In 2025, we held our summer camp on a permissive site for the first time, in Oxfordshire from the 22nd-29th June.
The timetable:
The camp at sunset:
A novel method of transporting tents is carefully tested:
So-called ‘shit commune’ hard at work disposing of waste:
A different angle of the same tents:
In 2024 our gathering was held in a park near Manchester, from 26th July-3rd September. It was the most logistically independent camp we’d ever done, as this time we had compost toilets and a full site kitchen. All our key necessities for independence were at the camp, which marked a really cool progression from our roots in 2022.
We had our fairly standard number of around 70-80 people; we normally get this many, even though there’s always a good turnover of new faces each year. Our programme was very large, with three streams running simulatanously.
There were some logistical issues at the start, as just a couple weeks beforehand the police’s Operation Infusion had just repressed the planned 2024 Reclaim the Power camp near Drax Power Station, pre-empitively arresting dozens of people and seizing a large quantity of the site equipment which we were relying on for our camp. We had to do lots of scrambling to secure replacements, but we were just about able to, and the gathering went much better than poor RTP’s one!
The timetable looked like this:
Setting up the camp:
The brave loo crew (colloquially known as ‘shit commune’) at work:
The very popular radical mycology workshop:
A beautiful marquee 🙂
Our second summer camp, and first official gathering under the name AYC, was held in Coventry in June 2023.
Logistcally, it was a big step up from our first camp. We increased its length to a week, and this time we were camping full time in the park, rather than sleeping in houses and commuting everyday. This meant less time was spent on travel, and there was a sense of our space being reclaimed and shaped while we were there. We still relied on nearby public toilets and and a house to do the cooking in.
Once again we got around 70 attendees, with a mix of students and non-students, and even some people from outside the UK. Our programme was very strong, covering a range of topics. Interestingly, although not planned, throughout the week we noticed a consistent theme of care cropping up in many discussion, as many participants took the opporunity to chystalise their reflections on local organising. For lots of us, this had been the realisation that prioritising looking after each other is essential for sustainable and strong movements to grow, and it was a relief to find out that lots of other people had been thinking along similar lines – we can and must do better than burnout culture demands!
The gathering was very fun and we considered it successful, both logsitically and politically, and we resolved to keep going every year.
Our first gathering was held under the name Sheffield Student Summer Camp, in 2022.
The context at the time was that there had been a massive student rent strike wave in 2020/2021 due to the mistreatment of students by covid policies. Lots of young people had been politicised by this struggle, but there were relatively few radical national forums for different groups to meet. An attempt to set up a national student organisation (the Red Square Movement) had limited longevity.
We brought together around 60-70 young people and students to a 4-day event in Sheffield. People slept in houses and campsites around the city, and all converged on Endcliffe Park in the morning to set up some gazebos and create our autonomous space. We had two streams of workshops, with lots of great sessions.
Logistics was made easier by the park having public toilets, and there being a nearby house where we could cook our meals. Overall the camp was really cool and was a good catalyst for skillsharing & relationships.
