Well ... we are all back in one piece from the Exeter City Centre event and I have finally managed to lay to rest my totally unfounded fear that we might be destined, always, to break down en route to our events!

It took us over 7 hours to get to Exeter and another 7 hours to get back (including loads of tea stops) but the new engine was just great; it ran so smoothly and felt a million times better than the previous one. Thank you David from Gardner Enthusiast Ltd and Bob from Thamesdown Transport for doing such a brilliant job on getting us up and running again.

The event itself really was a resounding success. There were 10 of us manning the bus and we all worked our socks off talking to well over a thousand visitors between 10am and 4pm! The fact that the bus was sited bang in the middle of the city centre meant that we had people of all ages popping in and it was very interesting to find out what worked, what didn't work and what we need to focus more in in the future. The feedback we received was extremely positive and encouraging, but we definitely need to think more about how we get the message across to young people of secondary school age.

Although the focus of the event in Exeter was on saving energy, we also held talks and mini workshops upstairs throughout the day on a number of other subjects and they were all extremely well attended. At one stage we even had a bunch of French school children attending one of the talks and fortunately for us one of our volunteers, Anne-Christine, was able to run a workshop especially for them in French!

Apart from the Big Green Bus, there were other stalls at the event including:

• Exeter City Council http://www.exeter.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=10527
• Exeter Friends of the Earth http://www.exeterfoe.org.uk/
• Low Carbon Exeter http://www.lowcarbonexeter.org.uk/
• Embercombe http://www.embercombe.co.uk/
• Exeter Seed Swap http://exeterseedswap.50webs.com/
• Energy Saving Trust South West http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Energy-Saving-Trust-advice-centre-South-West
• Easy Green Exeter http://www.easygreenexeter.org/

It was fantastic to have so many stalls being given such a prominent space to promote sustainability and a sure sign that people are beginning to take Climate Change and other green issues seriously at long last.

Thank you to all our volunteers for their energy, enthusiasm and time. It was so lovely to have the bus out there, in the middle of a busy city centre, doing what I have dreamed of for the last two years. It really was a great day and I hope everyone who worked on the bus, or attended the event, enjoyed it as much as I did!