Posted by Fearon Hall is celebrating the seasons with a host of sustainability events to help you through the darker nights. After nine successful Upcycle Your Life events, things are growing. New organisations are coming on board every month, to help share how you can save money and love Loughborough (and the planet) at the same time.
For the autumn/winter season, groups taking part in Upcycle Your Life include Wastenot Leicestershire; Leicestershire Community Closet; Transition Loughborough; Leicestershire Wildlife Trusts; Plastic Pledge; The Crop Club;Charnwood Chai; Love Food, Hate Waste; and other local sustainability organisations. Do get in touch via Twitter @GrowEatGift if you’d like a stall at any of the events.
In addition to meeting stallholders and finding out how you can live more sustainably (and cheaply), there are free activities at all the Upcycle Your Life events including toiletry making, crafting activities galore and eco gift wrapping as the festive season draws nearer.
All events have hot food available from the Café in the Hall, who ensure no food goes to waste. The Co-op (Barrow on Soar) are kindly providing the café with products for the events and Co-op Funeralcare are also supporting the events.
6th October: Autumn Fair and Fun Palace, 10am-2pm
Join Fearon Hall in celebrating the new season – and help shape the future for your local community hall. What ideas do you have for the green space around Fearon? Would you like a nature garden? A meeting place? A piece of community art? Something else entirely? Help us turn Fearon Hall into a Fun Palace!
Bring your ideas and you skills to craft your dream with Upcycle Your Life and GrowEatGift, and you could see your idea come to life. Share your skills with others, from knitting to crafting.
Help create Autumn Festival Food Art by bringing your spare produce, jams and chutneys and allotment goodies to add to a collaborative edible installation (all food will be used in the Café in the Hall zero waste café or donated to homelessness organisations after the autumn fair).
Meet local community groups including Fairtrade, Wastenot Leicestershire and Transition Loughborough, share your skills with others from knitting to language tuition and join in with collaborative crafts.
If you have no skills you feel comfortable offering, share stories around the fire while sipping freshly pressed apple juice and munching on chestnuts, courtesy of Transition Loughborough, and perhaps join in with a song or two. Help create plans for the future: dreams can come true…
Harvest Feastival: Share Nature’s Bounty, 27th October,11am- 2pm
It’s Harvest time and that means celebration. Make pumpkin decorations plus pumpkin soup, leather pie. Enjoy freshly pressed apples from Transition Loughborough’s apple press; bring food for the Harvest Festival display to add to the art and share with people in need;and enjoy lunch with food from the community allotment and Co-op Food Waste scheme
Embrace the darker times by planting a seed for a loved one. Chat about grief, life, death and happy memories with mortality café Throw your stresses onto the fire and trade them for some hot roasted chestnuts to warm you up from the inside out.
Make the most of the cooler nights with traditional crafts. Enjoy autumn nature crafts and woodcrafts including apple doll making, wildlife-safe fairy door making and traditional Halloween decorations; and learn how to make wildlife habitats to keep animals as cosy as people over the autumn and winter months.
Win art, craft and cooking goodies in the tombola and sample the delights of stalls from Transition Loughborough, GrowEatGift.com, LAGs, Leics Wastenot, Leicestershire Community Cupboard, Fairtrade, Love Food, Hate Waste and more.
15th Dec , 11am-2pm, Home Hygge: Get cosy this winter
Winter can be hard, particularly for people with chronic conditions, and the elderly. It can also be expensive. Upcycle Your Life will help people stay warm and cosy as the nights draw in. There will also be a Feastive Celebration with free gifts galore – celebrate the season on a budget.
Learn how to make cushions from old jumpers and draught excluders from old socks. Style your disability aids: make decorative ankle and wrist supports, classy compression wear, easy body warmers and a sparkling cane or rollator.
Or keep someone else warm by making a plastic underblanket from recycled bags for someone who is sleeping outdoors, (bring any spare plastic bags to use); or donating scarves, hats, socks and gloves – wool donations also gratefully received. Bring your solo woolly gloves too – and learn how to turn them into toys. You can also buy Pay It Forward vouchers to pay for a meal for someone in need.
Keep animals cosy over the festive season by making wildlife habitats. Create warming aromatherapy blends to make bathtime bliss as the nights draw in. Bring books, gifts, wrapping paper and festive finery to swap with Wastenot Leics, and enjoy a tasty nut milk cocoa in the vegan friendly hot chocolate bar.
Add in creating toiletries in luxury packaging for Christmas treats; eco-friendly festive decoration making: nature crafts and creating sustainable stocking fillers from recycled treasures plus ‘Grow Your Own’ Cracker making, and you should have all you need for a heart-warming winter.
Buy plastic-free Fairtrade presents and upcycled gifts, and help support local artists, plus festive stocking making for people in need. There will also be an upcycled gift wrapping service from £1-£5 parcel, and stalls from Transition Loughborough, GrowEatGift.com, LAGs, Leicestershire Wastenot, Leicestershire Community Cupboard, Fairtrade, Love Food, Hate Waste and more
Free entry – bring a gift to get a gift – and maybe meet Santa and his elves.
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