We’ve begun work on an audio book version of Pollinating Change!
It’s been several years since we published Pollinating Change – The Buzz Tour, and an audio book has been in mind for all that time but it’s finally begun. We’ll initially be releasing the chapters one at a time for you to listen to for free online and then you’ll be able to buy the whole book. We’ve recorded about a quarter of the 34 chapters so far and aim to start releasing them this winter.
Over the next year I’ll be visiting my amazing stockists around the country, to interview them about their businesses, from Cornwall to the Scottish Highlands.
The first stop is Anything But Plastic, an online shop based in Glasgow, which as well as our Fit Pit deodorant also sells soap, laundry soap, toothbrushes, tooth tabs, floss, shampoo, makeup, containers, bags and cleaning products. In the beautiful setting of Glasgow’s Botanical Gardens I interviewed Jenny about her first and very successful year of Anything But Plastic.
ABP is here to help you cut down your plastic consumption. Plastic is the most pervasive man-made material ever, it doesn’t just go away when you throw it in the bin, it’s here to stay. So if you want to help contribute to a world with less plastic, you are in the right place!
My sister Suzanne and I approached a local hotel a few years ago to use their waste jam jars for our business and Jenny told me that she also now reuses hotel jam jars for products. “You guys definitely inspired me and I’m looking for more hotels to get them from too.” When collecting from the hotel Suzanne used to encourage them to stop using single use jars all together. Week after week they would see the jars pile up in the buckets and we would take them away. Until one week they said that they were sorry but they would be stopping using the little disposable jars and were switching to refillable pots on the table. Far from being disappointed we were delighted at the reduction in waste, so it was really exciting for me to hear that Jenny too was influencing her local hotels.
Anything But Plastic has seen a great interest from customers as well as the media and is part of a growing trend of plastic-free businesses. It gives me hope that we can look forward to disposable plastic becoming history.
With great joy we can announce that you can now watch the Buzz Tour documentary! https://buzztour.org/documentary/ Please share this inspiring and uplifting film and support all the wonderful projects of people working to protect our environment.
In two
days you can watch the one hour film for free online, download and share. Please help us create a buzz around its release by sharing it widely. The film has been screened in fifteen towns and cities around the country as well as at The Green Gathering, receiving great reviews.
Inspiring and uplifting…the film has really given me a lot to think about…thank you so much for sharing your wonderful journey…some documentaries can leave you feeling depressed but I felt so positive and inspired afterwards, thank you!
The film represents a sampling of the amazing people and projects encountered during the Buzz Tour. For the full story, you can use the free resources on this website or you can buy the book online. Both the book and the film focus not on what obstacles lay ahead of us, but on how we can overcome them together. The kindness and hard work of people all over the country made the journey possible. Ten different companions walked on the tour with an hour of silence each day, living off donations, and some of their video diaries are also in the film. 
Over the course of five weeks I had the tough task of whittling the twelve hours of footage from the walk down to one. We interviewed over ninety people and there was hardly a village I walked through where someone was not doing something wonderful. Jade Neville kindly edited the final footage together, Formidable Vegetable Sound System donated their music for use in the film and it was filmed on a camera loaned by Insight Share.
I look forward to being able to finally share it with you.
For the Buzz Bike Tour’s first night I partnered up with Steph Bradley for a Journey to the 
Heart at Bowden House Community in Totnes.
In Steph’s entrancing storytelling style she told of 13 aspects of wisdom in the warriors way, based on a month long walk in Wales, using a found object to represent each. 
So much of what Steph said resonated with my own experiences and journey in a way that was very grounding. With immense relief I discovered that the lovely people attending really enjoyed the Buzz Tour documentary and found it very inspiring.
It was a good reminder to relax and that after all the hard work, logistics and sleep deprivation of putting it together, it’s now time to just enjoy the journey.
What can you expect from the next four months? A lot of inspiration, some mishaps and some great times. 🙂 As we walk we will be updating the blog with information when we get to internet connections. We’ll be taking short video clips to post as we go. We’ll be introducing concepts and linking to sites where you can find out more. We’ll also be taking higher quality video footage for a documentary which will be released after the tour has finished. Sometimes there may be reflective podcasts for you to put your feet up and listen to, at other times a gallery of photos of places you may never have seen. And throughout there will be amazing people, doing what they can for the future of our culture and our planet. So friends if you can’t be with us on the walk, we invite you to be with us here, to learn and to discover as we do, and to change the culture, not the climate.
Our crowdfunding campaign has raised £115 so far, help us reach our goal of £500 by donating. The lovely Buzz Tour bags have arrived if you’d like to donate and claim one! Other lovely perks are available too.
The tour will officially start from Totnes on the 19th of April.
Yesterday two of us walked in support of the Oxford Reclaim the Night women’s march against violence. On three occasions men along the way harassed the 50 women and were greeted by a chorus of ‘stop the march!’ and all the women turning to point and shout at the abusers. A very empowering and effective technique!
In the picture above are Eve’s bee poi. During the walk Eve will be teaching poi spinning for free. We’ve also had offers from people to teach legal observing, mindfulness, foraging and conflict resolution. Please let us know if you have a skill to share. 🙂
Keep smiling.
Buzz tour 