Hi everybody,
How did our Virtual Fair come about? My spare time (now more than ever) is all about crafts and campaigning, and since last year I’ve loved being able to add organising our Sustainable Chester Fairs to that list.
Amongst everything going on in the world at the moment we had no option but to make the difficult decision to cancel our March Fair, which was to be all about fast fashion, including a great line up of eco, plastic free and sustainable businesses.
I felt so bad for all our Independent businesses as their main source of income; fairs, festivals and makers markets all had to be cancelled.
https://twitter.com/ChesterFoE/status/1264172496317710337
I knew we needed to do something to help our excellent sustainable businesses, the initial idea was to do some sort of QVC idea where we would interview the makers while they showed off their goods.
While the idea was sound, we couldn’t quite get our head around how we could do it and do justice to our businesses.
I have kept an eye on other virtual fairs and while done for all the right reasons, they seemed a tad soulless, just a date and time which Facebook posts during the event time, and or website links.
Our Sustainable Fairs, as well as supporting local businesses look at ways to teach people about sustainability.
Sustainability focuses on meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
Many events like this take place in Bristol and London but we decided it was time to put the North West on the map. We’re not organising it to promote our business, We’re not organising it for any personal gain.
My embedded principles are to make our world better and have become a one woman event organising machine, so why not try my hand at organising a virtual version, what else is there to do.
The great thing about the fair being in this format is that anyone from anywhere can be involved, already my range of speakers are from much further afield than ever before.
Another huge plus is, of course that it’s much kinder for the environment as well.
Join us from Thursday 4th to Saturday 6th, finishing with a party on Saturday night.
The events, apart from the party are all hosted on a platform called Crowdcast. This allows one website URL for both the live event and straight after the recording.
We hope as many of you as possible will join us live for what should be three days of educational, interesting, informative talks and a great opportunity while local makers markets and fairs are still cancelled to see some of our eco businesses best sellers and what our makers have been busy crafting during lockdown.
It’s important we support our independent eco businesses, now more than ever…See you on Thursday.
Helen Director Eco Communities & Coordinator Friends of the Earth Chester & District
