Greenbelt

Unofficial Communities of Greenbelt

Since writing about my Greenbelt community the other day, I've thought... isn't that what the Greenbelt campsite is built from? Ad-hoc communities thrown together in the same field? I wondered if I could find any online...

I know about Kamp Zanadu (pictured) and the forum, but what other unofficial Greenbelt communities exist?

Who are we all? Can we create a tangle of websites, a reminder of Greenbelts' past and Greenbelt's future?

(This entry was originally posted on the Greenbelt Blog.)

Greenbelt , Personal

Freshly Toasted: an Unofficial Greenbelt Community

The pace is hotting up now, so it was good to take one last weekend off from Greenbelt matters before the festival.

My friends Sue and Andrew married in York, and the reception was an endless stream of people I only ever see at Greenbelt. "It's strange seeing you out of context," summed it up perfectly; "last time I saw you, you were wearing fewer clothes" was a reasonable but failed attempt to compare wedding attire with the compulsory shorts and t-shirts of the festival.

On the way north on Friday, and on the way south yesterday I stopped by good friends I'd not have met had it not been for Greenbelt. Wonderful times, working ourselves up about the next four weeks.

GB's always a good source of friends. The group I camp with (pictured here in '91; I'm second from left in the front; Sue's the leftmost person) has grown as we invited new friends to join us, and spawned new communities when we've got a little too big.

And this year? Who knows who we'll all meet. I think that's the most exiting part for me -- looking over old photos like this, wondering who'll be smiling back in the next one.

(This entry was originally posted on the Greenbelt Blog.)

Greenbelt

Pig Farm Pilgrim

The pigs have been replaced with corn and the field where mainstage once stood is now a meadow, ferocious thistles towering above me. To clear my head yesterday, I wandered round Prospect Farm, just east of the village of Charsfield in Suffolk, the place where Greenbelt began. (I do this every now and then; a friend once described it as my pilgrimage. I guess in a way it is.)

Hopefully the 30-year book will have more details, but yesterday I was clutching copies of old photos taken here at the first Greenbelt in 1974, trying to line them up with the 21st century landscape. The contents of the fields have changed and some of the boundaries have gone too, but there's no mistaking the row of trees striding up the hillside and the proud isolated tree that once looked down on the sparsely populated campsite. Even without the press cuttings it's easy to imagine the reaction of the villagers when they found out what was happening at the farm.

Odd to think 30 years later Greenbelt would still be part of the landscape in one way or another. Odd to find myself living ten minute's drive from this (sacred?) place. As I left, I tucked a smooth stone in my pocket. In a month's time I'll drop it on the new site: a token from one green field to another, a gift from a pig farm to a race track.

(This entry was originally posted on the Greenbelt Blog.)

Personal

Unfanciable?

---

paul204

Age: 31-35
From: Suffolk
Gender: male
Christian Tradition: Just "Christian"

I'm a bundle of contradictions: a privately greagarious, technophobic technophile. Music is my radar, but I'm not musical.

I'm interested in people with a soul, a life, a passion.

To use Douglas Coupland's phrases, I'm an Obscurist but turned off by Emptional Ketchup Bursters

What are your interests and priorities? Where have you lived or where would you like to live?

Art is everything. I love consuming and participating; music, film, sculpture, architecture, nature.

I'm a southerner through and through, but would move to New York given half the chance.

What work do you do now, have done in the past, or would like to do in the future?

I work with computers, mainly trying to persuade people that hi-tech solutions are not the answer, much to the annoyance of my employer.

I want a job that doesn't involve typing; I plan to change the world but I haven't figured out how yet.

Please name some of your favourite books, characters or websites:

Books... Coupland and Capek fascinate me, as does anything that makes me think.

Websites... vurch.com, greenbelt.org.uk as well as the obligatory Google and Amazon

Say something about the nature of your Christian faith. What activities have you done or would like to do as a result of your commitment? Describe the Church you attend and why you go there:

Always grown up surrounded by Christians, but only now is everything making sense. Greenbelt saved me, and I continue to go every year.

I'm not attending church right now, 'cause the churches in my town seem to be for young families only. I consequently 'do church' remotely with my friends around the UK.

Which Scripture verses are important to you? List any Christian writers, books or publications that have helped you:

Too many, but still too few. I'll mention C.S.Lewis but I'm sure you can forgive me.

Is there anything else you would like to say, which you haven't had the chance to mention up to now?

I meant what I said about changing the world. "Life should be fragrant, rooftop to the basement".

---

During the ten days no-one contacted me. (Should I be surprised? I didn't contact anyone either, not even the beautiful woman who described herself as "sexy, boozy (possibly) and spontaneous".)

Was I too conceited? Too liberal? And more importantly, should I be relieved or offended?

It was a fun ten days, and I learnt a new sport: see how many of your friends you can find that haven't told you they're online.

Personal

Angry Rain

I'm sitting with the front door wide open, listening to The JAMs' It's Grim Up North. It seems the perfect soundtrack to the angry rain that the thunderstorm's brought with it after the sweltering day. It's times like this I really love my house and the security of knowing it's been standing 300 years, so this storm's just a passing phase.

Arts , Greenbelt

Unfocus and Unwind

I've just stumbled across a remarkable bit of video. Arrive is a three minute film by Ed Holdsworth, part of the onedotzero film festival.

A rich, layered texture of abstract sound and vision, it's the perfect way to wash your head after a busy week. Turn on, unfocus, unwind.

This is why God invented the computer.

(This entry was originally posted on the Greenbelt Blog.)

Greenbelt

This Year's Fashionable Colours

Three significant events in the Greenbelt calendar roughly coincide with each round of publicity. In November or so, the first very early plan of the site for the following year's festival makes the rounds. It'll keep changing right up until July, but it's the first marker that another Greenbelt's on its way.

The second event is the Daily Diary. Sometime in April or May, the big bag of events is emptied out onto a blank schedule and the shape of the festival begins to form, gigs and talks falling into the vacant slots.

The final sign, the one that indicates for sure that we'll all be in Cheltenham in a month's time, came on Monday when I caught the first sight of this year's wristband tickets. I don't remember the colour code now, but they wonderful laid out next to each other: a complete set. I'm glad to have never been canvassed on colours; I never could accessorise.

(This entry was originally posted on the Greenbelt Blog.)

Personal

The Enduring Popularity of Puritans

Received another royalty cheque today.

This makes me feel (and sound) terribly important, but I've done nothing for it. It's my share of the royalties for a book my grandfather wrote thirty years ago. Thanks to its enduring popularity - and occasional reinvention by the publishers (leather-bound gift edition, anyone?) - the royalties continue to trickle in.

The book's "A collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions" edited by Grandad, with one additional prayer of his ("The Valley of Vision"). Every now and then I Google for that prayer. It's a good prayer, loved by Puritans and Radiohead fans alike ("hemmed in by mountains of sin" - expect that on the Oxford boys' next album), but I'm always surprised by the impact it continues to have, being used as liturgy, in prayer letters, sermons and standing alone on websites as poetry.

Grandma and Grandad gave me a copy of the book on the occasion of my Confirmation in 1987; I'm nearly motivated enough to read past that prayer on the first page.

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly,
Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.
Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from the deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells the brighter thy stars shine;
Let me find thy light in my darkness,
thy life in my death,
thy joy in my sorrow,
thy grace in my sin,
thy riches in my poverty,
thy glory in my valley.

Greenbelt

Very Visible Voices

Trafalgar Square, yesterday, 3pm. The quietest and busiest I've ever known it to be.

All around me people of all ages and backgrounds were laughing, shouting, arguing and chatting -- the usual Trafalgar Square crowd -- but all I could hear was the distant rumble of traffic, the clicking of camera shutters and the flutter of pigeons.

I'd stumbled onto the tail end of a rally/march for better recognition of BSL, and everyone in the square seemed to be signing. It was an odd experience. I wanted to find out more about the march, but didn't know who'd be able to understand if I started talking with them. Eventually I picked up a discarded leaflet and moved on, but I'm left with this beautiful vision in my head of a crowd so vocal, so silent.

(Is this the right time to point out that Greenbelt tries to be as accessible as possible?)

(This entry was originally posted on the Greenbelt Blog.)