The Big Lunch is an initiative started by the Eden Project in 2009 to
encourage people across the UK to come together for a few hours of food,
friendship and fun. It aims to create stronger, friendlier communities where
people start to share things, from conversation and ideas to skills and
resources. Last year a staggering 8.5 million people participated in Big
Lunches across the UK.
As Birmingham is striving to be a leading green city, we thought we would
take the opportunity to highlight this national initiative promoting a stronger
friendlier community being both a sustainable and low carbon also. Why not
have a vision for a Green City that involves all its green entrepreneurs and
practitioners in the community coming together to create a green village?
What activities are taking place?
The Big Green Lunch upholds eco-friendly ideas, embraces the arts and
celebrates efforts to encourage more sustainable lifestyles. There will be
music, dancing and entertainment on a biodiesel stage and family friendly
activities that will create a fun, green festival environment.
The Big Lunch obviously emphasises sustainable food that’s locally grown,
locally purchased and food that is healthy as well as fairly traded. A selection
of Birmingham’s rich diversity of food will be on show through local food
suppliers and caterers that include Caribbean, Indian, Italian and Vegetarian
chefs who will be cooking their food for people to purchase. The Love Food
Hate Waste campaign will be showing people how to shop, store and prepare
food more effectively to save money and waste. The Smoothie Bike will also
be encouraging more exercise and the drinking of healthy, self prepared fruit
juice.
Attractions include Bollywood dancing workshops and henna tattoos as well
as zero carbon activities for kids like trampoline/ bungee jumping. There
will be circus workshops offering the chance to ride a unicycle, walk on stilts
and juggle a Chinese diabolo. Children can also take part in workshops
with the ‘Scrap Store’ play workers, play giant lawn games and visit the mini
petting farm which will include pygmy goats, sheep, pigs, poultry, rabbits, a
miniature horse and an alpaca.
All ages can have a go at riding on a penny farthing or learn how to fix a
bicycle. The city’s acclaimed Fairtrade and Ethical Market will be there with
it’s ever increasing range of fair-trade, recycled, ethical and eco-suppliers
including members of Birmingham’s Fairtrade Association.
Who is attending?
We expect a lot of people connected with the green agenda in Birmingham
will be attending along with other interested parties as well as the plain
curious.
The Venue:
The Botanical Gardens is a tried and tested venue which attracted around
1,200 people to the Sustainability Spring Fair back in March. Everyone we
spoke to thought the venue was perfect and it provided a perfect backdrop
to a sustainability event. The Botanical Gardens is a great day out in its own
right with wonderful displays of plants and landscaped gardens, but it is a
facility under used by the public. Maybe this is because of cost, but the offer
of a free visit seemed a very popular incentive to entice visitors to our last
event.
We did an evaluation exercise of the Sustainability Fair earlier this year. Everyone rated
the event and the venue as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’. We asked the question -
“What did you learn about sustainable living today?” Some of the responses
included: composting toilets (50 yrs); there is a lot going on I never knew
about (65 yrs); everyone should have a bike blender in their house it would
encourage you to keep fit and eat healthily (15yrs); I learned what to do with
grapes when they are going mouldy rather than throw them away (15yrs);
you can recycle bottles to make something new (12 yrs); ideas for recycling
crafts (42 yrs); all the stuff about bees (38 yrs). Inspired and encouraged by
this excellent feed back and the turnout of newcomers, not to mention the
amazing atmosphere, we have set out to create and even bigger and more
exciting event this June.
Listening to suggestions from previous attendees, we are planning to put on
more outdoor activities, have more dynamic music in the bandstand and all in
all aim to achieve a really fun day out so Birmingham’s diverse communities
can come together and be converted to a greener lifestyle.
Summary
This event is another step in reaching the unreached for sustainable living and
includes the adaptation to climate change and economic factors that influence
what we buy. The Energy Road Show from Carillion will be there recruiting
people for Green Deal retrofits to their properties. A direct result of our
partnership with the Botanical Gardens is they are now keen to be retro-fitted
themselves and have a cottage which is perfect for a show case ‘Eco Home’
that we can advertise to the public. One of the ladies evaluated mentioned
how much she liked the cottage and what a pity there was nothing green
about it. This is a project we hope to address with Carillion in the coming year
ahead.
