Follow the sound of the elephants.

Kit Jones, Thursday 21 June 2007

khen you want to be the centre of attention you kind of have 2 options. Either you find the party and plonk yourself in the middle of it, or you make your own party.

C-Change decided to do both.

And what’s the biggest party this summer?... IT’S GLASTONBURY (of course)

Glastonbury has got a very distinctive hum, and when your day is spent within 4 white canvases and the hum is your only contact…you grow to love the hum.

But inside our marquee, today's challenge was to form our own kind of hum. It was the hum of the bicycle, that made smoothies…the hum of the propellers as they wizzed around under the power of the sun…and it was the hum of the hydrogen cars, strutting their technological stuff on the tables of the “play” area. The most important hum though was of the people that really, genuinely wanted to talk about an issue that they felt strongly about. Those people who wanted to know what they could do, those who wanted to think about the problem and those people who were discovering some inspiring solutions.

- Pedal harder, they’re just around the next corner!

Comments

And on the fourth day, there was rain

Kate Lyons, Friday 22 June 2007

In the words of my grandmother, oh my giddy aunt. Today we had rain. No, let me rephrase that. Today we had RAIN. Lots of it. And we loved it!

Let me set the scene for you. Smack bang in the middle of the Glastonbury festival, we have a marquee that's been divided into various sections. There's a welcome section with info and pretty pictures, a section with a house that you can change aspects of to make it more environmentally friendly (and be as realistic or not as you like), a play section that Kit described yesterday, an art section which is being run by an artist who offered to help us with the project, and a discuss section with things like games, books, and before and after pictures of climate change effects to date. And ridiculously comfortable sofas. People come in, mooch at their own speed, draw pictures, make smoothies, have a chat... you get the picture.

Weatherwise, things were perfect until today. Not baking hot, but warm and nice with just occasional showers. Now we have a flooded corner of our marquee, not to mention muddy sofas and possibly gangrene... so why would we be happy? Because every new burst of rain brought a new surge of people, with a new load of opinions and lots of new enthusiasm. For the last 2 days I've been working in the discuss section, which involves me lounging on sofas (remember how comfortable I said they were?) and chatting to people as they come through. It's a hard life. Today's been absolutely fantastic for me because I have been hosting huge parties of people who all (whether they joined us because of interest or the rain) seemed really keen on soaking up the atmosphere and seeing what they could learn.

In other news, my personal favourite freebie we've got here is the temporary tattoos of our logo. I think I must have "branded" half of glastonbury today, but don't worry; there's plenty of time for the other half tomorrow. In case you're interested, favourite locations for tattoos have been down the nose and on the inside wrist, although variety has been strong. In fact, there's one gentleman walking around the festival with not one but two bum cheeks promoting the cause. Now that's what I call getting the message through and through.

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