The Forge had a celebratory June. We entered two rafts in Edinburgh’s Canal Festival raft race, coming first and second! Later the same day, we celebrated our victory and the Forge’s fifth birthday, with a bonfire and a leek and potato soup. It was a lovely atmosphere, with families attending at the beginning of the event and chatter into the night.
We released a great promotional film. Fat Toad Films has created a montage of interviews and activity, creating a heart-warming film to entice new members:
Forge director, James, also started helping Fountainbridge Canalside Initiative with their renovations of a wikihouse. A wikihouse is a structure built using open-source design, and this wikihouse was made using Forge tools a few years ago in collaboration with the Grove, a community gardens that was opposite the Forge. After the Grove moved to a new site, the wikihouse was vandalised several times, before being moved to a new home in Tollcross Primary School. James is helping to repair the building, and is leading workshops with the school’s parents to make stairs and planters, as part of Fountainbridge Canalside’s project of greening Edinburgh.
Teresa Hunyadi, an Edinburgh artist who works with wood, was available during one of our regular drop-in sessions to help anyone who wanted woodwork advice. Ecotopia Biketour also popped over to the Forge, to make two rocket stoves out of upcycled material. They are travelling around Scotland, Wales and Ireland on bikes, practicing sustainable living, and their stoves will be used to cook communal meals.
