UPDATES
UPDATE No 4 - Sunday 21st of JULY - TOMORROW we're already on site!!
"La canicule" - DANGEROUSLY HOT WEATHER
We have lots of shade at La Bussière and usually there are cooling winds. We'll make sure to have loooots of water for everyone.
Please bring:
- sun hats
- sun cream
- your reusable water bottles (to always have one by your side)
- vaporisers
- fans
UPDATE No 3 - 21st of June - in ONE MONTH we're already on site!!
THE FOUR DAYS
Especially for those among you coming for the whole time, we want to give you some ideas of WHAT WILL BE HAPPENING during those four days at La Bussière.
The most important thing: nothing is obligatory – everyone can always just lie in the grass & read a book or go for a walk with an old friend etc...
Otherwise, the general idea is that from Wednesday till Saturday noon it's like holidays in a village - we all spend quality time together and contribute to some of the village functioning and infrastructure (building up the big wedding tent, chopping vegetables, doing the dishes etc). Then SATURDAY AFTERNOON till Sunday is the wedding part... we invite you to just enjoy and celebrate !
On the MORNINGS of THURSDAY, FRIDAY and SATURDAY there's "open village", meaning anyone can propose an acitvity and/or join those proposed by others.
On THURSDAY and FRIDAY, the AFTERNOONS will each be dedicated to one single activity:
On THURSDAY, there'll be something that for now we're calling a FUTURE FORUM (more below) and on FRIDAY it's time for GAMES! We have a few experts of large group games amongst us and we'll let them take young and old on a fun journey! And at the end of the afternoon, there’ll be a chance to learn French folk dancing in preparation of the « bal » that night. But again: none of this is obligatory, you can just lie in a hammock and take a nap!
ACTIVITIES
FUTURE FORUM – what’s that?
We live in very peculiar times and what’s ahead of us looks very unpredictable to say the least – humanity is exhausting the very source of its existence, but we’re slowly waking up to what that could mean. Amongst all of you, there is a huge diversity of thinkers / doers / activists who have something to say about this and we thought why not create an opportunity to share on this issue. We find that we often get stuck on our own point of view and surround ourselves with people who think alike. So we’re curious what the present and our shared future look like from your angle, through your lens – in your country, your work, your school or your garden. Not so much concepts or philosophy, we’re thinking more of how that topic transpires in your every-day life. Robbie Blake, for example, wants to tells us, "How to have hope in a time of climate crisis" and Deirdre Mullins will share about "How an actress took her personal struggle with inequality and turned it into a nationwide movement for equal representation on our screens."
If you have something to say or want to help organise this sub-event, contact Becky (becky.palmstrom@gmail.com Whatsapp +250787154598), she will collect inputs.
We are thinking of short inputs 5-10 minutes max (we'll be strict!), and we’ll organise all that in a way to make it open, fun and engaging… like listening to friends sharing something of importance to them while walking barefoot along the beach together ;)
OTHER ACTIVITIES
Some of the things that might happen in the mornings :
- choir (to perform on Saturday) with André
- practical preparations for Saturday (decorations etc.)
- nature time - walks, games, wild plant tasting
- basketry - for big and small kids ;) with Marion
- maybe “The Work that Reconnects” - a discovery session with Nora
PRESENTS
We have received frustrated feedback from people who would really like to be allowed to give something beyond their simple presence :-)
We would still prefer not to receive any material gifts and do not have a “wedding list”, but if you really want to give more than just being there & chipping in for the logistics of food & tent, here are some options :
- stay a couple of hours longer on sunday and / or Monday to help with clean-up, tent take-down etc… :-D
- chip in a couple of dollars / euros / pesos for four days of fully catered vacations just the two of us after all this excitement :-) (we will send you pictures)
- or, and that would be a very meaningful contribution, you could become a godmother/godfather of a tree in Anselm’s budding agro-forestry project ! Planting will be gradual and begin in fall 2019, so you could sponsor a walnut or an apple tree to be planted – there’ll be a special place at the celebration to do this. And if you want to get an idea of the long-term vision behind this project, you could check out Anselm’s TED talk – it’s in French, but if you know how to manipulate youtube settings, you can have a mediocre but helpful auto-translated version of the text in the language of your choice.
UPDATE No 2 - early June - less than TWO months to go (oh lala, this is getting serious !!!)
At this stage, the preparations of our celebration are in full swing on all fronts :
- we have an awesome, big tent to keep us all dry in case of early monsoon rains ;)
- we've found almost all the food-related hardware (the château isn't used to events our size), including tables and chairs, tableware, a rentable professional kitchen, pots & pans etc... so that our chef Oisin and his team will be able to concentrate on the essential and prepare the most delicious food for us all. And a week ago Oisin & Anselm went to visit la Bussière, to check out some of the ins & outs of the kitchen logistics and we also visited the farmer that'll supply most of the vegetables - Sébastien Corneau:
- at the end of May we went hiking to the Morvan and spend two days in the area where the celebration is happening - and amongst other preparations, we met Frank, the baker that'll make all the bread for our celebration. He's so passionate about his work and we learned why: he uses a more than 500-year old wood-fired oven and had learned amongst others from his grandfather who was a baker, too. Here are some impressions:
- we have gathered an amazing team of friends around us that are helping us organise and hold the whole event - we're immensely grateful to them!
- and it's now confirmed that on Friday the 26th there will be an opportunity to learn traditional French folk dances - Jean Dollet, the brother of the wife of Nora's father (are you following?) is coming up to La Bussière with his two colleagues Gaëlle & Benoît and they'll teach us all (or those who want) to dance Waltz, Polka, Circassian circles & Co.
UPDATE No 1 - end of March - FOUR months to go
There's lots of good news:
- our chef-étoilé Oisin is working on a fabulous menu...
- we have found a baker a few kms from la Bussière, who works with a 500-year old wood-oven smack in the middle of an old farm and apart from a whole range of delicious breads and croissants, he also makes - hold on tight! - VOLLKORN BROT! (Yes, those wholesome German bread loafs that you can easily knock an intruder out with if you can't find your shovel in time...) His name is Frank and he's quite excited about providing all the bread we want during the four days of our celebration.
- our friend Frédéric Leprince has reserved us the last boxes of his 2017 "Hautes côtes de Beaune" Burgundy wine - they're waiting in his cave
- our old friend André from Paris (who just turned 82) has offered to sing at our celebration and even to organise a little choir with 1-2 rehearsals on the first days and a performance on Saturday, as long as there's a good handful of happy singers amongst you... :) He used to run the "Chanteurs de Saint Eustache" - the choir of one of Paris' big cathedrals.
You see - the essential things are well on their way. We'll see about a big tent, tables, chairs etc. later... ;)