NYE at the Citizen Corner, retrospective & other news

Newsletter December 2022

Version française: Nouvelle année au Citizen Corner, rétrospective et autres news 

Fellow citizen 👋

We are overdue to send you this newsletter. Good reminder that the Citizen Corner is a citizen initiative, not a corporation, a collective of citizens like you and me, volunteering to give life to the neighbourhood.

So we need you, join us! We need help to send newsletters, give life to our social media accounts (facebook, twitter, …), organise events, welcome event organisers, decorate the space, hold the bar, translate, etc. etc.

We were supposed to have the space till late September, then it became till the end of December, now it’s till the end of March 2023. Let’s take each month as they come and let’s make them count. So many more memories are still going to be made at the Citizen Corner. Don’t miss the chance!

New Year’s Eve Party 🎉

First thing first: there will be a big New Year’s Eve Party at the Citizen Corner, organised by David & Adrien, with food from Youssef & co and various DJ sets. Join this great Citizen Party 🥳

👉 Facebook event

A new bar at the Citizen Corner 🍻

Philippe brought us a shiny new café: “Les 3 rois” (“The 3 Kings”). It used to be at the Novanois and it was looking for a new place to stay. It found a home at the Citizen Corner. It’s a replica of the oldest bar of Schaerbeek from the 18th century!

Perfect timing for the NYE party! 👌

The official inauguration will be on Sunday January 15th late afternoon with the concert of Thunderosa (fb event). More info to come.

Thank you to Nicolas and his moving team from the commune of Schaerbeek.

Thank you to Philippe and to all the volunteers who helped with the moving and the build up (Frederik, Marie-Claire, Ann, Sam, Veronique, Tracey, Adri, Itzel, David, Marie-Claire, Leen, Xavier)

The Citizen Café, back in 2023?

Thank you François, Youssef, Abdelmadij and Mohammed for the Citizen Cafés that you organized for a couple of Saturdays in October / November. It was such a great initiative and the food was always delicious. We are sad that you had to stop because of the cold and the lack of affluence. Hopefully, with the new bar, there will be renewed energy to try this again next year. It’s so nice to have a regular event where fellow citizens know they can just show up, have a cold or warm drink and something to eat for a reasonable price. Reach out in the WhatsApp group of the community if you want to help this project in 2023.

Upcoming events

More about our upcoming events in the first newsletter of 2023, but you can already save a few dates (subscribe to our calendar!):

• Wed January 4th: Crypto Wednesday 🔐 (facebook, meetup)
• Fri January 27th: Critical Mass is back 🚲🚲🚲
• Fri March 17th: St Patrick’s Day ☘️ with live music and folk dancing

Other activities

Thank you Shan and Raphaël for organising the Friday evening Ping Pong in October / November.

We are looking for volunteers to restart that activity in 2023 (on Friday or any other day). Reach out in the WhatsApp group of the community if you want to help this project in 2023.

Stay in touch

The best way to stay in touch is to join our WhatsApp community group (you can subscribe just to the announcements or join one of the community groups)

You can also like our Facebook Page and join the Facebook Group.

Organise an event

Whether you want to organise a birthday for your kids, a concert, a meetup, a conference or a workshop for the community, the Citizen Corner is there for you! All the info to organise an event on our website: https://citizencorner.brussels 

Please note that you have to have someone from the community to sponsor your event and become your point of contact to be able to use this common space. Priority is given to events that benefit the most people in the local community.

We are looking forward to seeing you at the Citizen Corner, till then, have wonderful holidays!

Gratitude wall 🙏

The year wouldn’t be complete without expressing our deepest gratitude to all the citizens that have come together at the Citizen Corner to give it life. You brought joy, smiles, energy and you built memories. Thank you. Really.

In particular but in no particular order, thank you to…

The owner of the building who has been kind enough to meet with us, trust us, and let us use the space for the local community. He has always been very accommodating. Thank you for that. So many memories have been built in that building since!

Charles, our beloved Ukrainian refugee who became our concierge. Always with a smile, he took extremely good care of the place. He is now about to head back to Ukraine. Thank you for everything 🙏

Thank you to the neighbors for being so accommodating when there is party (we limit them to max once a month and we do our best to avoid making noise outside, closing the garage door, etc. but still, we can’t ignore that it will always create some inconvenience, especially for the direct neighbors, so we are immensely grateful to them 🙏).

Julien, Géraldine & Eric for always being there for the Roller Disco 🛼🪩

Mohammed, Youssef (and Abdeljabaar and Mohammed) that have such a big heart, restored the kitchen of the Citizen Corner and used to cook countless meals for various events and for people in need 🧆❤️

Pascale that lent us all the chairs since the beginning and that we are still using. So many people have sat on them since! What a great contribution 🪑🪑🪑 , Géraldine and her husband for all the furniture 🛋️, Frédérico for the coffee machine ☕️, Joa for all the plates 🍽️, Elias & Adrian from Plastic Free Plux for the reusable cups that we keep on using again again and again 🥤

All the people that made possible the first Regens Unite Conference that we started at the Citizen Corner last May (see all the contributions). It has since become an international community that organised other similar events in Berlin, Amsterdam and even Bogota. See the great video of the one in Berlin last September to get a sense of what can be done when citizens unite:

Tracey for organising the viewing of “Women Don’t Cycle” with Manon Brulard (fb event).

Thank you Texas for organising the Jam Session in June and in October. It’s always so nice to have live music at the Citizen Corner. Here is to more musical events in 2023!

Sarah & Yann for organising a great day and party for the 5 year anniversary of Irruption.be 

Jérôme from the ADES network, Sébastian, and all the other people involved in organising ADES’ 10 year anniversary at the Citizen Corner. It was a great day with a kids’ corner and a great party!

Monia, Martin and all the people involved in organising the 5 year anniversary of the Bees Coop at the Citizen Corner. Such a great evening and thank you for having left the space better than when you found it!

Laura and Romy for organizing with De Kriekelaar the concert of Alice Martin and the magic show of Patrick Kurota in the garage of the Citizen Corner (as part of the playstreet they organized).

The artist that painted the lateral entrance of the Citizen Corner.

Bûûmplanters pour avoir installé un petit parc temporaire devant le Citizen Corner.

Eric & Géraldine for organising the Sekhel + Jack’s Hope concert 🎸🤘

Julien, Tracey, Marc, Anne-Marie for helping organize the theater evening at the citizen corner with Max from the 1984 collective: “Distances Sociales” 🎭

Thank you to the firefighters 👨🏼‍🚒 who came very quickly to avoid the worst last May when people put fire 🔥 to the mattress of a homeless person who was staying at the corner.

Léa, Frédérico, Rodolphe and all the neighbors that brought beds, mattresses, blankets, food to welcome Ukrainian refugees 🇺🇦  (thank you Laurence for having taken the lead on this 🙏).

Hadewig Kras and her band for their performance of Janis Joplin (fb event) 👩🏻‍🎤

Philippe, Xavier, Leen and Bruno for organising the Imagine.Brussels NFT Solarpunk Contest ☀️🌱🌳🚲 that left the space with inspiring and hopeful visions of the future. And Luc Schuiten, Soumaya Majdoub, Joanie Lemercier and Annekatrien Verdickt for being the members of the jury.

Thank you Bruno for always being up for organising the Crypto Wednesday with DAO.brussels, rain or shine!

Monica & PJ for organizing a workshop to build your own insect hotel.

Chrystelle, Dani, Amine and all the others involved in organising the African Market.

Mathilde for organising some improv theater with la BIM 🎭

Leen for organising a great birthday party open to the neighbors with the concert of The Imaginary Suitcase.

Artur from the Beer Storming Project, always available to create a pop up bar when needed 🍺

Tracey, Nelle, Riza, for organizing some yoga at the Citizen Corner 🧘🏻‍♀️

Stef, Jacques and Philippe for fixing the furnace (we don’t have the financial resources anymore to heat the space but it has been useful last winter, especially with the refugees!)

Thank you everyone that has ever served at the bar (Wil, Bruno, Seppe, Elanor, Julien, Marc, Mathieu, Tracey, Leen, Itzel, Esther, François, Ray, …) 🍻

Thank you Mathieu, Esther, Sylvia, Mohammed, Mohammed, Abdeljabaar, Mohammed, for the great party to start 2022. Here is to a great new NYE party! 🥳

Thank you Rob Hopkins for your conference to inspire us (and all the people who came despite the cold, and thanks Amine for the video recording, Lyllou for the live translation to French and An for the concert).

Jon Alexander pour être venu présenter ton livre “Citizens”.

Henry, aka Daddy K7, for bringing the bar and the K7 wall. It was such a great addition to the space. Too bad they eventually had to go!

Thank you Sylvia for organising the coworking space for a while.

Itzel for all the positive energy, the videos and social media that you did around the Citizen Corner.

Thank you Marc and Julien for the countless hours repairing the garage door and other things that needed to be fixed, joining numerous meetings and always being there to help 💪

Thank you Tracey for all your contributions, and thank you Leen for all the time and effort you put into this, all the cleaning, the admin for the insurance. The Citizen Corner wouldn’t have happened without you ❤️

Thank you to all the people that contributed in small or big ways, that came to help clean the space, fixed broken things, organised events, promoted the space, left a good review on Google, … thank you Arlette, Kathleen, Kris for your ongoing support.

Thank you to all the people and organizations that have contributed to the budget of the Citizen Corner Collective, and especially Brussit VGC for their subsidy without which we wouldn’t have been able to pay for the insurance and some heating last year.

The citizens that showed up to continue animating the space for a new season (Youssef, Leen, Xavier, Bryan, Mohammed, Mohammed + François - Bryan, where have you been?! 🥸🙃)

And of course thank you to the O.G. group that made the Citizen Corner possible (and Itzel that somehow is not on that picture, and Lisanne that designed the beautiful logo of the Citizen Corner, François that made tshirts with it).

In memoriam

Lieve Polet who was an active citizen in Schaerbeek, cooperator at the Bees Coop, started “Het Warm Water” in the Maroles and visited us at the Citizen Corner passed away last July hit by a truck while biking in Neder-Over-Heembeek 😔

She was 76. She was a wonderful woman and Bruzz dedicated an article to her for all her numerous contributions to the community.

A quote that inspires us

Mary Elizabeth Anania Edwards (July 3, 1949 – December 7, 2010) was an American attorney, author, and health care activist (wikipedia).

🔅 2022 citizencorner.brussels - all contributions welcome.