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Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Wednesday, June 18, 2014

THE WEIRD WEEKEND: Change of Venue

Dear Friends,

There is good and bad news.

The bad news is that we are no longer holding this year’s Weird Weekend in Woolsery. The good news, is that we have found another venue for this year's event, and hopefully for many years to come: The Small School in Hartland.

I have had a lot of emails and telephone calls about the decisions by the Woolsery Community Hall Committee which have led to our leaving. A lot of people appear to be quite angry about what has happened. We would like to say, that whilst we don’t agree with their decisions, they were quite within their rights to make them, and we respect that right. We are sad to move the event away from Woolsery, but by doing so we are supporting the Small School in Hartland even more, and this was – after all – the thing which started off all the problems with the Community Centre in the first place.

From the Small School website:

 “The Small School was founded in 1982 by Satish Kumar and other parents living in an isolated rural community in an economically-deprived area of South West England.   The nearest state secondary school, with almost 2,000 students, was 13 miles away, involving 2 hours travelling a day by bus.  This pioneering group, most of whose children had been educated in small village primary schools, wished to show that secondary education, too, could be modelled on the family, rather than the factory, and based in the local community.

   The school is in the centre of Hartland in the old church hall and at the heart of the community At the rear of the school we have a vegetable garden that is maintained by the students and the food produced is used for the cooked lunches. As a school we aspire to a greener future and we are constantly looking at ways to be more environmentally friendly. As a school we recycle and source all our produce (if it's not already growing in the garden) from the local farm shop in Hartland. By doing this we are not only supporting local businesses but also cutting down on food miles.

  The school serves vegetarian food and other dietary requirements are also catered for. A different parent volunteers to cook the lunch each day and a rota of students help out in the kitchen too. All students attend a Level 2 Food Safety course in order to prepare for the kitchen work. Students also take responsibility for the cleaning of the buildings at the end of the day”.

The Small School is not as large as the Woolsery Community Centre, but we believe that there is plenty of room for our needs. There will be a bar and a restaurant, and profits from both will go to the School itself. However, because we are sad to be leaving Woolsery, we shall be making our customary donation to Woolsery charities.

This is a new beginning, and we hope that in future years the event will grow and that we shall be able to involve our friends across North Devon and make this a truly community event which shall carry on for years.

There will be changes, but as any ecologist will tell you, without change, systems go stagnant, and I would hate that to happen to something to which I have given my heart and soul over the past fifteen years.

We shall be running a shuttle service for anyone who is booked into a Woolsery B&B who doesn’t have their own transport, and will be uploading a list of accommodation and campsites in Hartland over the next few days…

Onwards and Upwards

Jon Downes


5 comments:

Dan said...

As far as I'm concerned, this is extremely welcome news. Quite frankly you do have to hand it to Jon, in a rural area without much infrastructure he has just managed the almost impossible.

He's found a second venue that will take the Weird Weekend, which has enough space and which is still reasonably close to his home and which has, joy of joys, decent pubs as well. He has also managed, I think, to point out to the Woolsery village hall committee just how insignificant they are, and how little their petty politics matter.

All in all several big wins rolled into one. Congratulations Jon Downes!

Steve Jones said...

I agree with Dan.
We are already booked into a pub in Bideford anyway, so it makes a slightly shorter journey for the taxi.There is a real lae brewery in Hartland as well as a real ale pub .I went through last year on a trip to Clovelly by bus.No bus service after 5 from Hartland though .

Steve Jones said...

I agree with Dan.
We are already booked into a pub in Bideford anyway, so it makes a slightly shorter journey for the taxi.There is a real lae brewery in Hartland as well as a real ale pub .I went through last year on a trip to Clovelly by bus.No bus service after 5 from Hartland though .

Richard Thorns said...

Even though the whole matter has caused immense stress and annoyance to Jon, read his original announcement for a lesson in how to be gracious. Well done, Jon. I look forward to taking the stand at this new venue with great pleasure, and I hope to "make benefit" the people of Hartland and their community.

Ego Ronanus said...

What a relief! I cannot imagine how stressful and indeed discouraging the entire business must have been for Jon at times. This whole process is analogous to pulling a rabbit out of a hat.