Hello and welcome to the Festival of Thrift, the UK's only National Celebration of Sustainable Living. Now award-winning and in its 4th year, the Festival will be taking place on 17 & 18 September at Kirkleatham Estate, Redcar, TS10 5NW
Who are we?
The Festival of Thrift is a free weekend Festival with a focus on how to live sustainably. It provides fun and unique drop in sessions, learning opportunities, arts and entertainment, thrifty advice, films, talks and demonstations as well as stalls and innovative food.
We have a wonderful community who describe the Festival as an annual highlight, we want to keep going, to keep admission FREE and to keep learning and sharing and teaching how living sustainably is fun, creative and for everyone.
What is the plan and what's great about it?
1,200 things to see and do, 60 artists, 120 stalls and 300 workshops resulted in 45,000 visitors last year. We are delighted that our unique family friendly Festival is growing from strength to strength.
We would like your support to keep building. To continue to have a fabulous engaging programme and to keep the admission FREE, getting more of you involved and providing families with knowledge and ideas and giving them more outside activities than ever before.
We want to show families how to play in the great outdoors and learn skills that seem to be slipping away. Activities might include; campfire cooking, making jam in our jam factory - Jamalittle - as well as den building, making cardboard castles and orienteering before settling down to listen to magical story telling in the woods or at the Mariner's Hut.
But it's not all for the kids! Visit the OxGlam Fashion show, SwapShop (where you can swap your old stuff for something useful), groove at the Routemaster Bus or DJukebox and fix your broken electricals at the Fix It Cafe. Then shop in the upcycled, recycled and sustainable market for home wares, jewellery, fashion, and munch and sip on homemade tasty treats while watching great performers and musicians, or take a seat at the Bistro du Van or in the meadow for dinner.
Demonstrations are all around the site from hands on sculpting and pizza oven building to learning how to use a sewing machine. There are films, talks and more!
What will contributing do?
Contributing will be helping families learn together. Teaching children new skills which in turn improves their health and well being and the quality of their lives. Moving them away from indoor technology to the great outdoors, as well as showing them different ways of being creative, how to make and how to fix. We all know how fulfilling that is.
Did you know chldren who play outdoors develop better language skills, are fitter and have fewer behavioural issues? So supporting the Festival with one of these packages will really make a difference.
What we're asking for...
To make this happen, we need your help. To cover the costs of paying artists, production costs, promotion and festival administration, we need to raise £7,500.
This money will help us to provide a high-quality Festival experience for attendees and affirm the importance of sharing and developing creativity through sustainable living.
If you've attended the Festival of Thrift (previously at Lingfield Point, Darlington), you will know what a special event it is. If you've never visited, please donate and come join us this year!
What's new for 2016...
A fabulous new site! As we aim to 'share the joy' the Festival will be taking place at Kirkleatham in Redcar this year. Complete with a Museum, woodlands, stables, church, adenture playground, walled garden and more. The site lends itself to more outdoor activity. Perfect for our woodland activities, foraging and denbuilding.
Our faces...
Here we are. A passionate and hard-working bunch of individuals who spend months seeking out new ways to get you excited about thrift and sustainability. We come together each year to make the Festival happen. We'll keep adding to tell you more about ourselves as we go.
Starting from the left!
I’m Stella and I say that I lead the festival team – but to be honest they are all such great self-motivated people they are leading me most of the time! I invite artists from all over the UK and internationally who care as much about sustainability as we do, involve local communities and organisations and think of ways to show how being sustainable can be really creative and help us connect with each other. I have always been thrifty - had to be as the eldest of a huge family - and the Festival is the best possible way to share the joy in it, not just people for whom it is fun - which it is – but also those for whom it is a necessity.
I'm David, I'm one of the Directors and have been on board since the very first Festival. I'm the man with the plan - they say I'm the bog and bins man - but I'm much more than that (honest!). I've worked on huge festivals and events all around the UK but this is a highlight. We work carefully on ensuring that wherever we can, we're sustainable, in managing this Festival. I'm a local lad too. I love it that the Festival is Teesside born and bred.
And coming soon...
Alex - operations, stall holders, demonstrations, workshops and more
Karen - is all about marketing
Jo - the clever graphic designer
Rachel - is our PR guru
Simon - Food, drink, food & drink
Tracy - the official Festival Photographer
But what do Festival goers say?
Head to our Facebook page to see more... https://www.facebook.com/festivalofthrift/reviews/
SHOUT!
If you’re not able to contribute but like what we’re doing, get the word out! Shout about us on Twitter @ThriftFest and Facebook (Festival of Thrift), Whatsapp it to your friends, email it to your colleagues and talk about it your family and feel free to get in touch.
If you want to know more, please ask, and thank you!
FAQ
You can find out more info by visiting our website - www.festivalofthrift.co.uk
Or email us at - [email protected]