Many hands really do make light work

Thanks to Amp, Cliodhna, Jo, Justine, Buxton, Monica (1), Michael, Carlene, Ailbhe, Maryam, Alex, Elias, Rachel, Sandra, Ruth, Monica (2), Lucy, Carlos, Therese, Paul, Jane, Joolie, Michelle, Henrietta, Guillaume, Daniel, Damien, Christina, Marzena, Scott, Criodhna, Andy, Beldan, Freecycle, Chris, the Queen Bee and the Frizzante cutlery. We're off to hibernate now... see you soon, Lynn & Katia

BBC London Radio

Well done Katia for joining JoAnne Good and Rowland Rivron on the BBC London Saturday radio and bigging up the Savoir Fayre! She managed to do a 1 minute plug whilst on route with supplies. Fwd to roughly 1 hr 35 mins to hear it.

Aair.fm Architectural Association Independent Radio

Honeybees at London’s SAVOIR FAYRE

The Savoir Fayre - enough buying, let's learn! Organised by Lynn Chambers, this fair took place on August 9, 2008 at the Hackney City Farm. The idea is the sharing of knowledge and making rather than money or finished products. Free entry to the Fayre offered Londoners the chance to learn how to fix their bike, make their own pinata, learn how to knit, how to do stop-frame animation, among many other exciting things for all ages. The atmosphere was buzzing, not least because there were hundreds of bees busy showing how they make honey - live. We hope the Savoir Fayre comes around again soon. #
3:42 min, AAIR 9/8/2008

Thanks Art Sleuth

p.s if you go on the Saturday you should pop down to The Savoir Fayre @ Hackney City Farm from 11-4pm.
http://openmagazinepictures.wordpress.com/

Knit in my name

www.timeout.com/london/aroundtown/events/786191/the_savoir-fayre.html

londonist.com

We are now in LONDON ON THE CHEAP!

Saturday: "Go green," they all keep a-clamoring, but...well, how, precisely? Hop over to Hackney City Farm today to find out at the Savoir-Fayre, a festival of environmental know-how. A bevy of stalls await you to lend some creative ideas on how to reduce that Bigfoot-sized carbon imprint everyone keeps yammering on about. 11-4 pm, free.

http://londonist.com/2008/08/london_on_the_cheap_7.php

Thank you Andy for your wizardry work! Poster complete. We're off to get it printed.

“If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.”

Meet Mookah. He used to be some hole ridden socks...
That is until someone's Mum answered an ad on freecycle.
You too can extend the lifespan of your socks. Just come to the Savoir Fayre on August 9th!

"It takes a lot of money to look this cheap"

Small movements in the SF world this weekend. The cleaning saluters succeeded in making a variety of homemade cleaning solutions with only natural ingredients. Eucalyptus multi-surface cleaner and pure natural lemon juice bleach were both successfully created and we invite all the cynics along on the 9th to test our chemistry. Check out our photos of lots of filthy squeezing and mixing.

“How happily extremes do meet in Jane and Ebenezer: She's no longer sour, but sweet, and he a lemon squeezer”

The only thing that you owe the public is a good performance.

Just got back from Brussels where we attended the "Foire Aux Savoir Fayre" in the town centre. It was truly amazing. They had created ingenious ways to decorate each stall. My two comrades and I helped screw the banners to the stands and chatted to lots of the team know-how about their work. We were particularly enamoured with the chair upholstery and the squeeze your own orange juice bar. It was an inspirational weekend. Thank you Damien & Daniel.

You've done it again, Lewis

Check out our newly made fabric bag. According to our friends at morsbag over 1 million plastic bags are consumed per minute globally. No one knows how long it takes for a plastic bag to biodigrade and they end up being mistaken for food by marine wildflife. Bring some leftover fabric to the fayre and we'll show you how to make one of your own.

We Tell Stories too. . .

More marvelous news, the wonderful Henrietta Norton at Can Create will be running ongoing story projects on the day. Creating new stories from old things and using games and activities to develop these stories. The installation will be growing throughout the day.

Thrift, thrift, Horatio

I spent some time over the weekend working out how to make soft toys from old socks and have now finished "Horatio" (the bunny) kindly named by my good friend Spooner. He was born from 2 socks today at 15.43 hours. You'll have to come to the Fayre to see how it's done.

It's a job that's never started that takes the longest to finish.

On Monday I put an Ad on Freecycle for resources for the Fayre and have spent the last couple of evenings doing the pick-up's.  Thanks to Faye & Chris I now have lots of plastic bags, socks & containers.  If you live in Hackney and have any unwanted wool, knitting needles, t-shirts or socks then email and let me know... lynncha@gmail.com

In a place not too far away

The idea for the SF first came about when visiting Brussels last year and there was a "Savoir Faire" event in a local rag.  Thinking it very interesting and also lots of fun I've had it in mind to put one on in England ever since.  When Katia and I started this project we got in touch with the Belgian constituency and to our delight they've just responded!  Daniel was thrilled to hear that the movement was growing and sent us the "charte" that they have compiled to help others putting on similar events.  If you (like me) are not so well versed in the french language you can translate it by copying and pasting into google.  Daniel highlighted that it was important for participants to learn the know-how by making things themselves and not only from watching a demonstration. 

There's a farm called Misery, but of that we'll have none, Because we know of one, that's always lots of fun (Ha HA!)

Wonderful wonderful day, we went down to Hackney City Farm to see if they would let us hold the Green Thing Savoir Fayre on their premises. Not only did they say yes (Hurrah!) but we now also have a date to work to. The Fayre will be taking place on Saturday 9th August. We met with the marvelous Chris Pounds who runs Hackney City Farm and I bumped into Roisin who I'd met at the NESTA Big Green Challenge day. Chris was incredibly helpful and a really cool guy. He gave us a lot of advice and contacts for people who might be interested in being involved and showed us around the grounds. For anyone who hasn't ever been down to the farm you should definately have a look. In addition to the cafe they also have workshops, really cool animals (I get really emotional when I see massive pigs, I think they're really beautiful). beekeeping and growing gardens. . . Me and Lynn are a bit overexcited today as it seems like things are taking shape. So we'll post more later.

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiousity.

So the idea we've outlined for The Green Thing Savoir Fayre so far is in the Savoir Fayre section on the side of the blog. But what do we actually want to do on the day?

So far ideas include a bike surgery, gardening tips for city and country dwellers, arts and crafts activities where people can get involved in turning their old things into new things, comic writing and stop motion workshops and ways of making environmentally friendly cleaning products that people can use in their homes. We'd love to hear more plans so if anyone has ideas please do let us know in the comments or contact us at katia@dothegreenthing.com or lynncha@gmail.com .

Once the idea seemed to be taking shape nicely we started thinking about possible locations we could use. After speaking to local councils about holding it in a park it seemed tricky. There were licensing issues and if we attracted over a certain amount of people we'd need to provide loos. As we have neither budget nor portaloos we thought we should find a friendly host who might like the idea of the SF. We're quite keen on running it on one of the city farms and we have a meeting with one tomorrow which we'll fill you in on later. If you're a bright Green Thing looking to organise your own Green thing Savoir Fayre you might try similar organisations . Or you can google city farms and see what comes up near you. These are generally lovely place with nice people working there.

That's all for now we'll update you once we have a venue confirmed.