The Eco Fair at the Guildhall, organised by Abingdon Carbon Cutters, was very impressive and well attended by visitors and exhibition stalls alike. The Mayor opened the event with a speech underlying his own commitments to all things Ecological and Sustainable. Then the choir of Dunmore School did us proud with some very nice Eco songs. There was not a dry eye in the house.

This wheel barrow laden with vegetables from the ‘Grow your own vegetables group’ has been in the window of the community shop for the last two weeks. The grow your own group gives people a small allotment near Peachcroft Farm and gets them to grow their own on a small scale.

Inside there was a food zone. Buns to go with the soup were being prepared and cooked on the premises by members of The Country Market (the trade name of the W.I.).

Other zones included: Biodiversity Zone, Travel Zone, Waste Not Want Zone, and Energy Zone. One exhibitor in the Energy Zone was a community company set up to look at harnessing water power at Abingdon weir using an archimedes skew generator. It would provide enough electricity for a hundred homes. They may be looking for local investors fairly soon: first to get planning permission, then build the device to feed Kilowatts into the national grid.

A variety of musicians played during the day including the John Mason Folk group What’s up Folk, shown above, performing some top tapping music!