Birmingham Friends of the Earth had the interesting task of running property lockups at TWO festivals for the first time ever this year. As well as the four lockups we run at Glastonbury each year we also ran the two that were trialled last year at the Big Chill, Eastnor, while Glastonbury’s Pilton Farm was having its four-yearly rest. Thousands of items were safely stored for satisfied punters, campaigns postcards were signed and a good, if muddy, time was had by – well – nearly all.
Many thanks to all those who manned the lockups, helped organise our crew, persuaded punters to make donations, traded toilet roll for bad jokes, entertained passers-by with a kazoo in the small hours of the morning – all the little jobs that make our festival work so rewarding! We raised nearly £10,000, which will be put towards our campaigns and our new greener, warmer heating system which will be an enormous help.
Looking ahead, there is even talk of being offered a third, small, family-orientated festival in 2008 – watch this space for a call for volunteers which should appear around Jan/Feb 2008.
[Eds would like to give extra thanks to Karen Leach, Liane Elkin and Sue Elkin for all of their work in making these fundraising events happen. And of course, they couldn’t be run without the work of the very many volunteers who help at the lockups. True team work!]
