Cherwell Collective Supports Kidlington Gala Day

Where could you go to hear the Charlbury-based band Vodka Shots, see community dance school performances, and meet a member of the robot-like Dalek species from Doctor Who, all while learning about climate change?  It was Kidlington’s Gala Day of course, held on Saturday, 19 July this summer at Exeter Close in Kidlington.

Even the two hours of rain that led off Gala Day in Kidlington could not dampen the festive spirit for those who attended. The music by Vodka Shots, interspersed with the dance school performances, presented an artistic backdrop to the day of food, fun, education, and prizes.  

Our programme manager, Victoria Russell, supported by our Waste Innovation Station HQ (WISH) administrator Migle Didzgalvyte, helped organize over a dozen volunteers and other staff from Cherwell Collective to help us participate in the local community event. The event was a mixture of various local community groups with stalls outside, including Gosford All Blacks RFC, an amazing SEN team that Cherwell Collective supports. Our Climatarian Kitchen provided the catering inside the hall whilst attendees were enjoying the live music and dance performances. The food was so popular that we even ran out of chips at one point!

As usual, we helped put our own special spin on things, with a focus on reducing waste and helping the community develop practices to fight climate change.  For instance, inside Exeter Hall, we set up a pop-up location of Cherwell Larder, offering food surplus to community members to help cut food waste. Nearly a third of all food is wasted in the UK, leading to unnecessary overproduction and excess greenhouse gas emissions. By “shopping surplus first”, community members were following one of our Five Principles for Climatarian Living.

As with most events catered by Cherwell Collective’s Climatarian Kitchen program, we also used the event as a way to help educate the community about the Carbon Cost of their food choices.  Menu items ranging from chips to our famous half-beef/half-mushroom climatarian burger to an all-meat lamb kofta item were priced based on their carbon cost. Food choices like red meat dishes, which place greater strain on the environment, cost more than plant-based choices that have lower emissions.  We also used the opportunity to discuss with the local community their take on proposed infrastructure changes with public transport with interesting and varied responses.

Local community member Daniel, an employee of the local Dulux Decorator Centre and long-term supporter of Cherwell Collective, brought a unique element to the event – showing up outfitted as a Dalek, collecting donations on our behalf. The unique element drew many patrons to come learn about the organization and donate. Now that’s not something you’ll find at every parish’s gala day event!

Summarizing the event, programme manager Victoria said, “The event was a great success and was made possible by our amazing team of volunteers who gave up their time to support us. Between Catering, Tombola and Donations we made just over £1000.00 which will go towards funding the continued work that we do within the community. I’m so proud of how everyone came together.”
Please check out our calendar of events on the organization’s home page to learn about future activities you can participate in.  As we love to say, come for the food, stay for the revolution!