Sept 19th 2024

Beach Clean Group meet Jenipher Sambazi, East Ugandan Coffee producer https://jenipherscoffi.wales/  11.00 am start (meet at SUSSED) then afterwards at around 12.15 meet Jenipher upstairs in the Green Room above SUSSED, CF36 3BG Porthcawl. 

Zoë Brigley is the author of three books of poetry published by Bloodaxe: Hand & Skull (2019), Conquest (2012), and The Secret (2007). All three are UK Poetry Book Society Recommendations. Poems from the collections have won an Eric Gregory Award for the best British poets under 30, have been longlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize for the best international writers under 40, and were Forward Prize commended. She became editor for Wales’ leading poetry journal Poetry Wales in 2021, and she is now Poetry Editor for Seren Books jointly with the poet Rhian Edwards.

Kristian Evans is a founding editor of Modron Magazine, which publishes writing on the ecological crisis. He’s the author of pamphlets, Unleaving (2015), and Otherworlds (2021), and with Zoë Brigley edited 100 Poems to Save the Earth (2021), an anthology of contemporary poetry. He was a judge for the Wales Book of the Year Award 2023, and in the same year was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Environmental Poet of the Year Award. He lives in Bridgend, south Wales.

More information.

The Repair Café normally above SUSSED James St., Porthcawl moves to the Porthcawl Eco Day at Griffin Park for this event on Saturday 27th April 2024.

Gig 14+:

WIGWAM, ANHUNEDD, ECHDORIAD

CLWB Y BONT, Pontypridd, CF37 4SL

Fri 26th April 2024

Clwb y Bont yn cyflwyno/presents...
Gig 14+
mewn cydweithrediad

in association with Menter Iaith Rhondda Cynon Taf

WIGWAM, ANHUNEDD, ECHDORIAD
Noson i godi ymwybyddiaeth o newid hinsawdd.

Event to raise awareness of climate change issues.

Tickets:

https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/clwb-y-bont/gig-14-wigwam-anhunedd-echdoriad/e-qleoxb

Some of this work will be performed at 7.30 pm, Tuesday, April 16, 2024, at ‘Le Pub’, 19, High St., NEWPORT NP20 1FW. https://www.lepublicspace.co.uk/

This will be a live performance featuring spoken word, music and film.

The event is organized by Sustainable Wales Cymru Gynaliadwy.

Details for those who wish to perform or attend, from: <robert.minhinnick@sustainablewales.org.uk>

GWENT LEVELS CAMPAIGN

Ten days before Christmas, 2023, I went with writer and artist Laura Wainwright to explore parts of the ‘Gwent Levels’, at Uskmouth. It was my first visit, although Laura is familiar with the area, sometimes taking her children walking there.

We went because the area is increasingly threatened by various developments. Only in the last four years has the Welsh government rejected plans for a new extension of the M4 motorway through parts of these wetlands.

The weather proved raw and blustery, but we were both delighted to encounter immediately some of the very particular wildlife that inhabits the area.

I saw my first ever reed bunting, and keen-eyed Laura identified a heron on the Severn mudflats, and thus we are writing, painting and sketching our expedition highlights.

This exploration occurred at the same time as the ongoing struggle between Israelis and Palestinians, especially in Gaza. Personally I found combining in my writing the situations in both Gwent Levels and Gaza, quite natural.

THE REEN

a poem for two voices

Or rhyne or rhewyn

or simply ditch but even

the word itself disappearing

but nothing to be done, nothing to be done

like the creatures

we might have discovered there

yet nothing can be done

nothing can be done

and I turn on the radio

and over the ghettoes of Gaza

in the ruined boulevards

another child is weeping

but nothing will be done

nothing will be done

 - ah, the petrol-coloured dragonfly,

the chevron of the demoiselle,

this one red, this one emerald -

or an exhibit in the museum

of barbed wire

with which we encircle the world,

no nothing to be done

nothing to be done

voice of the reaper, song of the drone

while the children must cry all night

in the rhyne  and the rhewyn in the ditch in the reen

but even the word itself disappearing

like the creatures we might

have discovered there 

 - ghost of a yellowhammer

glimpsed  though gorse,

grass snake aswim

in sedge beside the solar farm,

heron, a hermit holding on

beside its JCB scrape  -

but nothing can be done

nothing can be done

so once again I turn on the radio

and over the ghettoes of Gaza

comes the harpies’ music,

the predator’s sigh

when even the words are disappearing,

rhyne or rhewyn or ditch or reen

because it is somebody else’s language

loved and lost

but nothing can be done

nothing can be done

and then I am reminded

that language is my own

but there’s nothing to be done

nothing to be done

but how memory maims

and how all grief is someone else’s guilt

while somebody else’s country

is vanishing like pixels on a screen

yet there’s nothing to be done 

nothing to be done

in the ditch and the rhewyn and the rhyne and the reen

but nothing will be done nothing will be done

and now I am reminded by the same radio

that the country is my own,

and the voice of the reaper, the song of the drone:

they too are mine.

Yet there’s nothing will be done,

nothing will be done…

(With thanks to  Marwan Makhoul, poet born to a Palestinian father and a Lebanese mother in 1979 in the village of Boquai'a in the Upper Galilee region of Palestine).

EVENT CANCELLED

Further events are planned

Aberystwyth Arts Centre/Theatr Gron/Round Theatre,

https://aberystwythartscentre.co.uk/

Darlleniadau am yr Hinsawdd /Climate readings 

with Robert Minhinnick, John Barnie, Katie Gramich, Samantha Wynne Rhydderch, Laura Wainwright, Matthew Francis. 

Event free/Rhad ac Am Ddim but discretionary. Croeso cynnes i bawb.

free public film launch

‘Sleepwalking Into Climate Change?’

Hi Tide Inn, Porthcawl Mackworth Road, CF36 5BT. All Welcome.

Monday, Jan 29th 2024, 7pm

Three x 12 min. Films, Each Followed By Debate and Discussion

Guests include BCBC Leader Huw David

(Filmed in Porthcawl. Join our climate conversation. This event supported by Welsh Government)

See the blog for more information on the three films

notice of Sustainable Wales & Sussed Annual General Meetings 2022-23 & Social for members etc.

The Green Room, Monday November 20th 2023, 7.00pm

Guest Speaker - Sarah Murphy Ms

It is our pleasure to notify you of the Sustainable Wales (SW) and SUSSED Annual General Meetings for 2022-23, 7:00pm, followed by refreshments and buffet. To be held in the Green Room, above SUSSED.

Includes a preview screening of ‘Sleepwalking into Climate Change’ a short film produced by sustainable Wales

We are joining the events together to illustrate the connections between the two organisations.

Please RSVP, via email or phone (01656 783962) to ensure there is an appropriate amount of seating and refreshments available.

The AGM’s will update people about the work and activities of the charity between April 2022 – April 2023 and SUSSED between June 2022 – June 2023.

New or additional SW Trustees and Directors will be elected.

If anyone would like to stand as a Trustee or company Director, please send a C.V. and letter of interest beforehand to Margaret. https://www.sustainablewales.org.uk/what-we-do

Or perhaps you would like to help with fundraising, research and information or events. We would be delighted to hear from you.

As democratic community organisations our supporters are central to the work. Thus, we appreciate it when people attend the AGM and give us feedback.

We hope that you can attend what should be an informative and enjoyable evening. 

Please RSVP, via email or phone (01656 783962) to ensure there is an appropriate amount of seating and refreshments available.

The Green Room has returned from its summer break with New Works on 29th September, with readings from Angela Graham, Robert Minhinnick and Phil Cope along with open mic regulars, short films and music.

The next Green Room will be a CELEBRATION of DANNIE ABSE at 100

FRI. OCTOBER 27, 8pm above SUSSED. With LYNNE HJELMGAARD, launching ’The Turpentine Tree’ (Seren, available at SUSSED), and others sharing memories... Croeso cynnes i bawb/Warm welcome for all. £4 BYOB.
Previous Green Room events are available as an audio podcast.

https://www.serenbooks.com/seren-author/lynne-hjelmgaard/

Lynne Hjelmgaard

Lynne Hjelmgaard was born in New York City and lives in London. She taught Creative Art for children in various schools and institutions before she started writing poetry. She left the States in 1990 for the second time and has been living permanently in the UK since 2011. As a result of crossing the Atlantic in a sailboat with her husband she wrote the poems that were collected in Manhattan Sonnets (Redbeck Press, 2003) and was later released in CD format. After her husband died in 2006, she received a residency grant for the Danish Academy in Rome where she wrote poems that later appeared in her second collection The Ring (Shearsman Books, 2011). Her third poetry collection, A Boat Called Annalise, was published by Seren in 2016 and accounts for the journey Lynne took with her husband by boat across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and Europe.  Her new collection A Second Whisper is available now.

GORWELION: SHARED HORIZONS

CLIMATE CHANGE ARRIVES IN FITZROVIA

The Wheatsheaf, 25 Rathbone Place, London, W1T 1JB

7.30pm TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19

Words, Music, Film

ROBERT MINHINNICK
STEVE GRIFFITHS, MERRYN HUTCHINGS
TODD SWIFT
ANDREW McNEILLIE
LAURA WAINWRIGHT
REBECCA WAINWRIGHT

The writings of Tishani Doshi and Mandy Haggith.

Entry - Pay what you can afford.

Hilary Llewellyn-Williams is one of the most renowned poets of her generation in Wales. Hilary was one of the original patrons of Sustainable Wales.

Hosted by Robert Minhinnick

With regular poetry open mic & film

From 8pm - pay what you can afford, supporting Sustainable Wales.

A photographic presentation of Porthcawl*

With the regular Poetry Open Mic

*may contain Elvis

Find out more at SUSSED

GREEN ROOM, FRIDAY, 21 APRIL 2023

8pm

James Roberts

& Open Mic + Film+ Music

James Roberts is a writer who lives in Kington on the Wales/England border.

His latest book is

‘Two Lights: Walking Through Landscapes of Loss and Life’

‘Searching for the wildness left in our world – spanning continents and geological eras…

See the dedicated page for more information.

Better Porthcawl are inviting everyone to an after school meet-up to discuss the planned open spaces in the Porthcawl Regeneration project! We want you to have a say in what the council does with the public open space in Porthcawl and we welcome you to share all your ideas - big and small!! We'd love to to hear the young voices, the future residents of Porthcawl, and see some drawings and ideas to brainstorm before the councils public consultation event. 

Join us on Tuesday, the 7th of March from 3.30pm until 4.40pm at the Newton Primary entrance to Sandy bowl bring your bike, scooter, unicycle, dogs, cats, hamsters (everyone!) and check out the maps of the proposed open spaces in the councils plans. We can tell you all we have learnt from the council and have a chat about the exciting plans! We will get a few after school snacks to share round too!

This is a casual community meet up before the official council consultation on the 15th and 23rd of March in the Pavilion (TBC). We hope this meet-up will inspire us all with some new ideas and encourage you to attend the BCBC event and tell the council what you want for the open space in our beloved town!

Angela Graham is a BAFTA Cymru-winning film-maker and journalist. She has produced programmes for BBC, ITV, S4C and Channel 4 and was Development Producer of The Story of Wales.  She produced and co-wrote the Oscar entrant cinema feature Branwen (6 BAFTA Cymru nominations and Best Film at the Celtic Media Festival), and was a screenwriter on drama projects set in Italy, Romania and Ireland. She began her career in ITV, and spent eight years as a producer at one of Britain’s rare production co-operatives, Teliesyn.

She turned to writing full time in 2017. Her poetry has appeared in The North, The Honest Ulsterman, Poetry Wales, The Ogham Stone, The Open Ear, The Interpreter’s House and other journals. An award-winning short story writer, she was nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2019. She is currently finishing a novel and engaged in a prose/poetry project on Place and Displacement in the context of urban violence.

“A necessary and urgent response to the world’s increasing crises…” – Robert Minhinnick

Sanctuary is – urgent. The pandemic has made people crave it; political crises are denying it to millions; the earth is no longer our haven. This theme has enormous traction at a time of existential fear − especially among the young − that nowhere is safe. Even our minds and our bodies are not refuges we can rely on. Truth itself is on shaky ground.

Sanctuary: There Must Be Somewhere addresses these critical situations from the inside. How we can save the earth, ourselves and others? How valid is the concept of a ‘holy’ place these days? Are any values still sacrosanct? We all deserve peace and security but can these be achieved without exploitation?