This last weekend was GREENBELT! Woot!
For those of you who don't know what Greenbelt is it can be described as a "Christian liberal arts festival". A weekend full of good music, though provoking talks and a whole lot of fun.
This year I was once again volunteering for a charity, formerly called BibleLands and relaunching at Greenbelt as Embrace the Middle East. I volunteered for 18 hours over the weekend telling people about the charity and handing out free goodies plus setting up the stand at the Centaur venue. There were a lot of laughs and late night singing sessions when it was quiet! We even had our own personalized Tinky-Winky!?
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| Volunteering with Embrace at Centaur |
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| Embrace Tinky-Winky |
But Greenbelt wasn't just about the volunteering. Over the weekend I saw a number of music acts and talks. Megson on the Friday evening and Seth Lakeman on the Monday evening. Both of whom are amazing folk artists whose music is really catchy and great fun to listen to. Definitely considering purchasing a Seth album!
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| Seth Lakeman |
As well as all the music I went to see a number of talks. I saw Peter Tatchell speak on the equal love campaign, Frank Skinner doing a comedy interview about being a Catholic and his relationship with the Catholic church. Probably my favourite talk was by a vicar called Dave Tomlinson who spoke on "How to be a bad Christian and a better human being." which was basically about spiritual intelligence and how actually Church sometimes stifles spirituality. I loved this talk as it basically described how I feel about being a Christian. I actually went out and bought the book the talk was based on.
I also saw Casper Melville, the editor of New Humanist magazine, speak on "Is there hope for heathens?". A talk about how atheists can have hope and it was actually really thought provoking and really well received by the audience.
A significant part of the weekend was the ridiculous amounts of mud which never really happens at Greenbelt. Not like those pictures you always see in the media about Glastonbury but this weekend it really was. Anywhere that was grass turned into a mud-bath and everything was muddy. It just became a fact of life!
That was Greenbelt 2012! <3
