HOOPS UPDATE - Monday 10th January

1. COUNCIL CUTS
2. LOBBY OF CABINET MEETING
3. SATURDAY 15TH JANUARY STREET STALLS
4. PUBLIC MEETINGS
5. TUC DEMONSTRATION
6. NEXT MEETING

1. COUNCIL CUTS
The scale of the government cuts and the impact on jobs and services in Tower Hamlets is now becoming clear. Tower Hamlets budget is being cut by the maximum on 8.9% this year. Council chiefs are now producing details of how they propose to make £30m cuts before March 31st 2011.

As predicted many of the cuts will affect the most vulnerable sections of our community - many of those facing redundancy are women part-time workers.

The Junior Youth Service is being disbanded and after school provision being cut back. Housing Link is being cut. Special Needs support for students is being cut back to the statutory minimum with 9 jobs to go.

This is just the start - more details will emerge in the coming weeks.

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2. LOBBY OF COUNCIL MEETING - JANUARY 12TH
The Mayor and his Cabinet are meeting on Wednesday January 12th to discuss the cuts package and HOOPS is supporting the call from TH UNISON to lobby this meeting - following our successful lobby of the full council in December.

Please see the attached flyer and circulate to colleagues and friends.

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3. HOOPS LEAFLET
We are producing a HOOPS leaflet which we aim to have ready for the STREET STALLS - SATURDAY JANUARY 15TH from 12:00 until 2:00pm.

These will have a twin focus of highlighting the specific cuts in Tower Hamlets and our opposition to them, and building towards the TUC national demonstration on March 26th.

Venues for these stalls are:

• TESCO Bethnal Green Road
• Chrisp Street Market
• Whitechapel Sainsbury’s
• Roman Road (opposite Bonner school)

This will give details of the cuts in Tower Hamlets and future activities. The leaflet will also ask people to contact their local councillor and urge them to vote against the cuts.

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4. PUBLIC MEETINGS
HOOPS is aiming to organise some public meeting around Tower Hamlets and will discuss this at our next meeting. However, we also want to encourage workplace and estate meetings which people can set up themselves and invite speakers.

One such meeting is happening on Tuesday 18th January in Cranbrook Hall Bethnal Green.

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5. TUC NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION
There are now 74 days until the TUC national demonstration on March 26th and we need to build a huge presence from the people of Tower Hamlets. This demonstration is probably the most important since 2003 and needs to be huge.

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6. NEXT HOOPS MEETING
The next meeting of our local campaign group is on Tuesday 25th January at 6:30pm in the Labour Party offices, 349 Cambridge Heath Road.