Very often, when people visit the bus, they leave saying ‘there’s so much to learn ... I wish I could stay here all day!’  I’ve been mulling this over in my head for some time now, and wondering how we could maximise our resources to offer more information in one go to people who want it - and I have been toying with the idea of running courses from the bus.

A few months ago we held a bus event at The Fold near Worcester, where we are based. One of our visitors, a lovely lady called Rebecca, stayed for most of the morning with her two young daughters (who spent most of their time drinking smoothies from our pedal powered smoothie maker!) and as she left I mentioned the fact that I was thinking of putting on some one-day courses - comprising talks, workshops, tea, cake and lunch - and I asked if she might be interested in attending. Rebecca’s response was very exciting because not only did she like the idea, she also offered to get a group of friends together and find a venue for the course.

So, a few months later, after much organising, emails to and from Rebecca, and telephone calls to a number of inspiring speakers and workshop leaders, we were finally ready to put on our first ‘Everyday Sustainable Living’ course on the Big Green Bus.

The course took place on Saturday 26th Sept and we had 12 attendees, many whom were members of the local branch of the Women’s Environmental Network.  We started the day at 10am and finished just before 5pm - and during that time we covered composting; wormeries and Bokashi; bees; skincare and household cleaning; textiles and the wool industry; food; campaigning; energy and water saving ideas; and permaculture. We had some great workshop leaders and speakers including Woody from Bubblehouse Worms, Val from The Woolly Shepherd and Rob and Sally Elliot who wrote The Food Maze - and there were lots of lovely goodies for everyone to take home.

One of Rebecca’s friends, Lucy, very kindly hosted the event on her farm and not only did she provide the perfect spot for us to have our workshops, including the use of a barn when we started to suffer a bit from the heat on the top deck of the bus, but she also made an enormous pot of the most delicious butternut squash soup for lunch! We all brought our own mugs, so soup was perfect and meant we didn’t have a need for tables and chairs which would have taken up a lot of space. Some of the people attending the course brought cakes and biscuits and the weather was so warm that we even held one of the workshops sitting on picnic rugs on the grass opposite the bus…where we sat with cups of tea and home made cake whilst we listened to Woody telling us all about wormeries!

All in all the pilot was a great success and we will definitely be running more one-day courses like this from the bus. I am also exploring the possibility of us running the course at venues without taking the bus. Although the bus makes for an exciting and visual venue, we would be able to accommodate more people on the course if we take it to community centres, conference rooms where we can reach the business community, and local authority venues.

So, hopefully we will soon be able to offer roving workshops on everyday sustainable living. Watch this space!