A lovely lunch with your neighbours
"Welcome to the ChangeX Street Feast guide! We're delighted you're thinking about holding a Feast in your community. Here you can learn moreabout us and find all the information, practical tipsand resources you need, welcome to the team!" - Sam Bishop, Co-Founder & Coordinator of Street Feast
Organising your Feast will only take a few hours in total but starting early and getting organised in time, as well as getting some trusted helpers onboard is key!
Get People on Board
Ask yourself, who can bring something of themselves to the table? Whether it’s your tasty treats, your rhythmic beats, or even your pleated sheets! Once you’ve got one other person on board, you’ve already got the makings of a Feast. Get a couple of trusted helpers to get the ball rolling and it’s only a matter of time before the momentum begins to grow.
Contact your neighbours every way you can! Here are some suggestions:
Register Your Feast
"A lot of people here know each other to see but not necessarily to talk to. It's an opportunity to meet neighbours and have a proper chat with people who you would pass on the street. It's really nice to have a sense of building community”…
Lizzie Downes, Street Feaster
You can register your feast here
Registering means that the lovely people at Street Feast will send you a very useful pack full of tips and resources to help you get organised as well as some bunting and decorations for the day.
Registering your Feast will also allow people in your neighbourhood to discover that your feast is happening and hopefully they can stop by on the day
Decide on a Location
A Street Feast can take place anywhere! On the street, in your front garden, in a car park, your local field once it's easy to access and welcoming to everyone then you're all set! Some things to keep in mind:
Closing your street
You don’t have to close your street at all but if you do like the sound of moving the cars out of the way for the day and setting up bang in the middle of your street then there are ways to make it happen. You’ll need permission from your council to close a public road for a couple of hours. Your local council’s website will have a form to fill in. Apply well in advance. It’s easier than it sounds!
The Weather
Rain Rain never stopped us before! But we’ve got a mighty memory for forgetting the sunny days, and remembering the washouts. Keep your fingers crossed. Odds are on for a cracking summer, but there is no harm in being prepared for possible rain. And we can be, after all we’ve been dealing with the stuff for long enough now. Borrow a light tarpaulin and string it over the street as a practice run for possible downpours. Agree on somewhere beforehand that everyone will relocate to if the heavens open. How about the community centre? Somebody’s garage opened up or a spacious farm shed?
Source Your Food
Sniff out that local food because street feast is a celebration of your local street, why not try and support your local farmers and suppliers as much as possible?
Ask around – might be a couple of extra coppers, but at least that money’s staying around your area, supporting a local family.
Tips
When preparing food, common sense applies! The biggest bbq pitfall is uncooked meat. A handy hint – cook the meat in the oven – finishing it off on the bbq ensures you still capture those yummy flavours.
Buy Irish! Helps Irish businesses and keep your friend / family / neighbour’s job intact.
Buy Seasonal Best produce to cook up at this time of year? Pretty much everything except root veg.
Don’t forget, Irish produce can be exploding with colour.
Seasonal food is great because it’s better quality, it’s fresher so it’s healthier, it has less distance to travel which means less carbon emissions and less impact on the environment. Happier food all round!
Throw a Great Party
This is the one day in the year when we have complete control over our streets! The day when we can cover the car-park in colour. The moment we’ll cover the cul-de-sac with chairs and tables. Lose that perfection and capture creativity. Flags, bunting, props. Everything and anything goes; the more colour the better!
Recipe for bunting
Get lost in your nearest cupboard. Old tents, umbrellas, 70’s tablecloths, kid’s cartoon bedsheets, dad’s hawaiian shirts, dodgy curtains – all are welcome! Find some garden twine or extralong string. Cut the fabric into long thin diamond shapes. Fold in half between the shortest points. Wrap around the string and glue sides together. Find a responsible daredevil who’ll tie the string between neighbours windows or a willing tree. Celebrate the instant colour that transforms the street!
Film your Feast
A simple video of your Street Feast will help to encourage neighbours to get involved for next year. Make sure to get a good range of shots, ie. long, medium, close-up range. Why not share out the finished piece; you could upload it to the Street Feast YouTube channel (make sure you’ve got permission!).
Tips
Make sure to get as many willing people as possible to clean up, preferably before they all slink off! Try making the area cleaner and better than when you started!
Capturing the Memories
Capture those photos, they’ll be great for the memories. Uploading online is the way to go these days, much easier to make your friends jealous! Use your blog, facebook, flickr, to share them and link your shots to the Street Feast groups on flickr and facebook.
Music and Games
Everyone’s musical! There are probably more musicians per square km of turf in Ireland than any other country worldwide. Think about all the closet ones out there – go find them! Get that group together! Play it live, set up acoustic park sessions, everyone wants to be part of the tin-cankitchenpot-dustbin-lid collective. What better way to break down barriers than getting those tunes out onto the street? Instruments From the handy spoons to the pickupable guitar, from the all-cando triangle to the everso-welcome trumpet. If you’re playing the bendy saw be careful!
Games are only limited by your imagination! Keep them simple – hopscotch, noughts & crosses, snakes and ladders, draughts and hangman, all you need is some chalk and some willing competitors. With any luck, the games will be improvised into spectacles that will be remembered for years – twister-street-style, breakdance-off, crab-football, musical-car-parking
