Glorious Glasto!

Every Glastonbury, Birmingham Friends of the Earth make their way down to the festival armed with a coach full of volunteers and lots of tea.

Birmingham FoE provide a free property lock up service and those of you who have been to festivals before will know how extremely rare it is to get anything for free there!

The lock up service allows all of the Glasto goers to leave their valuables in the safe hands of BFoE until they want it back. There are lots of lock ups situated around the site for the different camping locations and you can leave absolutely anything; keys, money, chairs, trolleys etc. They are open for business at 8:00am on Wednesday until 4:00pm on the Monday and they are staffed by the volunteers all day and night.

We also give out lots of loo roll, as you can see!

This year was my second Glastonbury with Birmingham Friends of the Earth. While I was there I worked a total of 24 hours, but still got to do and see so much. Though there's nothing about it that feels like work, everyone is there for the same reasons and it creates a really great atmosphere within the camp. Volunteering with BFoE at Glastonbury was great fun; I meet loads of fantastic people, watched some brilliant live performances and helped raise money for future BFoE campaigns and events!

Rosie Cervelli

New festival for our lockups crew

This year, we are pleased to announce that we're adding Shambala to the list of festivals where we are running lockups.

This year Sustrans have teamed up with Shambala to offer festivalgoers guided rides from 8 cities and towns around the UK. As part of their commitment to green travel and cycling, the rides are being subsidized, so it's a great way to get there and get fit.

Shambala is set on a beautiful country estate, in the heart of the English countryside. With stunning lakes, lush flat fields, woodlands, and meadows. Over the bridges find healers waiting to massage and pamper fun fatigued limbs. Lounge around in hot tubs sipping cocktails or swim in the lake amongst giant lotus flowers.

The festival caters for families, as they say; "Shambala has long been known as being one of the most family friendly events with a wild side. We know what families need - we all have kids! This year we have a dedicated quiet family camping area a stones throw from the car parks, a toddlers tent, baby bathing, one of the biggest kids areas known to the festival world, and bedtime stories with cocoa in the campsite yurt."

To further boost their green credentials, the event "is 99% powered by wind sun and waste veg oil. And has been judged the greenest outdoor event by Industry Green and A Greener Festival." Also, they pride themselves on being completely independent till the day they die! So you will not see any adverts trying to sell you stuff you don’t need or want on site!

I'm sure our volunteers will enjoy working on site and we hope that festival-goers will find our service to keep valuables safe a positive addition at this and all the other festivals we're at this summer.