THE DAY after the general election on May 8 I logged into Facebook and was discussing with some friends what happens next.

There were two possible reactions — spend yet another five years calling the Tories names or do something positive about it.

The question was, what? My friend Stephen Goodall, a fellow songwriter from Widnes, came up with the answer. “We need a co-ordinated night all over the country of musical protest. Let’s pick a date,” he suggested. And so it began.

Within two days we had managed to mobilise every left-leaning musician we knew, formed a five-person organising committee and decided on the weekend, October 2-4.

Tony and Jez from The Hurriers came up with a logo and a name, We Shall Overcome. Initially, we thought maybe we could organise 10 or 20 gigs around Britain.

The response we got was staggering.

From Inverness to Derry, Merseyside to Tyneside and from Bangor to Newport, people heard the call and began to step up. We currently have 130 towns putting on over 275 gigs and literally thousands of people up and down Britain coming together in the spirit of co-operation, all showing solidarity in the face of the state-inflicted misery of austerity and all in peaceful defiance of those who would use it as a weapon against society’s most vulnerable.

From Northallerton to Southend, Manchester to Colchester, Rotherham to Nottingham, each week is bringing new gigs as the word gets around.

And our idea has gone global, with events springing up in the US, Canada and Australia.

It’s worth stating that all this has happened without advertising budgets and without any big organisation behind it. It’s a genuine grassroots movement, bottom-up. The way it works is that each event is independent, booked and run locally but flying the one banner nationally — We Shall Overcome.

Rather than admission charges we are asking that people bring donations for local food banks or voluntary cash collections for local homeless shelters and soup kitchens. Your gig can be anything, the majority are musical, but we also have poetry, storytelling, comedy, cookery, traditional dance, DJ sets, karaoke, snooker competitions, art auctions, film nights, guided walks and board game contests!

Thousands of people are making this happen with their hard work, dedication and desire to do something positive in the face of the politics of despair. This isn’t about not going down without a fight, this is about not going down at all. We SHALL overcome. Join us.

• If you’d like to get involved by organising an event or simply supporting one in your local area visit weshallovercomeweekend.com