Rockaway Glastonbury Success!
We were honoured to be asked by our residents, Kaye and Willy, to represent Rockaway in their Shangri-La field at Glastonbury. And what a time we had! Located opposite the Truth Stage, the theme this year was WE THE PEOPLE - Community, Collaboration & Hope For The Next Generation... and the above pictures show just a fraction of the collaborative preparation and setting up involved.
We were very lucky to be helped with the production by Abi Ford and her partner, Theo. They worked tirelessly to help us build a camp that represents what we do at Rockaway, and kept us focused throughout the whole event. Mark and Flash grafted for days building new tables, lamps and lots of other pieces. Howie, our electrical genius, wired everything up, while Josh and the volunteers from the Community Forest Garden added plants to many of the pieces we made. Our old friend Joe Schneider joined us with his beautiful bus and even Marta managed to take a break from the Vegan Cafe to join us over the weekend.
Once the gates opened, we didn't stop chatting to people wandering through for five days! Big thanks to Rockaway regulars Billy Colours and Merny Wernz, who were happy to join us in our little oasis of calm amidst the nearly quarter of a million people on site. Thanks also to our Josh and Zoe (on loan from the Vegan Cafe) for being part of the whole show, especially talking to people about Rockaway day and night. Josh said:
"Revellers were given a real slice of the Community Forest Garden's lush green pastures and we had lots of conversations with interested folks. It was great to be able to share our vision for a thriving community garden as an important antidote to the challenging social and political landscape of our times."
There were also lots of people we met who are doing really cool and inspiring things and we made some valuable connections. Here's Mark message about the event:
‘To everyone who helped, to everyone who came and saw us, and especially to Shangri-La for inviting us, thanks a lot! Now, let’s get to work on all those things we've been talking about. I even (mistakenly) started taking subscriptions to the Chapel of Unrest, so I'm going to have to get on with that now too! Four members at a tenner each... only 59,996 to go.. More news about that in the next newsletter (maybe.)’
As you can probably tell, we have a lot of pictures from Glastonbury, so if you want a closer look at them all they're now on our GALLERY page on the website.