Hulbert Street Sustainability Fiesta 2011
The Hulbert Street Sustainability Fiesta – Growing Community
The Hulbert Street Sustainability Fiesta will be held this year on Saturday and Sunday September 22th and 23th 2012, from 10am to 4pm. There will be an official welcome on Saturday at about noon, including an indigenous welcome to country.
About the Fiesta For over five years now Hulbert Street, a local street in South Fremantle has hosted a Spring Sustainability Fiesta. Last year two homes, five artist’s studios and six gardens were open to the public and and nearly 6,500 visitors enjoyed the day.
The vision behind the Fiesta is one of celebration and inspiration, allowing people and local community groups to celebrate and share sustainable changes they have made, and inspire others to take on a more sustainable lifestyle. The Fiesta provides an “open space” for individuals and groups passionate about sustainability to share. The focus of the Fiesta is on creating and showing a positive vision for our future society by sharing and celebrating what has been done in Hulbert Street. There is a focus on “hands on” things that people can do in their own homes in the hope that they will leave inspired to make sustainable changes in their own lives
Sustainability and community are an important aspect of life on Hulbert Street, with 43% of residents having completed a Living Smart course, over 50% of owner occupied homes being connected to their own solar power, 67% of households growing some of their own food and regular street movies, shared community meals, gardening days and courses ensuring people in the street are well connected and in a perfect situation to host the Fiesta.
Hulbert Street is closed to traffic for the weekend of the Fiesta, with residents volunteering to ensure all cars are off the road so space is available for stalls and activities. All 32 households and 70 residents help with the Fiesta in some way.
In addition to these residents, last year with 180 volunteers assisting in the coordination of the Fiesta, 205 people voluntarily represented 31 community groups at stalls, and 181people volunteered to speak or busk. Overall more than 500 people donated nearly $84,000 worth of in kind support to the Fiesta, far outweighing the operating cash budget of just over $25,000
In 2011 52 food, artist and sustainable product stalls added to the colour and energy of the Fiesta. Each year stall applications are carefully considered to ensure they encourage the meeting of the goals of the event. We find this blend of stalls gave the Fiesta a very “local homegrown” feel.
During the Fiesta several Living Smart “Show and Tell” Tents are set up to allow different groups and individuals to share ideas, skills and information informally. Last year topics ranged from worm farming to preserving, ginger beer making to bike maintenance. A Show and Tell timetable is advertised in the local paper, on large boards at the street entrances and on a flier handed to participants as they enter the street. Those interested are encouraged to participate in a local “Living Smart” course by past participants and facilitators.
Local Hulbert Street residents will again be showcasing their homes, creativity, work and sustainable lifestyles. The Painted Fish (37 Hulbert Street) and Ecoburbia (21 Hulbert Street) will be open and informative signage will enable visitors to wander and learn at their leisure. Other gardens in the street will be open to members of the public, including a native water wise garden and several showing different styles of food production. There are seven practising artists living in Hulbert Street, and most will hold open studios over the weekend.
Other householders will take part in a Living Smart Poster Project where they share what they have done in the past twelve months to make their homes and lifestyles more sustainable and what their future plans are.
As well as open homes, gardens, studios and stalls, there is always a great deal for people to see and do over the weekend. Cafe style seating is set up near the Buskers’ Spot and Show and Tell Tent to allow participants to sit and enjoy the entertainment and allow the informal sharing of information and food – an important part of “growing community”.
Other family focussed activities will include a woodwork area, basket weaving, a refashioning stall, skate ramp, a fairy garden to explore and various other activities with a sustainable emphasis.A formal opening ceremony with a traditional welcome to country will be held around noon on Saturday.
Last year the focus for organisers was on “resource recovery”. Several washing up stations reduced the need for take away drink containers, and all food plates were compostable. The Fiesta amazingly produced only six bins of recylable material, with all compostable waste dealt with on site in street compost bays. This is a major achievement for an event of this size, and the most successful resource management program for an event we have heard about.
There will be three new programs introduced to the Fiesta in 2012. Our SustainableTransport Project will aim to reduce the number of people driving to the event, encouraging visitors to leave their cars at home and walk, ride or catch public transport.
Our Preserving Competition will involved coordinating a local preserves display and competition aiming to bring a “country show” feel to the sharing of these old skills that are becoming more popular.
Our Refashioning Project will feature local “remaking” fashion, culminating in a fashion show of items created during the Fiesta.
In preparation for the Fiesta several street and community events will again be held, including a Street Verge Gardening Day a month or so before the big event when residents of Hulbert Street will be encouraged to plant productive food gardens on their verges.
Expected Attendance The number of people attending the Fiesta has grown from 2,000 in 2008 to 6496 people attending last year.Our goal is for between 6,000 and 7,000 people again this year.
Advertising We will follow a similar publicity and promotion campaign to that engaged in in 2011, with official postcards launched a few months before the Fiesta, posters a month or so before along with special advertising of our new porjects this year in the local paper. Our yearly “wrap around” in the Herald newspaper features a front page poster, several articles and advertising opportunities for local businesses involved. Several community email lists pertaining to sustainability advertise the Fiesta. The Fiesta has attracted a great deal of interest in the previous five years it has operated, and there is a great deal of word of mouth advertising and good will.
Evaluation The Fiesta has two main goals – to inspire people to adopt more sustainable practises in their daily lives, and to celebrate and reward the changes people have already made. A short report will be produced evaluating the event, and making recommendations for future events.
Data for this report will be collected by counting event attendance, how people travelled to the event, where people came from, analysis of budget reports, and post Fiesta surveys of street residents and volunteers, stall holders. Data will also be collated relating to the number of volunteers involved in the Fiesta and the hours of time donated.
Past Results Each year a different evaluation strategy is used to collect information about the success of the Fiesta and its impact on people’s sustainable behaviours.
After the 2010 Sustainability Fiesta a formal independent evaluation of the Fiesta was undertaken, against the key performance indicators including service quality, change in participant knowledge levels, change in participant behavioural intentions, and execution of participant actions. In summary it found people biked, walked and took public transport to the Fiesta in droves (less than half taking the car to the Fiesta compared to 80% taking the car for most other activities around Perth).
For every 100 people taking part in the Fiesta there were 95 new Sustainability things they definitely wanted to do. That’s 4,750 new ideas for a better planet and community. The ideas included everything from buying organic food or keeping chooks to double glazing the house or digging up the lawn.
From a list of simple sustainable actions more than half reported that they already have a water efficient shower, waterwise garden, compost and the like. The big win for the Fiesta is that almost a quarter of people were eager to start doing these things and to be part of the eco-trend.
In the surveys six weeks, and again six months after, the Fiesta more than 6 out of 10 people reported completing at least one new Sustainability action. This shows that when people get inspired by seeing, hearing about or trying new things they are as good as their word to get it done – people are just amazing.
One of the reasons why people at the Fiesta made so many eco-changes is that they came to the event with a positive attitude: a whopping 98% agree that “it’s my responsibility to leave the environment better than I found it” and 97% felt that “when the community acts together we can make a difference”.
An article summarising these results was published in the local paper in 2011 when the researcher involved concluded for those of us working in the sustainability field we know that the achievements of the Hulbert St Sustainability Fiesta are spectacular
During 2011 a “Tell Us Your Sustainable Story” filming area was set up, and a short film produced containing people’s reactions to and stories from the Fiesta. This provided some qualitative “depth” to the data collected the year before. This film was screened recently on Hulbert Street and is available at https://vimeo.com/36822787
In 2011 a detailed analysis of the amount of “in kind” support at the Fiesta was undertaken. It was found that 180 volunteers donated $31,825.00 of in kind support, 205 people from 31 community groups donated $16,940 of in kind support and 181 people shared at the Show and Tell and Busking areas.
A highlight for 2011 was the success of our Resource Recovery Program. We created only 6 bins of recyclable resources, and no “rubbish” – but two big piles of compost for the Hulbert Street Guerilla Garden
Evaluation Plans for 2012 include setting up several “graffitti” boards to allow people to comment on what they have done (celebration) and what they plan to do (inspiration) as well as commenting generally on the Fiesta. Data from these boards will be collated and analysed to add further depth to our understanding of what makes the Fiesta such a success.
To get involved with the Fiesta or for more information contact Shani Graham at stay@thepaintedfish.com.au
For stall applications please apply with Kylie at http://www.redtentevents.com.au/
To get a feel for the Fiesta – check out Fiesta 2010 by Elliot