Sustainability stories - Wandsworth Green Fair

Wandsworth Green Fair

The Wandsworth Green Fair in 2009 arose out of a small ‘green discussion group’ at Wandsworth Quaker Meeting. We were considering ways of helping others in the Meeting to learn more about sustainability, and of doing something practical to involve the wider local community. We hit on the idea of a Green Fair which we would invite other local groups concerned with sustainability to organise with us, at the Meeting House, which is centrally located near the shopping centre. The local business meeting was very supportive.

We fixed on a September date, and invited a range of local groups to a planning meeting about six months ahead. Some of these were already known to us, but a fair amount of research and networking was involved to get this far.

A couple of local transition town groups, Friends of the Earth, the local Green Party, the local Cycling Campaign, Food Up Front, etc, as well as a couple of local businesses (e.g. one that made organic juices), campaigns and charities were involved . The day itself offered opportunities to learn about energy efficiency, local wildlife, composting etc.. as well as fun activities. A series of short films were shown and locally produced food and crafts were sold. The lunchtime talks and discussion on ‘Climate
Change for the Confused’ and ‘Building sustainable communities: what can we do together’ were the most successful.

A good time was had by all, with the Meeting House pretty full for much of the time, and a good sum of money raised. The planning process helped build stronger links with those involved, which have proved helpful in other local initiatives since then. Advance publicity in the local press brought a few people in much more advance publicity and posters would have been helpful. Visitors asked about Quakers and those running the event with us were able to see how some of our beliefs were put into practice – not just in our relation to stewardship of the earth but also in discussing why we didn’t want raffles or wouldn’t have a bar.

All in all, a lot of work but very rewarding. Our premises are probably not right to do such an ambitions event regularly, but the idea of inviting other local groups to run a joint event on our premises is certainly worth considering elsewhere.

By Linda Murgatroyd

We’d love to hear the story of you or your meeting too. Just email sunnivat@quaker.org.uk and tell us about it.