Umbrella Fair 2010

What we are about?

This will be the third Umbrella Fair, but for those that have been around long enough that is not totally true.
Hopefully the founders will fill the gaps and correct the errors but the Umbrella Fair does goes way back to the nineties.

The name was chosen because the various green organisations in town were too small to organise an festival of their own, so an 'Umbrella' organisation was formed. The festivals were vegan, green, and ever so slightly more militant than today.  On one occasion the promised veggie burger van was swiftly treated to harsh treatment when there was found to be no veggie stuff in sight.

Sadly the festival got too big to manage and the founders most likely needed to 'rest'. Some years later the Northampton Green Festival appeared run by a new generation of folks and was held at Abington Park for a few years. After about 5 years the organisers were moving on to other things and a decision was made to rest the idea for 2007. Katie Parsonson heard the sad news and so approached the 'old' organisers of the Umbrella Fair to see if they wanted to start it up again to fill the gap. To cut a short story short 12 weeks later the first Umbrella Fair happened.

So where are we now? On the Racecourse with a bigger event with those same old core messages of Green, Meat free, wrap up in good entertainment.

Below are our main objectives. (down-loadable version here)

The Umbrella Fair Organisation (UFO)

From UFO Memorandum of Association:

The Umbrella Fair Organisation has been set up as a co-operative of local people with the objective of:

1. Organising festivals and other community based events to benefit the inhabitants of Northampton and surrounding areas, to promote:
• Sustainable development
• Social justice
• Ecological balance
• Community co-operation

And to encourage life styles which are:
• Holistic
• Balanced
• Ecocentric

2. Being local, educational and environmental.

3. Encouraging community action and public participation in securing a sustainable future for all people, environment, wildlife and its inhabitants

4. To be driven by principles of diversity and community cohesion

The Umbrella Fair Festival

From Umbrella Fair Festival Project Definition Document:

Aim of the Festival
The aim of the festival is to bring together a diverse range of members of the community and community groups in Northampton, with the purpose of celebrating diversity, whilst educating and encouraging people to change their lifestyles to become more environmentally friendly.

Festival Goal
In line with UFO Memorandum of Association, this project is the main activity undertaken by UFO. It is a community festival, which is designed to promote sustainable development, social justice, ecological balance and community co-operation.

The festival is organised by volunteers working in a co-operative way and aims to be local, educational and environmental.

By local we mean: involving and inviting local people & community groups - reducing the carbon footprint of the festival by using locally based suppliers & performers, encouraging the public to use public transport, walk or cycle to the festival.

By educational we mean: having an education area which provides information about the causes of environmental pollution, what can be done to reduce environmental pollution including practical steps to reduce environmental impact.

By environmental we mean: using products and services that are low environmental impact i.e. bio-diesel generators, wooden cutlery, bio degradable cups - recycling as much of the waste from the event by having recycling units all around the site and ensuring that the clean up separates the waste for recycling - having a meat free event (meat & dairy industry is the third largest cause of environmental pollution). Each of the separate areas of the festival will be required to have an environmental focus or message.

Festival Objectives
The objective of the festival is to bring together as many people and as wide a range of the community of Northampton to expose them to a message about sustainable living, environmentalism, community cohesion and co-operation.

We aim to attract a wide range of the community to the festival by:
• Actively engaging with and encouraging a broad variety of community groups including black minority and ethnic groups, lesbian gay bisexual groups, youth groups.
• Attracting all parts of the community by providing a wide range of activities and a breadth of types of music and performance including: children & families area - dance & culture performance stage including modern such as street dance and ceroc and traditional dance such as Morris and Irish dance - variety of music including rock, indie, reggae, roots, R&B, latin, folk, samba with a separate dub tent and a jazz & classical marquee - a specific youth village including music stage, information marquee, youth café and stalls - a performance arts area including poetry, song and story telling and demonstrations & displays of sustainable living and an arts exhibition space - a world music stage with acts who live in Northampton but are from all around the world - a culture/cultural area to share diversity - well being & healing marquee and area - an education marquee with sustainable living information - and a wide range of stalls including campaign groups and ethical traders and different types of catering (all meat free).