One of the plans that was included in the Dyffryn Ogwen Community Action Plan was to hold a Climate Festival. The purpose of the festival was to increase awareness of the climate crisis, promote the Action Plan and the work of the Community Assembly, and share information about local solutions that are already in place.
The Assembly Members decided on May 1st as a date, meaning it would be a May Day celebration. There wasn’t much time to get organised from the end of the assembly meetings – 8 weeks!
A small group got together to put things in place, meeting regularly via zoom, or in a pub to decide what they would like the event to be. They started thinking about stalls and activities, contacting other local organisations, organising a program of speakers, finding funding, and promoting the event.
Everything came together quickly, and on the day there were stalls and family activities in Llys Dafydd, an entertaining program full of speakers in Neuadd Ogwen, a trip up to Ynni Ogwen’s Hydro and an extremely popular bike ride around Bethesda. We had some live music, and a local produce market had also been organised on the day by Cadwyn Ogwen down the road in Cosyn!
The day was a success, with over 200 people attending and new connections made. We have managed to record a few of the conversations and it will be out on our podcast stream soon..
We are extremely grateful to Elusen Ogwen and to EGIN for the sponsorship to hold the event.
The crew are now looking forward to holding another festival in May 2024, and to organise a few things before then.
If you would like to know more about GwyrddNi’s work in Dyffryn Ogwen, or help with the festival, or any of the schemes in the Action Plan email chris@deg.cymru