The weekend also had sessions on skill-sharing and running workshops to share the skills to facilitate participatory workshops. It is hopped that more skill-sharing and events of this type will happen across the UK in the future.

Lewis from Leeds who travelled up for the weekend said: “It was a really amazing event and I really learned a lot. I’d never put on a harness or cooked on a giant gas burner before so it was a great opportunity to practise these things. I really feel like all of us who came to this weekend will be able to go to a protest camp and actually chip in.”

Laura, part of the group that organised the event said: “We were surprised at the number of people who came and the atmosphere and peoples attitude was amazing. People organised spontaneous sessions and those of us giving workshops learned new ways of doing things. It was such a great weekend and I hope we get a chance to do it again.”

The temporary camp over looked the former site of the Mainshill Solidarity Camp, now a functioning open cast mine, and was surrounded by Broken Cross and Poniel open cast coal mines. South Lanarkshire has been blighted by open cast coal mines for decades and has also been a hive of resistance by the community and environmentalists. Over the weekend people from the local communities visited the event, including some local young people who took part in the kids climbing workshop.