“It was an inspiring event,” said voluntary co-ordinator Nicola Baird. “Both schools put so much effort into making the day good fun, and informative, for all ages and we were lucky to have the expertise of the Green Living Centre’s Kerry Kirwan. We got to see the girls in the edgy Blackstock Road band performing live; found ourselves humming Drayton Park’s “Let’s insulate’ song and learnt all sorts about recycling, water use and fashion. Highlights included a visit from the Mayor; a children’s question time with local politicians – Cllr Greg Foxsmith, Cllr Katie Dawson and MP Jeremy Corbyn chaired by sustainability expert Bob Gilbert, free cakes and a goody bag to take away.”
What did you think?
“I hadn't expected to enjoy it as much as I did, but there was so much on offer to stimulate from home insulation to neck massages to cracking good books.”
“I am going to try and arrange a similar thing over this neck of the woods - so I am going to unashamedly steal ideas from your event!”
“It had a very friendly atmosphere and was very enjoyable.”
“It was a really successful event - the energy was good, the kids just a delight.”
What’s next?
Something’s cooking – but you’ll have to wait and see. Unless you wish to be involved in plastic bag free or transition town – in that case please contact Nicola on 020 7704 6420. Pic below shows children at Drayton Park's climate club measuring their carbon footprints during the festival.
Who came?
Saturday – 200 people attended
Monday – 10 for Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth
Tuesday – 10 for Message in the Waves with Orlando Jopling’s amazingly informed talk about making your local shops into a plastic bag free zone.
Wednesday – 30 attended. 10 for the End of Suburbia (followed by a talk led by Duncan Law from Transition Town Brixton) and 20 for the Swish which saw Emma Hope shoes, Betty Jackson dresses and all sorts of glad rags swapping homes
Thursday – 10 attended the Power of Community film (about how Cuba copes with an oil embargo).
Friday – 300 children at Drayton Park Primary School, some as young as 4, created an assembly that showed the teachers and parents what they’d learnt about recycling, fair trade and reuse. Two Y6 children dressed the head and deputy in a newspaper outfit (including a necklace and shoes!) and two Y2 children did a live planting… Then at the going home/cake sale the Streetcar car club arrived attracting all sorts of questions – and a queue by the kids for those helium filled balloons. 
Sunday – the car boot sale was buzzing, approx 200 people and #260 raised for Drayton Park School PTA's school funds.
Not counted – assembly or work done by Highbury Fields school’s students OR time spent by Drayton Park’s climate club working on posters, rehearsing their show or the dress rehearsal in front of the whole school on 10 October.
Spread the goodwill
>>It was Highbury Fields’ first public community event
>>Tesco Finsbury Park donated #200 worth of cakes (see pic) so festival goers had free tasty snacks.
>>Woodland Hardware, First Choice Hardwar and Mix offered 10 per cent off energy efficiency goods to festival goers (with a voucher)
>>Hotblack Desiato, Highbury, printed out the display cards to make a fab window display
>>Oasis cafe sold lunch making #240
>>Extra bagels were finished up at Monsell Road’s open day.
>>Three not for profits made a small sum from selling snacks – Market Road Playgroup, the Latin American Women’s Self Education Fund and a Somali group.
>>Drayton Park school received #53 to use on a climate change project. The school opted to use it buying seeds and tools for their allotment.
>>Highbury Fields school will receive #54 to use on a climate change awareness project, possibly films from the CLIMATE CHANGE & ME week. TBC
Special thank yous
Many people deserve a big thank you but especially the school teams: from Highbury Fields it was Julia Hodson and Zofia Hodgkinson. At Drayton Park it was Rosie Walden and Emma Jones.
Others on the organizing team included the Green Living Centre’s wonderful Kerry Kirwan, Antony Melville, Kelly Webb-Lamb, Caroline Russelll, Faisla Dilmi from the North London Mosque and Nicola Baird.
Speakers and workshop coordinators gave their time so generously, including: Chris Baker, Polly Higgins, Debbie Warrener, Sarah Harrison, Pete May, the politicians, the Mayor, Bob Gilbert, Rohan Knox, Jean Hughes, the Green Living Centre (including Andrew Ford), Penney Poyzer and Dilys Williams.
On the festival Saturday we benefited from help from students from Highbury Fields and Drayton Park’s climate club as well as Charlotte Eilenberg, Sue Jandy and Caroline Bucknall. The trio who ran the crèche; Janice who served teas and all the caretakers (Peter, Tony and William at HFS, Gary at DPS) made the event run far more smoothly.
Without Nicolette Jones there would have been no authors (see pic, left). She didn’t just collect up Highbury’s authors, she also helped raise #107 to be divided between the two schools towards climate change projects. At Central Library support from Teresa Gibson led to a special display (see top pic).
Clothes lovers can thank Kelly Webb-Lamb and friends for running the Swish (posh clothes swap) twice. #100s of pounds worth of glad rags changed hands – and all for free. See pic (right) of happy swishers. This is something we should definitely do again. You can find out how fun it is to run a basic Swish here.
We also need to thank speakers during the week of CLIMATE CHANGE & ME talks/workshops - Orlando Jopling, Duncan Law, the Green Living Centre’s Mark Donaldson and Karen Liebenguth.
Our funding was minimal – the Islington Festival Fund provided a grant for printing 3,000 flyers (this was printed on certifiably eco paper) by KopyKat. More info from print@kopykat.co.uk or tel: 020 7739 2451. Stalls provided raffle prizes as did Friends of the Earth. Two speakers received a fee but both planned to donate this to favourite charities (one for children/music and the other students/fashion).
Nicola Baird would also like to thank many people for the extra help/advice she got from Rita Marcangelo, Jane Hutching and Andrea Lewis (for design and marketing), Christian Graham and Polly Higgins (for blog expertise), Liz Laine (for explaining how to run the carbon footprints game), Rachel Cooke, Sue Jandy and the many people who helped by putting up flyers in their shop windows, circulating on email lists or talking up the event. It was also a great boon to have so much coverage in the Islington Tribune, so special thanks to the editor and Peter Gruner. Thanks all, now I wish you merry insulating…
Posts
