Six months ago, I had an interesting
conversation with one of the organizing members of the Thames Regional
Ecological Association. I was inquiring
about TREA’s upcoming plans for 2015 to see if I could join in on a project and
help out. Anne told me that a group of
volunteers was just forming to make plans for June’s Bicycle Festival and that
I was more than welcome to join this group.
I did!
Since January, our group has been having
monthly meetings (thanks to Henk for opening his home to us, each month) to
share ideas and move ideas forward so that we could create the most unique
festival to date. One topic of
discussion led us to wonder how we could engage the public to increase
attendance at the festival. I shared a
fun idea…
I told the group that I could create an ‘Art For Earth’ program for students to teach them about our needs to reduce our
dependency on fossil fuels… with a focus on transportation… with a focus on
bicycles. I would engage the students to
create artworks inspired by thoughts of bicycles and we could create an art
competition and have a nice display of their artworks at the festival and we
could award a few prizes at the festival, as well. By doing this, many of the students would
want to come to the festival to see their artwork on display and if the
students came to the event, then so would their parents and friends.
This plan would add one more fun display for
the event and increase the amount of people who would be attending! The group thought that this was a great idea
and so… “Pollution Solutions” was born and I went to work!
Over the next several months, ideas for the
program were laid out and local bike shops were approached to secure donations
that would be used for the prizes.
Bells, streamers, light reflectors, helmets and air pumps were a few of
the prizes that we received for the students.
Boler Mountain – which is London’s inner-city ski resort and summer
outdoor activity centre - donated several passes for the students to enjoy
activities this coming winter. Thanks to
everyone for their generosity and support!!!!
I began approaching schools, nearing the end of
March, to see if I could teach this art program to students in Grades 3,4 and
5. Luckily, I only had to approach one
school that embraced this plan with open arms and soon four art classes had
been scheduled.
While I continued moving forward with these
plans, other members in our group were busy with other aspects for this
festival. We needed to have a food
vendor, music and entertainment needed to be planned, advertising and promotion
needed to be set up and other bike related events needed to be organized.
Soon, each member had a job to do and we all
got very busy. During our meetings, we
would share ideas to help each other with all the different aspects that needed
to come together.
I spent quite a while organizing my ‘Pollution
Solutions’ art programs and soon I found myself standing in front of many
friendly students who were eager to share their ideas.
When I teach my art programs, I always find
ways to create interactive lessons that the students get involved in. I never stand at the front of the class and
just talk to them… I ask them questions, instead, and I use their answers to
direct the course that our conversations take.
While each class takes similar journeys, our discussions are all very
unique and very spontaneous.
I always steer our conversations to a place
where the students can feel inspired and empowered to realize that each one of
them can do things in their own homes to reduce the amount of pollution that we
create. It’s important to realize that
each one of us has many choices and that our choices can influence the
direction of industry.
We talked about how we can hang our clothes up
to dry on clotheslines, during summer months to decrease our need for electricity.
We talked about how far our food travels – from
the farmers’ fields to a processing plant to a distributor who puts our food on
boats, planes and trucks to be redistributed and repackaged until if final ends
up in our local store – and how we can reduce our carbon footprint by growing
our own food and supporting local farm markets.
We talked about my lawnmower!
We talked about how using hand tools that use
‘People Power’ instead of fossil fuels may take a bit longer and how our
dedication to reducing our wastefulness is a responsibility that we must all
embrace to ensure a cleaner and healthier future for our children.
And, of course, we then talked about
bicylces!!!
I asked the students to imagine that I was a
company that built bicycles of the future.
Yes – they were meant to help people get around the city… but they could
also be designed to do so much more.
The students were to pretend that they were an
advertising company that my bike company was going to hire to create an
advertisement in a local ‘outdoors’ magazine.
The students had the freedom to use whatever materials they wanted to –
pencil crayons, markers, paint, glitter pens, etc.
“I want people to look at your ad and say
‘Hey! I want to ride a bike!!!’”
The students really enjoyed my presentations
and I thought that it was great that the teachers also became involved by
adding to the discussions. Soon, colours
were flying and bicycles of the future were being designed!
While all of this was going on, the planning
group was also coming up with more ideas for the festival…
One idea was to see if we could organize many
community bike rides from all of the different communities within London. Each community would have a meeting location
and at a certain time people would ride their bikes to the festival so that
everyone arrived at relatively the same time.
I thought that this would be a lot of fun and so I also began to
organize a community bike ride from Byron.
Flyers were made and a lot of online promotion began.
Everything was falling into place, quite
nicely, and everyone was looking forward to ‘the big day’!!!!!
…and then the rain came!
It didn’t rain for a few minutes… or even a few
hours! When the first drops began to
fall – about one hour before the community bike rides were to begin – we all
knew that this was going to be a very wet day!!! In fact, the rains fell continuously from the
skies for close to 30 hours!!!!!
Devon and I waited at the Byron meeting
location and watched as landscapes disappeared because of all the heavy rains
that were falling. We could barely see
the closest road – which was only a few hundred feet away. Since no one showed up for this community
ride and since I didn’t want Devon to get soaking wet and possibly catch a
cold, we decided to cancel the bike ride and find a drier way to get to the
festival.
In the spirit of all community festivals that
experience conditions such as this, everyone involved in this festival heartily
embraced the slogan “The show must go on!”
And it did!
The musical performers performed!
The crowds danced!
The cooks kept the counters clean!
Mr. Jim got his face painted!
And Devon splashed in the puddles!
One of the City’s councillors dropped by – a
really dedicated cyclist (he rode to the festival with a friend in the rain) –
and shared a few words before introducing the Mayor, who had brought his family
with him.
Two other councillors attended to share
information about the City’s plans for improving bicycle lanes throughout
London.
We all enjoyed a colourful and festive fashion
show. And then it was time for me to
talk about the ‘Pollution Solutions’ art program and hand out prizes to the
students. It didn’t take long to
announce the winners, because no students showed up… but that didn’t stop me
from putting on a fun performance.
I began with a ‘repeat after me’ song and soon
all those in attendance were singing along as we filled the air with our thoughts
for the future…
The Earth is our friend!
The
Earth is our friend!
And she needs a helping hand!
And
she needs a helping hand!
We can plant some trees!
We
can plant some trees!
Making homes for birds and bees!
Making
homes for birds and bees!
We can clean the air!
We
can clean the air!
To show the future that we care!
To
show the future that we care!
Although the much need rains fell and the
attendance for our festival was an all time low, everyone who did attend had a
great time. There were lots of
activities to keep us all busy and the spirit of community – filled with a
sense of pride – shone brightly!
Jim Kogelheide
2015
No comments:
Post a Comment