Issue 1 - Welcome Edition – Saturday 29 July
Pitching, preparing and planning for Global Village: A week of hard work to get the festival ready
Naomi Koppel
Global Village has been years in the planning, but that's not enough to ensure a great camp. Marquees have to be erected, signs made to get thousands of people to where they need to go. Food has to be distributed, activities prepared and performances rehearsed. That's why lots of people have been on the site for a week already, getting everything ready to go.
Although you probably arrived today (along with a few thousand other people!), people have been camping here for over a week, making the final preparations for the Global Village. Here's a quick look at what's been happening here during Working Week.
Coordinator Julie Thorpe and administrator Tamsin Pearce have been holed up in the Camp Office preparing for the influx, sorting out last-minute hitches with delegations, deliveries and directions, and handing out the wristbands that you're all wearing.
Over at the Media Centre, the techies have been working flat-out to arrange internet access, as well as for Julie's office and the cyber cafe, and to set up the radio masts and the facilities to transmit daily television programmes into the town marquees. There have also been people there already planning radio shows, taking photos and designing the newspaper that you're holding right now.
The lead performers in the Fear Brigade are already deep into rehearsals, though there is still a chance for people to get involved in the global premiere of this new play.
In the various programme theme centres, which we've previewed on pages 4 and 5 of this
Welcome Edition, there's already activity, with dozens of people planning and preparing the hundreds of different workshops and projects that you'll be able to enjoy here at Global Village.
Members of the Sustainability team, for example have been working on projects with the Centre for Alternative Technology Machynlleth, Wales, and De Montfort University in England.
Meanwhile, the crews responsible for running the various cafes and entertainment sites are hard at work getting ready across the site.
It's not all glamarous, though. Central staff have been checking on health and safety and learning first aid. And if you're camping in the back field and you find the odd piece of orange clay in the grass, please don't complain — we've had teams working all week trying to clear as many of them as we can!
Logistically speaking, we've also been busy. Food coordinator Sara Harvey has been taking delivery of lorryloads of all sorts of produce so we don't all go hungry. The catering effort began over a week ago when the first people arrived on site to start preparations.
Meanwhile, by the time you read this, all of the town marquees will have been pitched and will be ready for tonight's exciting opening ceremony.
All over this huge site, different teams have been busy making sure Global Village comes off without a hitch, but there's still plenty more to do. If you'd like to volunteer to help out with the programme here on camp, or even the clean-up afterwards, head over to the Camp Office and let them know.