursday 14 June there will be two anti-fascist, radical and working class history tours as part of the 0161 Festival.  Woven within the walk will be stories about Peterloo, the Spanish Civil War and the role of the International Brigades, the birth of the vegetarian movement, Chartism, women’s suffrage and Manchester’s links to Engels and Marx, as well as Manchester anti-fascists. This will all be depicted alongside ordinary Mancunians living their lives in historic and contemporary Manchester.
Tours will run at 12 noon (this tour finishes at the Working Class Movement Library, with time for a browse of our ground floor displays) and 4pm. Tickets £5, limited to 20 per tour. Approx. time 3 hours.
More information and online ticket booking at 0161festival.com/info.

Invisible Histories talks

Our next free talk is on Wednesday 6 June at 2pm when David Swift will speak on The war and the workers: the labour movement and the home front during WW1.
"The First World War brought with it many trials for the working men and women of Great Britain: from food prices to rent increases, disability and bereavement, the war exacerbated existing difficulties and created fresh challenges. Nonetheless the labour movement, under the auspices of the Workers' National Committee, came together to try and protect the position of the working class, and fought to ensure that the country which emerged in 1918 was different from that of 1914. This talk will reveal how the Left put sectionalism aside and was able, against the odds, to win important victories for the workers of Britain."

Further talks in the series are:

20 June Film - Socialists, suffragists, pacifists and cyclists!: the last Clarion House

4 July Invisible Histories digitisation project - Seeing the hidden, hearing the unheard

Full details at www.wcml.org.uk/events.

Anne Scargill in conversation with Maxine Peake

On Tuesday 3 July at 2pm, coinciding with Maxine's new play Queens of the Coal Age at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre, we are very pleased to welcome Anne Scargill talking to her about the Parkside Pit occupation of 1993.
Tickets are available via Eventbrite here from 1pm today.  They are free and we know they will go very fast - please only book tickets if you know you can definitely come.  If you find nearer the time that you can't make it please let us know so that we can allocate your tickets to someone on the waiting list? Many thanks.

UPDATE: A second chance to get free tickets to hear Anne Scargill in conversation with Maxine Peake [21 June] 

We are hugely grateful to our neighbours at Salford Museum and Art Gallery (directly opposite the Library) for agreeing to host this event for us so that we can get more people in to see it. 
More tickets are therefore now available here.  Despite the increase in venue size, tickets are still limited - so please only book tickets if you know you can definitely come. Once all seating tickets have been taken, a limited number of standing tickets will be made available from 11am tomorrow (Friday [22nd]). We'd suggest that you only book these if you feel that you will be able to stand throughout the event, which is likely to last about an hour.
If you are already on the waiting list for this event, you will have been sent an email offering you a ticket - keep an eye out for this (check your junk email folder if you can't see it in your inbox) as you need to reply within 24 hours to tell us that you definitely want it.
We will be offering refreshments back at the Working Class Movement Library after the event; if you're peckish beforehand we'd encourage you to consider dropping in to the Museum and Art Gallery's excellent café...

Exhibition booklet now on sale
A booklet has been produced alongside our current exhibition The power of unity - 150 years of the TUC, which celebrates 150 years of the Trades Union Congress and looks at the continuing need for unions now.  The booklet contains the information researched by our volunteer exhibition team to go on the display boards.  So if you can't make the exhibition (which runs until 27 September), you can at least read what you're missing!  Price just £2, it is available here.
There are similar booklets linked to our previous exhibitions on the Russian Revolution, and on Marx and Engels - go to www.wcml.org.uk/bookshop to purchase these.
 And a reminder too that travelling versions of our past exhibitions are available on loan from us - email Info@wcml.org.uk for details.

White poppy installation

There is an installation of white poppies at Manchester's Friends' Meeting House until 22 June as part of the Collateral Damage 1918 to 2018 project, a project supported by the Peace Pledge Union and commemorating war victims and building peace.  Visitors are encouraged to make their own textile white poppies to honour any victims of wars in the century since World War One. Open during office hours Monday to Friday.

More information at www.ppu.org.uk/collateral-damage. 
=========================
From: Sparrows' Nest
Document of the Month feature
showcasing some of the awesome documents in our collections.

2018 is a year of big anniversaries: 170 years since the 1848 Revolutions (we have an event coming up about those uprisings on June 23rd), 50 years since the summer of 1968, 100 years since the end of WW1 and the beginning of the brief German Revolution of 1918-19, etc. 

We shall focus on 1968 for now, especially in the run-up to the event this weekend [2-3 June] remembering and celebrating the 1968 Revolts, organised with a number of other groups, notably People's Histreh.

So our Document of the Month for May is an issue of Anarchy from July 1968 about the "Maydays in France".Anarchy is a fascinating and beautiful publication, which ran through a couple of incarantions in the 1960s and 1970s. This issue is from the first run of this journal, published by Colin Ward et al, once more featuring a memorable cover design. There are quite a few more issues of Anarchy in the Digital Library, more than enough to pass a rainy afternoon.


Visit the Sparrows' Nest website: http://thesparrowsnest.org.uk
======================
From Medact:
(Just in case we have any health professionals among our readers)

Medact firmly believes that healthcare should be freely accessible for all who need it, which is why we are hosting the event Health For All? on Tuesday 3rd July together with Docs Not Cops.
If you are a health worker at Barts, or live or work in Tower Hamlets, and are concerned about how regulations such as upfront charging of 150%, data sharing for immigration enforcement, and ID checks impact on patient care and clinical practice, please join us.
The event will be an opportunity to discuss upfront charging, data sharing and ID checks; to share patient testimonies and our own experiences of the impact of these policies; and to discuss how we can oppose these policies together.
Will you join us, and can you share this event with your colleagues at Barts and in Tower Hamlets?






 Listings will be updated from time to time.