Presents?
In short: please no stuff, just bring yourselves in a good mood, some time and a song. Contributions for food and infrastructure are also welcome.Longer version:
It is customary to bring gifts to a celebration of this kind. And both of us we love giving and receiving gifts... but really, the mere fact that you're coming all the way is already a huge present !!
And we already have more than enough scarves and shirts, chairs and tables, glasses and cups, bowls and books, carpets and bikes, and we don't have a lot of space. We would hate to have to give away a present you carefully and lovingly chose for us...
So please refrain from any material gifts !
Well... we'll make exceptions for edible things (of course!!) and for printed out (!) pictures of beautiful moments we shared in the past (Nora loves printed out pictures because she is convinced that one day she will take the time to actually make albums, and is looking forward to being a 100 year-old lady showing them to little children. We'll see ... ;)
No material gifts doesn't mean you can't give ! Here are some ideas for others kinds of very precious presents :
Your time
The most precious gift would be to come for a few days. We're organising a big celebration over four days, because that allows us all to just be, create, and relax together. Why rush ?Dance and music
We really like dancing. And we love learning new dances, especially those that can be done by many people together. So if you know any such dances and feel confident to teach others, we would love that!! So far we're sure to have French folk dances, Scottish ceilidhs and swing !Or if there's a piece of music that you'd like to perform, that would be superb, too! We will have a microphone and some sort of sound system.
Cheese !
We would like to have a giant cheese buffet one of the days of the celebration and we’d love to have artisanal cheeses from all over France, Europe and beyond – so if in your area farmers produce a specific cheese and you can afford it, and bring it safely to Burgundy (summertime...) please bring a big chunk of it !Contribute financially
If you are able to contribute to the cost of food & infrastructure (especially for Wednesday-Friday), that would also be welcome. There will be a box for contributions.Co-create
We have a great team of people helping us to organise and hold this event. But there are plenty of opportunities to get involved, if you would like to contribute some of your time and energy. Below are some examples, but you might have other ideas, too !?- Decoration – any decoration lovers & experts ? Not our biggest strength - we might need ideas and an on-site responsible person to create (with help from others) simple, beautiful, and waste-free decoration...
- Drivers – while we encourage you to come by train, we also need a few drivers to help picking people up from the train station on Wednesday night, Friday night and Saturday morning
- Sober drivers – we want to make sure that everybody gets home safely at night… so we’d love to have a couple of people that could do 1-2 trips at the end of the evening on Friday and/or Saturday with their own or another person’s car to bring people back to their guest houses (within 15 minutes driving distance).
- Music & Sound manager – does anyone know how to operate a basic sound system (we’ll rent one) and would be willing to be in charge of that ? Ideally, we'd have 3 people, then the task can be shared... - update: we are all set on that front now ! Our friend Bryan will take care of it, but is open to music suggestions.
- Wrap-up – if you're not in a hurry to leave on Sunday, there'll be quite a bit of work taking everything down, cleaning up and moving things on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning - any extra hands are welcome !