Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Tucson 3rd Annual Green Festival Planning


Livin’ la Vida Verde Kick off Meeting

Let’s get ready to RUMBLE!!! The Green Team for Tucson’s 3rd Annual Green Festival will kick off their first meeting Feb. 23rd from 4:30 – 6:00 p.m. at Bentley’s House of Coffee & Tea on Speedway (there will be reserved tables but please RSVP for a head count). This will be our designated meeting place for now. Please feel free to join us on this great adventure!

Last years festival was a huge success!
*We had over 4,000 attendees (too hard to count exactly how many)
*2 separate stages (chock full of local performers)
*Great media coverage and Program Guide (thanks to Tucson Green Times)
*Kids’ Planet which was a mini-festival within the Festival just for kids
*Over 125 Exhibitors
*12 Media & Platinum Partners who contributed more than $2,000 dollars in cash, media and/or In-kind donations.
*37 Gold & Silver Partners contributing $100 or more in cash and/or In-kind donations
*Special Workshops & Demos on green building, local foods, rainwater harvesting, city chickens, gardening, etc
*Guest speakers who included: Mayor Walkup, Supervisor Elias, Chef Janos Wilder , Guest Dj's Laurie Starr, Jennie Grabel & DJ Jaime J & many more great community leaders who came out to support us

Now we have to ramp it up and raise the bar so that the Green Festival sets itself apart as a model for others to follow suit. We won’t have much of a budget this year, but as we all know, living green is about simplicity anyway and I think this is a great opportunity to show our community what that entails.

This year’s festival will be CARBON NEUTRAL and ZERO WASTE. No exceptions! In order to have a carbon neutral event, the energy going into the planning of the festival is as important as the energy that comes out of the festival. Keep this in mind as I have had to set some criteria for joining the Green Team that are guidelines I would like everyone to try and follow. The guidelines are by no means set to be judgmental or to pick out an individual’s lifestyle, just some criteria that will help the Festival stay true to its mission and to ensure that everyone is coming from the same place and facing in the same direction so we can achieve the carbon neutral goal set before us.

We will be using many permaculture principles in the planning piece as well and I have already begun conversations with both offices of Sustainability (Pima Co. & City). I am also going to meet with Lisette from Local First AZ to make sure local businesses, and this great organization, are kept in the forefront of the planning piece. Last year, over 70% of our Exhibitors and Partners were local so we have already started off on the right foot.

I would also really like to see a larger scale Transition Towns conversation take place so please start to think about how we can include this in the scope of the Festival as well as a Green Job Fair which my friend Scotty Johnson suggested.

In order to join the Green Festival committee we ask that you commit to the following:


~You are already living or are trying to live a sustainable lifestyle (this does not mean you have to drive a Prius and shop at Whole Foods:~)
~You will not push your own personal agenda or business during the planning process of the festival or in doing festival business with potential or existing exhibitors and/or partners (sorry but I got burned last year so I have to state this)
~You will try to make all of the Green Festival committee meetings
~You will try to carpool and/or utilize alternative transportation to help mitigate the Festival footprint as stated above, when coming to meetings or conducting Festival business (this is not mandatory but counts towards the Festival footprint)
~You will commit to the mission of Tucson’s 3rd Annual Green Festival

We will meet this month and then not again until May, then again in July. August we will start to meet bi-weekly and September will kick off weekly meetings up through the day of the event. If you can think of anyone who would like to join the committee please share this email with them.

Please email me if you have any questions and/or suggestions. theegreendiva@yahoo.com

Tucson’s 3rd Annual Green Festival is a Sustainable Tucson and Defenders of Wildlife signature event.

Peace!
Keely Sinclair~Festival Director & the Green Team (Sally, Judy, Lee, Chet, Laura, Scott, Susan, & Paula)

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