Greenbelt 2008

Fri 22- Mon 25 Aug 2008 (link to longer picture report)

I had never been to Greenbelt.
I have never been to ANY festival - (three folkmusic festivals, but they are different.)

Christian Ecology Link has had a stall at Greenbelt for quite a few years and people had asked me if I was going. Brendan Bowles of A Rocha Climate Stewards who had promised to send me new information on A Rocha Ghana asked if I was going.

I looked at my calendar and thought "I could go"
I looked at the Weather forecast and thought "I could go"
I read a self-help book advocating doing exciting things even if outside your normal comfort zone - so that you don't regret not doing them later. "I could go"

I phoned JB a contact who lives two miles away to see if he had floor space. - He had relatives staying. "You can borrow our tent" he said. "Uhh," I thought.
I looked at the damp wet ground at Settle. "Uhh," I thought.
I looked at the price of a cheap tent in Settle - "Uhh - it will just be "stuff" in my house afterwards." I thought.

Fortunately - thank you J.B. - the relatives would not be coming till later, and he offered a bed.

So off I went.
Settle to Cheltenham by train is about 170 miles (340 miles return) and this would produce 80kg of CO2. Some websites say we should only produce 2000kg CO2 each per year to be fair to everyone else in the world. That's 6kg a day - Hmmm.

But once there mine host lent me his bike.

I had a great time at Greenbelt and have written about it with pictures here

What has this got to do with habitats, species and forests?
Well, I spent a very happy Sunday moring up on Cleeve Hill, away from the Festival, finding wild flowers including the stemless thistle (below) and harebells with the festival in the distance(left). - If everyone valued wild flowers perhaps we could protect them better.

I put a few leaflets out on our CEL stall and hung up one of my instant folders. We collected signatures of people who would like to receive CEL news emails. - I would be able to tell them about the rainforest project later.

I heard little bits of two A Rocha Talks. David Bookless stresses important things about protecting species. People said his talks were good. Some children did a play about Creation. I am not sure if that had anything to do with the environment.

A girl from the USPG stall came to our stall and took the CEL email address - she has contacts in Brazil.

The Wild Life Trusts with a stall. They were doing a good job getting people to join their local Wildlife Trust.

I went to a workshop by Generous and have since been in contact with a girl who ran it. She has a blog

There were lots of items for sale on stalls from third world countries. I bought a mini-music instrument- talking drum and wonder if hardwood was used to make it...

I attended many worthy workshops and talks.

I met Brendan. He had emailed me the list of items that would be useful to fundraise for for the A Rocha Ghana Project - So I would read these when I got home.. see next blog entry.

The Owl - Energy Monitor

The Owl Meter

This meter measures how much electricity your house is using -

Once it is set up (and it only takes a minute once you know what to do), it is easy and fun to measure how much electricity individual items use in units of KW, or in pence per hour or even in CO2 produced.

I bought four OWL meters from a friend (though Christian Ecology Link) who has ordered them bulk for his church and contacts. (You can also get them direct www.theowl.com for £35).

I have sold one on. With the other three I am offering them on loan to people locally – for a small donation to the Rainforest Fund.

I helped at the Christian Ecology Link Stall at Greenbelt, where we (CEL) were able to pass on 4 Owls.