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Our co-founders, Tracey and Simon West, are thrilled to announce the launch of a brand new fundraiser for us called Wordplay. It’s a monthly poetry and spoken word event which will be held in the Leigh Brown Room at the Unitarian Hall in Sidmouth.
It’s set to be a fabulous celebration of word play and we’re all very excited about it. Tracey and Simon love doing a bit of stand up poetry and they created and ran a similar event called Vittles and Verse in Lyme Regis for many years. They are confident that Wordplay in Sidmouth will be just as much fun.
Simon comments: “Wordplay will give poets and writers of prose a chance to perform their work with a microphone, perhaps for the first time, in front of an appreciative audience. It’s always fascinating listening to pieces performed by their creators in the way they envisioned they would be. The South West is teeming with talent and I can’t wait to open the doors to let the wordy magic happen!”
The inaugural Wordplay takes place on Saturday 20th April and it will repeat on the 3rd Saturday of the month, every month. Doors open at 6.30pm for a prompt 7pm start. Admission is £4 on the door and it includes a light beverage. Additional plant based refreshments and snacks will be available to purchase.
Aside from being a convivial event, Wordplay is also an important new fundraising initiative for us. Money raised over and above the hall hire will be used to plant fast-growing, predominantly food-producing trees in Kenya, where they grow up to 10 times faster than in the UK. They’ll draw down around a ¼ of a tonne of CO2 in 5-7 years and the commodities from them will put a dent in local hunger and poverty too. This particular vehicle to raise money to help the planet, its people, wildlife and biodiversity is exciting, but it has a deeply serious focus.
Tracey concludes: “Wordplay will deliver an entertaining evening and the participants will create a pioneering opportunity to slow global heating and extreme weather events. This is great news because there are worrying meteorological times ahead. Our Special Scientific Advisor, Professor Bill McGuire said recently that many people tell him they feel isolated and that, as individuals, they don’t think they can make a worthwhile difference. Bill’s answer is to join a group of like-minded people. This has a galvanising effect, replacing hopelessness with hope; inertia with action. Let’s use Wordplay to do just that!”
We look forward to seeing you there,
Tracey, Simon and The Team
