WHERE: South of France

WHEN: Possibly 6th- 14th of August but that’s not confirmed. Basically between June and September

COST: Anything from £0 – 150, (ish) depending on how you travel.

YES PLEASE!

Hello wonderful DFs from far and wide!

I hope I find you all in good health! As I’m sure you’re all starting to notice, the days are getting longer and the air is getting warmer! This doesn’t just mean that exams are looming, it also means that the summer holidays are just around the corner!

Lots of DFs will tell you that wwoofing is the perfect way to spend your summer! What could be better than working for board and food on an organic farm in a sunny foreign country? Learning about sustainability and ecological living whilst having a break in the sun! If this sounds like your cup of tea then get in touch!

There is a very exciting opportunity to go wwoofing in the beautiful South of France between June and September this year ! (quiet possibly 6th -14th of August)For only the price of your travel there and back! If you want to get involved then please drop me and email at imogen.georgia.smith@gmail.com

Hope to hear from you soon,

Blue Skies,
Your International Opportunities Officer
Imogen x

]]> http://www.spanthatworld.com/wwoofing-in-the-south-of-france/feed/ 2 http://www.spanthatworld.com/travel-zine/ http://www.spanthatworld.com/travel-zine/#comments Wed, 16 May 2012 19:25:51 +0000 SophieS http://www.spanthatworld.com/?p=12671 The new zine them is TRAVEL, hopefully this will give you guys a reason to share all your exciting adventures to various lands.

We’re looking for guides to other countries, ways of green travel, things to do with your summer holidays, aswell as any other things you creative beings want to publish.

I’d also like people to share their stories of DF Camps past in order to get everyone excited for the upcoming spectacular that will be DF Camp 2012.

The deadline is 10th June, apologies for it being so soon but until I know the date of the next mailing I can’t risk it being later. Hopefully it’ll give those of you doing exams something productive to do with your procrastination.

I’d also like to apologise for the lack of zines so far this year, this is due to my personal issues but excitingly it does mean there will be a double wammy in the next mailout. Both Au Naturel and Travel will be coming out this term so no worries to those of you who haven’t seen your work yet.

Please send any questions or submissions to seslater@hotmail.co.uk (please don’t send to the zine email as I don’t recieve those).

If you want to help create a poster for the inside of the Zine then send your drawings, photos and everything else to Comms rep. The poster theme is “A perfect DF world”.

Email the images to me using communications@spanthatworld.com

For those of you who make posts for spanthatworld (this can be any of you if you. If you fancy a go then email me at communications@spanthatworld.com) the process is exactly the same except if you want your post to be a featured post you have to tag it as “featured”.

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While you’re having a good look around, getting used to the new menu system and layout, here are a few things to look out for on your travels:

1- New Ctte and Regional Pages!

Lets face it, the old one’s were pretty useless but now they are a triumph of ergonomic beauty.

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2- The Events FAQ Page

For all new DFs, venturers, parents, and group leaders who have any worries about sending someone to/going to a DF event this page can answer all your questions. or, at least tell you who to ask if it doesn’t.

3- DF SLIDESHOW!!!

That’s right, back by popular demand is the DF slideshow. If you want to add a picture to this simply email it to me at communications@spanthatworld.com

Right next tot he slideshow is an amazing spinning tag cloud. Go on, scroll down right now and check it out.

Summary of Business

The Share

Yup, it’s pretty amazing.

A feasibility report is being made by Samir Rana, Sam Sender, Joe Bowler and whoever wants to lend a hand. This will tell us if the concept is possible, how long this will take and how many of our dreams can be realised. Yes, this does sound dull but it’s deliciously necessary and it means all our dreams might actually turn into some sort of coherent plan!

The first action from this has already happened, a fact finding trip to lammas! Future trips are being planned for the summer holidays so stay tuned for updates Here

Worker’s Beer rep election

Sadly, our rep elected at Althing has no time for this role. That’s what happens when you want to become a trained medical professional, take this as a warning all you ambitious types. Our new rep is…

Marc Stratton 

He’s already been doing a great job, check out this post to see how you can get involved with the festival based money raising eventage.

The Scout Exchange Project

Those of you who came to Spring Awakening will remember we had two scouts staying with us. They hoped to learn a bit about how we do things with the aim of improving youth empowerment within the scouts and finding out how they could help Woodcraft. There will be a post as soon as they finish writing up how amazing the event was for them.

In the future we want a couple of DFs to be able to go to one of their events and learn what a camp of the uniformed persuasion is like.

Sharing DF Camp with People and Planet

People and Planet is an ecological organisation based in universities around the country. We hoped to have both our summer events nearby so that we could share workshops. Sadly though, this didn’t work out, but we’re still looking into having a delegation from them or having them run us some workshops.

North West  Discussion

Hebden Bridge, Bradford and Manchester are the known active districts in the NW if you’re not represented here get in touch with Annie, especially Liverpool! Communication between districts is very low, if you’d like to be a group contact let us know.

Hebden continue to run club joker at a local event to raise money, contact them to get involved.

North West meet up
Possible skill share/ gathering event at Highgate. This may include the whole of the northern region! What could you bring? A workshop on how to edit spanthatworld or how to plan a STWWM? anything goes.

Involvement with younger groups
There is a High demand for DFs to run groups. Could you help? There is loads of support available for you. Leader training, The roots project and soon Mentors will be available to guide you through. Talk to Committee for more information.

Annual Gathering

(motions 13&24)

A couple of Motions this year are about the DF movement. Both seem poorly thought out and would detrimentally affect both woodcraft folk and DFs. We’ve chosen to believe the motions are not malicious, but come from a lack of understanding about DFs and what we do. We see education as the solution to get ourself better understood.

We resolved to:
Counter the motions at AG with members speaking against them.
Continue our action project “Putting the District back into District Fellows” and The Roots Project to increase DF presence at a district level.
Create workshop plans, resources and information that local DFs can take into districts to run sessions for woodcraft’s young people and leaders.
edit: both motions fell at AG, motion 24 was not even discussed 

Next Thing

Our next business event is South East Thing run by the lovely Esme. The Dates are the 6th-8th of July, details coming soon. See you there

The Eastern Region DF social will be all of these things and more. What better way to spend the day than on the beach, socialising, swimming and learning about craft and world issues. Workshops and training will be such a huge part of this event, but not in the conventional way – it will all be totally informal and fun. Explore a new learning environment  - the beach! – and help develop Young Kinsfolk links in the Eastern Region.

By night, we can have a woodie sing-a-long on the beach and indulge in much needed post-exam DF antics. There’ll be a campsite right next to the beach on which we will have about 6 tents plus a gazebo. This is where we can sleep if it rains, or if you don’t want to bivvy. There’ll be showers, loos and running water on site, rather more glamorous than your average bivvy.

The event is completely FREE for everyone attending, including all food, and dinners will cooked on BBQs and open fires. The bivvy/camping event will take place from Friday 29th June 2012 – Sunday 1st July 2012 at Long Beach campsite, Hemsby, Norfolk, which is right beside the beach. The nearest station is Great Yarmouth, but don’t book your trains until you’ve filled in the form and had confirmation. Travel bursaries may be provided on request.

If you’re interested in running a workshop, training session or simply want more info, please email eastern@spanthatworld.com or call 07523255086

Places are limited so get booking!

Then you’ve come to the right place. We need passionate and enthusiastic Young Kinsfolk to deliver training at the Eastern Region DF social on anything from how to give massages, how to be an active listener, how to take part in Woodcraft democracy and even how to build the Share completely out of sand. Do you want to run a workshop on youth activism? MEST-UP? PARTY? Bushcraft? How to be more involved in Districts? Poetry?

There’ll be a campsite right next to the beach on which we will have about 6 tents plus a gazebo on it. This is where we can sleep if it rains, or if you don’t want to bivvy. There’ll be showers, loos and running water on site, rather more glamorous than your average bivvy. As a trainer, you’ll get to not only join in with the fun, but help to create it.

What’s more, you’ll get your travel expensed to come to this wonderful event and materials paid for.  The event is completely FREE for everyone attending, including food, all cooked on BBQs and open fires. The bivvy/camping event will take place from Friday 29th June 2012 – Sunday 1st July 2012 at Long Beach campsite, Hemsby, Norfolk, which is right beside the beach. The nearest station is Great Yarmouth, but don’t book your trains yet. Travel bursaries may be provided on request by people attending but not running a workshop.

If you’re interested in running a workshop, training session or simply want more info, please email eastern@spanthatworld.com or call 07523255086

Committee Updates

Comms and Chair:

OMG, new website out soon. if you wanna use the DF Twitter account just ask me for the details. I’m trying to cobble together a DF Cookbook and some New DF Stuff like Pants. As Chair I have been doing some safeguarding and generally making sure the rest of ctte is on top of everything, they are.

Laymember and Sustainability:

 New Roots Fund applications discussed and sorted. Kept up the general chatting with the rest of ctte and helped them out with their roles.
Projects: PARTY is up and running again, a working group has been forged. MEST-UP training weekend nearly upon us, especially for you in the Eastern Region as your helping to fund us. Also excited about the Mentoring Project.

Fundraising Rep: 

Making sure that MEST-UP have the money they need for their training weekend. Working with Imogen to make sure there’s money for an international delegation coming to DF Camp. Also has plans for another Huge Ideas Pot.

Chair of Regional Council: 

Supported people in their coordinating of SpanThatWorld with Music. Collected some information on grants/funding to help Regional Reps access this. Also, lots of GC stuff and MEST-UP stuff.

Treasurer: 

Hasn’t done everything he should have yet, promises to pay everyone. No worries, we have lots of money.

Training:

 In frequent contact with Tracy, Woodcraft’s training rep. Sorted out First Aid training for DF Camp and is looking into yet more fabulous training opportunities. Also stroked Toby a lot.                 This is Toby —->

International Rep:

WWoofing this summer is going to be amazing. The trip to Norway is happening 100% and it will be 100% AMAZING. Tamsin from the IFM has been helping arrange an international delegation for DF Camp. Jess has been helping gather ideas for an awesome gap year pack, a pack filled with all the info you need for the best Gap year all year.

Affiliations:

The sad, bookingless end of Blank Canvas has been wrapped up. The Scout Exchange project sounds amazing as is his IFM hoodie which he wears all the time.

Events:

Completely regenerated the Events Pack, it now has everything you need to know for a fabulous event. If you think something is missing, contact Michael and he’ll sort it out. All the venues we’ve used have been sorted, as have some future venues been booked. Including the venue for DF Camp will be very north indeed. DF hammocks were researched and sadly found ridiculous, but a DF temperature regulated urn is decidedly less ridiculous.

Webfairy (not a ctte role but still important):

Some site problems have been sorted. The brand spanking new site will be out soon soon soon. Please check it out and tell us what you think so we can make it the best it can be.

Height Gate is in a beautiful location, so many were buzzing at escaping city lives to some South Pennines hills. This buzz continued through discussion and into the night, when as the stars grew brighter, faces grew less recognisable as the face paint emerged. A motley crew of clowns, acrobats, lions, mimes, weightlifters and much more came out for a circus style party. And, in DF style, these circus acts danced the night away (or just scared everyone with evil clown faces).

The days were calmer, occasionally shaken up by the elected Barn – Gate- Door – Height – Tester – Jester and her endless jokes on height measurements!
And of course, in classic DF style, space was found for hammocks to be assembled.

All in all, NW Thing was great. Everyone pulled their weight and mucked in to make it a fantastic business event. Despite complaints of not enough food (DFs eat an awful lot, I realise!) and those Southern beings not adapted to Northern temperatures (softies!), business got sorted.

Thank you everyone who came, you were all ace!

Workers Beer’s own deadline is fast approaching so make sure your application is in by April 19th! You can find all the details on how to apply here.

Festivals confirmed

Workers Beer have been in touch and  confirmed that they will be running bars at:
Latitude
Reading/Leeds
Tolpuddle Martyrs

Sorry if your festival of choice is missing – Workers Beer seems to be having a quieter year this year.  If anyone wants/needs to change their preference(s) just get in touch workersbeer@spanthatworld.com.

Other opportunities

Workers Beer have also confirmed that they will also be at these day only events:

Proms in the Park
Crystal Palace Garden Party
Women Chainmakers Festival
London Live (Olympic Event)

They all sound like great opportunities and if you are tempted then get in contact ASAP and I will see if we can rustle up a group! Be prepared however to have less free time at these events and to likely be responsible for your own accommodation (unless we can magic some up!).

Dates and more info on all the festivals and events is now up on the distinctly unshiny 2012 festival page here.

Blue Skies x

Please note we are not part of WBC, other charities should contact them directly.

Four DFs volunteered at Lammas low-impact eco-village in Pembrokeshire for a crash course in green building, turf roofs, hydroelectric energy, veg growing, low-maintenance crops and low-impact living. And rap. Since January, Facebook has been buzzing with debate suggestions and ideas. 90 DFs have joined the Share group to contribute hundreds of enthusiastic comments. There is a real sense of excitement for this new DF and kinsfolk project to create a low-carbon DF venue where we will meet our basic needs from the land. This makes it a pity that my thoughtful plan to increase the number of members by changing the group name to a more popular title was branded unprofessional, even three times as many members have joined “EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT 2PAC WILL ALWAYS BE BETTER THAN LIL WAYNE!“. But we have 89 members at the moment, while they have 252. And we’re trying to create a large national movement. Just saying.

Dozens of DFs have come together at the Share Facebook group, where they have designed a Share logo and voted on exactly what they want to see on the site. Top of the list are renewable energy, a veg patch, woodland, rainwater harvesting and compost loos, with more than one hundred votes between them. Underdogs wallowing sadly lower down the list are a “pirate ship” with a lonely 8 votes, a “moat” that only 7 people chose, and a “ball park” with only 3 votes. “Gandalf” got no votes at all. If there were ever proof of the problems with this country’s youth, these twisted priorities must be conclusive. In what world is compost more important that a pirate ship surrounded by a moat filled with coloured plastic balls and captained by Gandalf? That would be utopian. Nevertheless, the people have spoken, and it seems DFs know what they want: a low-carbon DF venue where we meet our basic needs from the land.

With this in mind, we launched a skillsharing trip to Lammas, to showcase the very best low-carbon infrastructure. Lammas were at the forefront of a hard-fought battle to change national planning law to allow low impact developments (such as eco-smallholdings), which they won – changing the law and allowing the residents to start living on the land 3 years ago. I found no evidence that they acheived this thanks to any good-natured Tolkien wizard, but a Tolkien wizard would have helped progress, and they’ve made good progress, so I drew my own conclusion. On-site at Lammas I saw various different types of compost toilets, green buildings, underplanted orchards (“forest gardens”), veg patches, renewable energy and I also saw three fellow volunteers who were exasperated at the constant confusing references I was making to Lord of the Rings. Compost toilets, green buildings, forest gardens and veg patches match up almost exactly to the poll of what DFs want at the Share. I say “almost” exactly, as Lammas haven’t yet built their eco showers but DFs want the Share to have eco showers, and based on the facial expressions of other passengers when we got the train home, the public also agrees that we should have showers.

We were inspired by what we saw at Lammas. We are delighted to announce plans for exclusive DF training in eco-infrastructure this summer, likely to happen around August. Shower before you leave for peace of mind. The plan as it stands is to divide DFs into specialist groups of around 5 students, each to learn a particular skill. We have talked to Lammas residents, and there are likely to be opportunities to train in green building, veg growing, compost toilet management and possibly solar shower management. For some reason solar showers seem to be elusive. Watch this Space for updates.

At the Sping Awakening 2012 mini-thing, we decided to take a motion to Althing in September to free up funding, resources and support for the Share, to be used for training, green infrastructure, fundraising and grant applications. The motion will also create a two-year role for an elected DF to take the Share project forward. I have been told tactlessly by tired, worn-out friends that regrettably it is unlikely that Gandalf is available for the role. Passion for the Share is coming from a wide range of avenues. At Annual Gathering in April 2012, the Woodcraft movement nationally will vote to instruct Woodcraft’s General Council to “support the District Fellows Movement in developing The Share”. This has the potential to be rocket fuel for getting the Share off the ground. Eco-rocket fuel. Probably for pedal-powered rockets.

So we are starting to see exactly what the Share will look like. With motions at Annual Gathering and Althing, a skillsharing trip under our belts and a training trip on the horizon, it is hard not to feel delight at the Share’s first steps to becoming a reality. We are starting small, and working towards ambitious goals. No one said that acquiring land for a glittering self-sufficient DF centre would be easy, but the path there is solid. We are starting with motions in support. Then we are moving on to training. After training, we will put in green infrastructure at existing Woodcraft Folk sites. And with that proven experience, we can show to grant bodies such as Awards for All that we have the expertise to set up a low-carbon venue.

So – Park Farm, Lockerbrook, Cudham, Activity Den, Heightgate – all of the Woodcraft folk campsites stand to gain in the coming months from enthusiastic, trained DFs who want to set up compost loos, solar arrays, forest gardens, and maybe – if luck comes our way – maybe even showers.

To keep up to date with the latest Share news, join the Facebook group, The Share: a campsite and environmental Centre linked with Koodoo.

Sam Sender

Hopefully, one day soon, 5 year membership will be available. This wonderful development will mean all us DFs will have to worry about is renewing our CRBs every three years. But until then paying every year is how it goes.

Yes, making sure your membership is up to date can be a pain  but it’s probably not as hard as you think.

If your one of the many DFs no longer, or never, associated with a district then DF committee members can act as membership secretary. That means we can finish filling in your membership application forms for you.

But we still need to meet you and see your Id and all that. So if you haven’t met us then you can contact your regional rep to help you find a membership secretary in a nearby district. To find out how to contact your regional rep.

So, to become a full member of the Woodcraft Folk, simply follow these 6 steps:

1) Read the Woodcraft Folk’s aims and principles. If you agree with them, carry on to the next steps.

2)If you’re 16 or over (technically you can wait until your 18 but Woodcraft likes you to have one from 16), get a CRB. DF committee can act as membership secretarys in this process as well. Equally we can try and find a local secretary. Check out this page from the Woodcraft site for more information.

3)Print off the membership application form and fill it in.

4)Contact a member of DF Committee or a local membership secretary.

5)Show your chosen secratary some ID, your CRB and some references that tell us how lovely you are.
6)Put the completed membership form, your CRB and £10 in an envelope and post it to Folk Office or scan it all an email it to chair@spanthatworld.com and I’ll pass it on to the right person.

Folk Office Address

Woodcraft Folk,

Units 9/10,

83 Crampton Street,

SE17 3BQ

For more info check out the Woodcraft Website