14 Linkers from the very new, to the sadly soon to leave us, along with 6 brilliant volunteers, descended on Forest Hill for a weekend of fun.
We started with culture in the Horniman Museum – where a few of us caused chaos by letting cats into the cafe, and others by trying to get pigeons out of the cafe! People were particularly impressed by the spinning globe (more of later), instruments and aquarium.
We ate a picnic looking at the fabulous views over London then, after some tree hugging in the beautiful gardens, headed to the funky Forest Hill Meeting House. Here we played some games to get to know each other (before killing each other – Mafia style – always a popular choice).
Linkers were then set a challenge – in small groups they had to recreate something they were inspired by in the museum.
An exhibition was then set up where the creations were judged against strict criteria including vibes, likeness and resources used.
This took us to a dinner of tasty vege chilli and some down time before Epilogue and hot chocolate.
On Sunday we joined Forest Hill Children’s Meeting where we learnt about Joan Baez, and sang one of her songs, led by Suzy in some very funky dungarees that she had designed for her brother when she was the equivalent of a Linker! The children then considered what helped them feel safe, while the young people explored the power and role of protest music and culture – name checking artists including: Declan Benedict McKenna; The Halluci Nation, especially the track “Sisters”; Billy Bragg; and the Singapore punk scene!
Several families then joined us for another great lunch featuring baked potatoes and a very welcome homemade chocolate cake before we all headed home.
Huge thank you to Forest Hill for hosting us, the volunteers who made it happen, and the Linkers themselves whose ingenuity and contributions never fail to amaze. We look forward to seeing you in January for our annual Winterval (date to be decided soon).
