We did come and enjoy the music, food, people and the festival this weekend. It was awesome! The music was great, food was incredible and we left with a fistful of information and a gratifying feeling about being part of something good.
Michele Murphy, Victoria, BC
Congratulations on the continuing success of the Organic Islands Festival. It has become an annual celebration of our thriving organic community.
Carolyn Herriot, The Garden Path Organic Plant Nursery
We′ve been getting rave reviews about the weekend and what a great event you produced. The feedback has all been positive and everyone is looking forward to the next Organic Islands Festival.
Robyn Burton, Executive Director, Horticulture Centre of the Pacific
Jason Robinson, Founder and CEO of the Internet based Sustainability Television visited the festival for the first time. Here are photos and excerpts from his blog post:
“I have attended many green events and have to say the Organic Islands Festival team did a fantastic job. The motto of the festival is; “live green, do good, and we’ll show you the way”. The festival’s commitment is evident in all that they do..”
“I especially enjoyed an unwritten “prevention fist” theme that really resonates with what I believe; that we are spending far too many resources on treating symptoms instead of the root cause of issues we want to improve.”
“What a reader, or someone who didn’t attend the festival might find of interest is the consciousness, thoughtfulness, and imagination I found all around me. It’s refreshing to find real innovation and imagination at work, especially when it is meshed with the values of sustainability. It gave me a renewed optimism about the future…”
Guy Dauncey speaks with A Channel about Deb Morse from Organic Islands on Vimeo.
During the annual Green Drinks gathering in Victoria on July 14 at Royal Roads University, Guy Dauncey chats with A Channel about Festival Director Deb Morse’s contribution to the green and sustainability movement on Vancouver Island.
The best ideas come about when people put their heads together. We would love to know what you thought of the festival this year – the things you liked and suggestions for what else we could do for next year’s festival. If you are open to your ideas and thoughts being published on our blog, [...]
This is great Lizard Adventure Travel brought a group of tourists to the festival, and Liz owner of Lizard (get the connection “Liz”-ard) says, We all experienced something a little different. Below is a snap shot of top 20 highlights from my group of travellers:
20) Hemp Milk – not my cup of tea but plenty sustainable
19) Gulf Islands Brewery – need I say more? It’s beer!
18) Flash frozen fruit – not on the market yet
17) ‘Wellness Oasis’ in the Japanese Gardens, hosted by the Victoria Community Health Coop…
Check out this cool 4 minute time lapse video of the festival from set-up on Friday to take down on Sunday morning. Production credits (if we were to have them) include the swallows whose birdhouse had a camera mounted on top of it by production manager, James Cowan (aka Rock Cod). Please [...]
Reporter Matthew Pearson provides a great summary of the panel discussion with local farmers and food activists offering their solutions to reviving the Vancouver Island Diet. Here is an excerpt:
Metchosin farmer Tom Henry has this advice for Islanders: grow five per cent more food than you did last year and buy five per cent more locally grown food.
The hour-long talk centred on a sobering statistic — more than 90 per cent of the Island’s food supply comes from off-Island. By contrast, in the 1960s, 85 per cent of the food consumed here was actually grown on the Island…
At the festival this past weekend, we got the chance to film clips of some of the exhibitors and volunteers. We are happy to be able to feature this footage of great green businesses and people in our community. Here is a slide show of some of the videos. For details about each of these clips, go to http://vimeo.com/channels/thegreenscene
Reporter Travis Peterson of Black Press reported on how the festival is promoting sustainable change in what we grow and eat. Speakers included Oak Bay MLA Ida Chong, now Minister of Healthy Living and Sport. Here is an excerpt:
Glendale Gardens was busy, hot and sustainable on the weekend…
I sat down with Ida Manly, owner of MokSana, on a sunny Saturday afternoon to talk yoga. MokSana (pronounced Mok Shauna) offers multi-style yoga classes from its 2 floor studios on Fan Tan Alley in Victoria’s China town. It is also a ‘teaching studio’ with a curriculum designed to train future yoga teachers. In addition to teacher training they offer pre-natal yoga classes…
I love coffee and I really love organic coffee (just read my Twitter profile). So I was happy to stroll up to a line of stainless steel urns full of direct, organic, fair trade, dark roast coffee under the Level Ground Trading tent. Once the cheerful folks behind the coffee bar filled my cup, I sought out founder Hugo Ciro to find out more about the company.
Talking to Hugo was inspiring as an entrepreneur, coffee connoisseur and eco-leader. I learned that this is Level Ground’s fifth year as an exhibitor. They enjoyed the festival so much last year that they decided to become title sponsor or “organic champion”…
We did come and enjoy the music, food, people and the festival this weekend. It was awesome! The music was great, food was incredible and we left with a fistful of information and a gratifying feeling about being part of something good.
Reporter Matthew Pearson provides a great summary of the panel discussion with local farmers and food activists offering their solutions to reviving the Vancouver Island Diet. Here is an excerpt:
I love coffee and I really love organic coffee (just read my Twitter profile). So I was happy to stroll up to a line of stainless steel urns full of direct, organic, fair trade, dark roast coffee under the 