Banna go bananas for Greener Together!

Dori Kirchmair lives in the Banna Housing Co-operative in Nottingham with three other tenants. She talks about the Greener Together party that the co-op held on Saturday 18th September.

Banna’s green residents

The tenants of Banna Housing Co-operative were already quite committed to sustainable living before signing up to Greener Together. “Three of us have an allotment and do a lot of food growing and composting and recycling and cycling” said Dori. ““We’re already trying hard to be sustainable, but you can always do better” says Dori. Since joining Greener Together one of the Banna tenants has got more into cycling, while Dori uses public transport more and has reduced her car use. “Greener Together pushes you to do more” she says. “Even though I’m into everything, it’s been a push to do even more and go even further”.

Partying the greener together way

For their collective action, the Banna tenants decided to hold a Greener Together Party and invite people far and wide from their networks to share information about environmental issues and sustainable living and to have a good time while they were doing it. “We were thinking for a while of holding a green event, and then we thought it would be nicer to have it in the form of a party and that would be something different” explained Dori. “We wanted to bring in anything that linked into the environmental field, reducing our carbon footprint and living more sustainably. We tried to get as much information together and we displayed it all in our hallway so that everyone who walked through to get to the communal area could see what was there and read it”. Although there are only four tenants in Banna Housing Co-operative, Dori explained that between them they know a large number of people that they could invite. “Even though lots of people we knew couldn’t make it, we still had a really good turnout with about 30 people coming and going throughout the evening. There were people we knew from Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, and also from the surrounding areas, from Leicestershire, Derbyshire and even Sheffield.

Sharing food and information

Attendees were all encouraged to bring some organic, local, Fairtrade or home-made food or drink to share and to bring some information too. The residents also contributed some home-made dishes. “One tenant made spinach and bean soup with beans from her allotment and someone else made a crumble with apples and blackberries from the allotment” recalled Dori. She was impressed at how much effort all the guests went to. “People really made an effort to make some food to share” she said. Everyone contributed something; no one came empty handed, which was really nice”.

The event was so successful, that Dori is still buzzing from it one month later. She is convinced that one of the reasons for its success is that it was something social as well as being informative. “There was a lot of awareness-raising because there was lots of different information there. It brought new things into people’s lives. People could not only take information away with them, but they could also discuss things through with people”. The mix of guests also contributed to the success of the event. “Some people were really into it and knowledgeable about sustainable issues, and while other people were interested or open to it but they didn’t know about the huge variety of things out there”.

The wide variety of documents and items that people brought included information on washing balls and electricity meters, cycle maps, allotment newsletters, power-down sockets and even information about how to make your own ‘humanure’ composting toilet! “We had one lady from Leicester (she lives in a terraced house) who made her own composting toilet” explained Dori. “She brought some A4 photographs and laminated them and we put them up. It’s very simple to make and just sits right next to her toilet and she uses it”. Another visitor, who works for Beat the Cold, brought a variety of things. “She brought part of a solar panel, and all kinds of information about the feed-in tariffs” said Dori. “It was great! One of the tenants had also brought about 40 lbs of cooking apples from her allotment to share and on their way out people could just help themselves.”

Even though Dori was quite knowledgeable herself about environmental issues, she still learned things from her party. “I know quite a few things, but I don’t know it all and I think that was the case for everyone. I was so astonished about the compost toilet and it was absolutely brilliant. I didn’t realise it was so simple. I think we definitely all learned from it”. She says that Greener Together, the party especially, has been a good opportunity to link up with other like-minded people. “There was a real sense of togetherness and community” she says. “We definitely met our aims with the party. It was brilliant and we should do it more often!”