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Sunday, February 16, 2025

Making a Stir: The official booklaunch

Local couple Jonathan Gordon-Farleigh and Abby McFlynn, who at this time reside in London, have joined the vanguard of those who believe that being proactive is of a much greater value to society than the reactive bleating that we are used to both in the mainstream media and amongst the political classes. Their online magazine Stir to Action (Stir)  has already established an international readership and is serving to reflect the enthusiasm that many people have to make a sustainable change. Following on from this success Johnny and Abby have also made the transition into publishing Stir in book form. Having raised the funding through Crowdfunding this book was officially launched on Saturday 24th November at the Firebox Coffeeshop (incidentally every town should have a Firebox) in Kings Cross, London.

Those who have donated and contributed to the book were invited and both David Bollier – who is an independent commons scholar who works with the Commons Strategy Group and blogs at Bollier.org. He is the author of ten books, most recently Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own www.viralspiral.cc. AND

Derek Wall – who is the former Principal Speaker of the Green Party of England and Wales. He is also a founder member of Green Left and the Ecosocialist International, his books include the No Nonsense Guide to Green Politics both spoke to the gathered attendees.

Stir Book Launch Party

The following are two reviews that have peen published in the Huffington Post online and the online Remotegoat.co.uk.

‘The brainchild of editors Jonathan Gordon-Farleigh and Abby McFlynn, Stir denotes everything that the current generation of disillusioned students, Occupy activists, or even aging socialists need to be looking towards. Less a diatribe of anti-establishment murmurings than an assemblage of poignant and astute critical observations, Gordon-Farleigh and McFlynn’s magazine is a summons to revolutionary but also rational thinking, its contents including articles on subjects as diverse as permaculture, the commons, and practical philosophy.

Stir has been appearing bi-monthly online since June., yet a first print edition, published thanks to a windfall of crowd sourced funding, was launched this month in London. Before a choice crowd at Bloomsbury’s Firebox café (where it is not unknown to see firebrand of the left, Tony Benn, entertaining from the floor) Gordon-Farleigh tipped his hat to a quotation from the Israeli-based academic Shlomo Sands: ‘Books don’t change the world, but when the world begins to change people look for different books’. ‘I really hope,’ remarked the editor, ‘that this is one of those that people start to look for.’

What is most impressive about the magazine is the crowd of common, popular and intellectual support that has already stood behind its publication, seeking to publish essays, donate funds and, in the case of the American academic and activist David Bollier, fly half way across the world to pick up a copy.

Bollier has also written a six-page article on the state of commons for the magazine’s first print edition – no light endorsement from this year’s recipient of the Berlin Prize in Public Policy. The organisation – On The Commons – that Bollier helped set up in 2008 has since blossomed into global showcase for those invested in sustainable (and serious) social initiatives.

Stir, however, is still a long way from expanding outside of the UK, not least as it still relies heavily upon its online fan base in a market where so many radical journals have been forced to move digital. But, where Gordon-Farleigh and McFlynn’s magazine already has a head start is in the strength of the print alternative the team behind Stir has delivered. The layout is slick and easy to navigate; the content, heavy but never overwhelming, to the extent that readers will be forgiven if they forget that this is still an independent start-up. And, if they log on to the internet, then they’ll no doubt realise the website isn’t half bad either.’

(Huffpost Culture)

Stir Book LaunchDerek Wall

                                                         Derek Wall

Stir Book Launch

                                                      David Bollier

‘This weekend the first print edition of an exciting new periodical was launched in Bloomsbury. A crowd-funded project eighteen months in the making, Stir Magazine, as its website informs readers, “features articles and interviews on radical gardening, community-supported agriculture, climate activism, democratic education, permaculture, the occupy movement, the commons, grassroots sports, food justice, cooperatives, practical philosophy and more.” Yet such a list would seem to undersell the importance and ingenuity behind this publication.

Stir is not the self-referential roll calling of a sub-sector of the neo-left that many left-leaning collectives, popping up over the past half a decade, have revealed themselves to be. It is far more necessary than this. As the editor Jonathan Gordon-Farleigh put forward on the night, addressing a packed floor at the Firebox cafe and in a nod to the academic Shlomo Sands, “books don’t change the world, but when the world begins to change people look for different books”.’

Undoubtedly, Stir will prove to be one of these books. Not because of the quality of its ideas (although these are clearly apparent to anyone who logs onto the magazine’s website – https://stirtoaction.com) or because of the important voices that are already contributing to its pages, the esteemed American activist David Bollier amongst them. The magazine is unique because it seems aware of the importance of not only shouting from a soap box about the ills of an unequal society but also pointing out the means by which the world is, in parts, already changing for the better. It points out not only what is possible but what is happening – and this leads to another of Stir’s key tenets: making obvious the present day alternatives that might otherwise pass the reader by.

As a portly constituent of the middle-class metropolis, I know near to nothing about the occupy movement. My palms are soft from the absence of labour and I have not committed to weeding a garden since 1997’s Scout Bob-a-Job Week. I work for a corporation that owns office on the edge of Fitrozia and, when I leave for work on a morning, it is in a suit with shirt and polished shoes. Yet when I read Stir, I read a magazine not intent on sanctimonious derision of modern consumerism. Rather, Stir’s achievement is commendable because it is not exclusive but carefully informative, its philosophies are rewarding, and its style sincere without slipping into earnestness.

As one of the contributors to this first print issues says “Being overly positive in your messaging can be just as bad as being the constant bearer of bad news”. Stir succeeds in treading this line light and, in doing so, deserves to find a growing audience. Not only on the far left, or the left, but also with those who would otherwise hold focus on the centre ground and even on the right-of-centre. Stir? It’s the new Radical Philosophy, it’s the new New Left Review. It’s brilliant – as you, dear reader, are no doubt about to discover for yourself.

(Remotegoat.co.uk)

Stir Book Launch Merchandise

The evening was a tremendous success and it is now hoped that Stir and many other proactive practices and media can help local communities become much more sustainable and empowered.

The Editors

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