New places, a new game, new discoveries and even more fun
In the middle of May we ran a ‘Run the World’ simulation game a were at Wood Festival in Oxfordshire. Festival tickets were sold out weeks ahead so most people missed out this amazing weekend of music and much more. It’s a wonderful outdoor festival with good music, good food and all kinds of other activities going on. The Global Academy team were delighted to be invited to take part.
We played the ‘Run the World’ simulation in a beautiful yellow tent (yurt?) close enough to the main stage that we also enjoyed the start of Saturday afternoon’s music. Our lively audience, of all ages, worked on straw bales and achieved a balanced world. Wood is a family festival and we had multi-generational and sibling groups in the tent that day, so debate was intense but they got there in the end!
A new view of Sustainability and Social Justice
On Sunday we introduced our newest sustainability game with another group of families. We all tried to guess which answers the rest of the group would give sustainability questions and social justice questions. Everyone had to think hard and decide whether it was more important that their answer be ‘right’, reflect their own beliefs or be likely to agree with other players.
The working title for this new game is ‘Bees and Ladybirds’. It’s easy to play and hard to win, as you are looking for agreement between answers.
We played on more straw bales in another brightly coloured tent, but not yellow this time!
This game is less intense than the ‘Run the World’ simulation and a lot shorter. It takes around an hour and is enjoyed by younger children, as well as adults. The children on that Sunday drew some lovely pictures, including one of a very happy toaster in answer to the ‘best human invention . . . ‘ question.
Reading Climate Festival
Two weeks later we were at Reading Climate Festival in an absolute downpour! Fortunately our venue was dry and cosy in the beautiful events space at the Thames Lido. We love running outdoor events, but this venue is special in a whole different way.
Our teams brought together many people who are active in Reading Climate Action Network and beyond. Despite these well-informed backgrounds everyone still had trouble finding the environmental resources they needed to create a balanced world. It’s never easy and, as always, there were some surprising discoveries along the way (including ‘The most productive time was tea time’ which perhaps wasn’t that much of a surprise)
If you are ever lucky enough to take part in one of these simulations PLEASE remind me to take a group photograph at the end! My current success rate is one for every ten workshops, and I forgot again at Reading. It’s such an absorbing experience it can be hard to come back to to our current time zone at the end to remember routine things like photographs.
Thankfully Gudrun Freese, who co-ordinates Reading Climate Festival, was on hand and made a lovely video. You can see it on Linked In here
