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.