The Cowley Club is a left-libertarian self-managed social centre in Brighton, Sussex, England. It opened in 2003, providing resources and meeting spaces for groups and individuals active in areas such as workplace and unemployed struggles, international solidarity, animal liberation, ecological defence, feminist and queer activism and opposing the arms trade.
- Venue
- Cowley Club
- Address
- Cowley Club, 12 London Road, Brighton, BN1 4JA
- Town
- Brighton, GB
The Cowley Club is a left-libertarian self-managed social centre in Brighton, Sussex, England. It opened in 2003, providing resources and meeting spaces for groups and individuals active in areas such as workplace and unemployed struggles, international solidarity, animal liberation, ecological defence, feminist and queer activism and opposing the arms trade. Its political identity is close to anarchism or libertarian socialism. It also houses a vegan community café, a bookshop, and free English lessons for migrants. The Cowley Club is named after local activist Harry Cowley and is part of the UK Social Centre Network. In their study of the radical social centre movement in the United Kingdom, academics Stuart Hodkinson and Paul Chatterton characterise the Cowley Club as a similar type of collective-ownership initiative to the London Action Resource Centre (LARC), "with the added dimension of a housing cooperative". Chatterton depicts the club as one of a number of resurgent social centres in the 2000s. The Cowley Club is a cooperative. As such, assets and control are collectively owned, the idea being that those using the centre share the responsibilities and work that comes with running it. The centre is collectively owned by "shareholders", and run as a base for those involved in grass-roots social change and those sympathetic to such activities. It is run entirely by volunteers - no-one is paid, and no private profit is made. Funding was raised via a mortgage, loans from cooperative organisations such as Radical Routes, and loan-stock (loans made by individuals on a five-year basis). The building purchase was completed in February 2002, then the renovations began. Much of the property was in disrepair and volunteers worked to renovate it. Volunteers are organised into groups to take on various aspects of running the centre - there are collectives for the café, bar, library, bookshop, mediation, cleaning, finances, maintenance and entertainments. There are monthl