Kingshill House held its first Sustainability Fair on Saturday in collaboration with Vegan Fairs and featured stalls, talks and family activities.
Georgie White Winter, business development manager at Kingshill House, said: “Today is all about getting the community together, to discuss climate action and think about what little impacts we can make to become a bigger impact as a community.
“We have The Big Green Map of Cam and Dursley where you can plot out any green activity going on around the area, things like recycling, cycle paths, allotments, beehives, anything.”
The team at Kingshill is planning a permaculture garden at the back of the house on an area of waste ground: “Permaculture is basically growing as much as you can on as small a plot as you can, so it’s reducing and reusing and trying to generate a growing system which is back to its eco roots, so copying how it would have been in the natural world,” explained Georgie.
The volunteers in the Permaculture group meet every third Saturday of the month of the month: “Everyone’s welcome, anyone can come down and get stuck in. It’s at 10 o’clock at Kingshill House and then you can join the group and add to it – the more people the better.”
Daisy Botha, who runs Vegan Fairs, organised the market at the event: “I used to live in Stroud, and I run Vegan Fairs which I founded in 2018 whilst I was working at The Subscription Rooms, so my first event was in Stroud. Then we moved to Cirencester and then over the years we’ve just done more and more locations.
“They told me about the sustainability fair and asked if I wanted to get involved with running a market outside, which of course I said yes. So we’ve got the gardens of Kingshill House full of Vegan Fairs traders.
“There are vegan, ethical, sustainable products on sale – there’s not just food, there’s cruelty-free organic skin care, an ethical clothing brand where everything’s organic cotton, handmade and sustainably sourced. It’s a chance to explore an alternative eco-friendly way of living.”
To find out more about activities at Kingshill House visit: www.kingshillhouse.org.uk/
Pictures by Matt Bigwood
