I’ve just been contacted by my local council to warn me that I should be liable to a fine of £75 per poster (I put up loads over 3 months) for advertising a local no-profit power party event. I had no idea, and I’m sure nobody in my community had any idea, that it is now illegal to put a little poster on a tree. Our community thrives on using trees as noticeboards. I was feeling a bit miffed when I started to notice that as soon as I’d put up a poster, it would get taken down. I’d assumed somebody was being antisocial. But it was the council workers, who clearly had nothing better to do than to sabotage our event. When the council rang me, they suggested a less offensive mode of publicity would be to flier every house. Now, most people I know get annoyed at the endless shower of pizza leaflets through their doors. It’s much greener to put up a poster on one tree in every road. One positive outcome of the conversation with the man from the council is that he agreed to put up a community noticeboard.
Party without Pollution July 11, 2007
Come to the Party Without Pollution!
The ‘Party Without Pollution’ community festival is taking place on Saturday 14th July
from 12pm-6pm in Kirkup Gardens opposite Parklands School on Simonsway,
Wythenshawe, Manchester. It is free, suitable for all ages and everyone is welcome.
The Party Without Pollution is part of the Wythenshawe Forever project which is
raising awareness of climate change issues in Wythenshawe.
The ‘Party Without Pollution’ will be powered by clean green energy and the energy
saved and generated during the Wythenshawe Forever project and will feature:
* A live music and dance stage showing some of Wythenshawe’s best talent
compared by Mrs Barbara Nice (aka Holy Mary from Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights)
* Solar and pedal powered karaoke
* Children’s craft area making kites and musical instruments from scrap
* Live street art
* Bike rickshaw rides
* Local food and tea party
* Generator X’s solar powered cinema
* The climate change security blanket knit in- bring knitting needles to join in!
* Bike polo game
* Games in the PowerStation
* Stalls, giveaways and a whole lot more!
Come along and bring your friends!
see www.w4e.org.uk
The project is organised by a community radio station; Wythenshawe FM, an ethical
artists collective; UHC and an environmental resource centre; MERCI and it is
funded by DEFRA’s Climate Challenge Fund
For more information contact Eleanor Hoad on 0161 436 4165 or 07974 934 917 or
eleanor@wfmradio.org
Organise This July 1, 2007
Organise This is an event management company that specialises in sustainable events. http://www.organisethis.co.uk/sustainability.php There may be other companies that do so, but this one is really active and very up front about their green-ness, and without a hint of flakiness. It’s really impressive that they’ve worked with the British Standards Institute to develop sustainability standards for managing events. See the link for more about conferences on sustainable events.
March 15, 2007
I was invited to write an article on Power Parties for the Green Girls Global site. Gloria read it and told me about Power Down. http://www.myspace.com/powerdownordie Speaking as someone who loves music but doesn’t go to gigs because of their loudness (too loud to hear it, too loud to talk over it), this is fantastic. The next one is on May 26th. “Power Down is the idea that modern citizens can have a night of musical entertainment without leaving a huge carbon footprint. That means no lights, no refrigeration, and most importantly…no amplification. An important aspect of this movement is to dispel the assumption that the only music that can be acoustically played is that of a bunch of miserable young men with acoustic guitars. We’ve all heard that, and it bores most of us to tears, and hence, you won’t find that at Power Down. Power Down aims to bring a large array of genres to an open minded audience, from Hip-Hop, to Jazz, to Pop, to yes, Folk. There is no reason why all of these different art forms, as dependent on electricity and modern computing as they seem, be stripped bare to their acoustic core. Present a musician with this task, and let’s see the result, who knows what it will sound like. Hopefully it will be intimate, intense and enlightening from the lack of barriers between the audience and the artist, air being the only remaining medium. “
Not sure if I’d do it myself…. March 9, 2007
A friend of mine, who has poured her energies into environmentalism and the arts, said although she supported and spread the idea she wouldn’t hold a Power Party herself, as ‘it isn’t quite me’. I can understand that. It might seem a bit worthy. If you feel the same, I want to suggest a really easy way of doing it. You don’t have to organise a Power Party and give it that title above any other. If you just put a tiny mention and a link to this website on any invitation, even if your do involves sitting under patio heaters next to huge music speakers, it will remind people to turn power off at home and save power getting there. Think of it like a party off-set!
LIFT New Parliament March 9, 2007
I went to an event this week, which included a presentation by LIFT about the LIFT New Parliament. http://www.liftfest.org.uk/newparliament/ This is a large tent-like structure that will tour London and the world from 2008. It will have a screen on one flat side, and a stage/meeting spaces on the other side. It will be the space for a programme of arts-enriched dialogue about the pressing issues of the day, at the top of which is climate change. The New Parliament building has a very light footprint and all events will be planned with sustainability in mind. I was really pleased to be able to take part in a workshop with LIFT on what we can do about climate change. I shared the Power Parties idea and there was a lot of enthusiasm. People said ‘I can’t wait to go to one’. Lots of ideas for different kinds of events were shared.
Plant exchange parties February 28, 2007
We’re planning a local event that will include a planting ceremony in our park to celebrate 200 years since the end of the slave trade. I had an idea that the planting day can include a plant exchange. We can invite people to bring plants (cuttings, seeds etc) from their gardens and offer them for other people to take. We can make sure that people write their names and addresses on the marker sticks as a reminder of who you made the exchange with. I like the idea that we all have each other’s plants in our gardens as a way of making links with your neighbours. It’s a simple kind of event that you can organise with just some local publicity and by providing some marker sticks. You could add a cake exchange too so you don’t go hungry.
Map your Power Parties on Platial February 24, 2007
Can I draw your eyes across to the Platial map? You can put your power-saving parties, events, walks and clubs on this map. It’s dead easy. Just click on the map and go from there.
Share your party invites & images February 23, 2007
This movement needs materials to make Power Party invitations.
The first priority:
Are there any designers willing to make and share a logo that says This is a Power Party, including a link to http://powerparties.wordpress.com?
The second priority:
Any copy or illustrations that show positive ways of saving power when you get together, especially reminding guests to turn down/switch off before they leave home and use a green way of getting there.
The third priority:
Share your photos of Power Parties
Upload all your contributions to http://flickr.com/groups/powerparties/
Home Alone February 23, 2007
When my Auntie went out in the evening she always used to leave the heating and the lights on for the sake of her cats. She worried that she’d return to find them stiff with cold, and hungry because they wouldn’t be able to see their way into the kitchen in the dark for their crunchies. Well, most of us know that cats don’t need night-vision goggles but you could knit yours a dinky blanket. This one is donated by my mother-in-law.
