Next Green-fayre
We are making plans for the next Green-fayre at the Workhouse.
Dates are proposed for 18th-19th September 2010.
Making a wooden spoon on a shaving horse
The event will follow a similar format as to last year, with entertainments in the Workhouse venue on the Friday night, 2 days of practical crafts workshops over the weekend with music, dance and spoken word performance on Saturday and Sunday night.
Kids area and activites, fun and games, arts and making, child friendly space to explore.. circus workshops and more, Family camping in our beautiful field.
With a special Welsh Cider bar and local produce cafe. A key theme of the green fayre is celebrating local produce and the more local the better, Wales hosts a great variety of growers and makers and we will be bringing you a range of the best of local produce
basket weaving with willow canes
We are passionate about rebuilding local economies, and bringing people together to get creative and to rediscover the fun in the simpler things in life.
There is a great tradition of self reliance at the Workhouse, much of the work the previous inmates were engaged in was in fact looking fter themselves, cooking, growing food mending their clothes etc. We want to embrace and celebrate that spirit of self reliance and of communities working together.
If you would like to help or get involved with this event then please do get in touch.
Art workshops, creative fun..
All these photos are from last years event, which was the first time we had held it, and with support of a small grant fromGLASU.
The Green Fayre is all about taking part, in some way, rather than being a spectator. The first thing is to get the kids busy, and we strucutred arts workshops in the Workhouse gallery, which was conveniently located next to the tea and cake cafe so parents watching their kids work could have a cuppa at the same time,
Informal music workshops and performances
For those who dont know the Workhouse yet, it is an interesting mixture of the old stone wards, separating 4 different courtyards, each with a distinct character of its own. We encouraged musicians to mingle with the visitros to crtea good atmosphere and also to entice people in to an infromal jam session or workshop. we love working with the Cetic Cowbois, a great band from Ynys Mon, who are Workhouse favourites, Their high energy infections folk music provided a bit of a sound strack for the weekend
A Wood Mizer, mobile saw mill on display at the Green Fayre
We had crafts of all shapes and sizes on show, hopefully to insipre and involve people into making getting involved themselves. The kids all had a chance to make a bird box, weave a basket, make a spoon, card and felt wool, learn how to ceilidh dance, and loads more.
This felt rug was made at the Green fayre
This beautifual felt rug was a result of the weekend, numerous people carded and combed wool for it then when it had been carefully payer up and the pattern made , it was tolled up around a think stick, and protecked by tarpaulin, we all danced and on it and kicked it.. make all the fiebre knot together. they say it takes a whole community to make felt cover for a yurt, now i know why, it was a lot of work, but the result was defitiely worth it.
Local trees for sale at the Fayre
Keeping on teh green theme it was a chance to get together for lots of green practitioners and network and plan for the future. welshtrees.co.uk here are a local nursery growing welsh povinace trees for hedging replanting and forestry.
Courtyard cider bar and impromptu music session
Its all about ambiance really, creating a relaxing space for people to come together in and share and ejoy each others creativity, adn local produce. I would love to see the Green fayre develop as a local produce fayre, and chance for local producers to sell stock at teh end of the year. For this and toehr reasons that is why we are moving the event to later in teh year this time. £rd weekend in september. hopefully the weather can still be really nice then, and it gives more time to plan and make produce to have to sell there. I am very keen to hear from any welsh or borders producers who would like to get involved and help develop this event.
Tim and Toby from changing lives with one of the Masquerade crew
Changing Lives with BBC Wales
It was huge fun to work on the BBC Wales Changing Lives – Going Green series which was filmed at the Workhouse in August and broad cast later in the year in Oct/ Nov as a 6 part series.
The Davies family who were the subjects of the series were tremendously good sports and rose to the challenge of all the various tasks we set before them, confronting them with lots of sustainability and green issues, and idea. The series has been well recieved and certainly got a lot of people thinking and talking about it. It wa a happy coincidence really to have the cance to film at the fayre itself, it provided a wonderful backdrop to the Davies families green challenge.
The Workhouse is very keen to develop its green credentials and it working with Sector39 to host permaculture design, yurt building and all sorts of courses with a sustainability theme. These and Green Fayre, plus there is of course a local produce/ low impact ethos to all our events but this is our chance to showcase these aspirations. The Green fayre, the TV series and the courses programmes are a delberate attempt to involve more people and to inspire people to get involved and also realise that there is lots of fun to be had learning new sills and building a bit mroe resliance into our local economy.
Filming the compost toilet discussion for Changing Lives
Download Changing Lives Going Green
For anyone who missed it the series is available for download here, each episode is about 200mb
Episode 01: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YWTX11VH
Episode 02: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Y1YJ972S
Episode 03: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=B0KUYJJQ
Episode 04: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=02MOK2C2
Episode 05: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Z05O0IJ7
Episode 06: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XZ2B18YV
