Get People on Board

Ask yourself, who can bring something of themselves to the table? Whether it’s your tasty treats, your rhythmic beats, or even your pleated sheets! Once you’ve got one other person on board, you’ve already got the makings of a Feast. Get a couple of trusted helpers to get the ball rolling and it’s only a matter of time before the momentum begins to grow.

Contact your neighbours every way you can! Here are some suggestions:

 

• Make some posters and flyers, put them everwhere
• Decorate your own invitations - much more creative and fun!
• Get tech-savvy, get social networking, get active online with blogs, facebook and twitter.
• Arrange coffee shop meetings.
• Write out some chalk invites on doorsteps.
• Do a nice deed for someone.
• Walk your dog.
• Identify that neighbour who knows everyone and make a beeline for them!
• Accidently bump into unsuspecting neighbours while posting your letters. Catch every passerby for a chat!
• Tell the postman, he knocks on everyone’s door!

Register Your Feast

"A lot of people here know each other to see but not necessarily to talk to. It's an opportunity to meet neighbours and have a proper chat with people who you would pass on the street. It's really nice to have a sense of building community”…
Lizzie Downes, Street Feaster

You can register your feast here

Registering means that the lovely people at Street Feast will send you a very useful pack full of tips and resources to help you get organised as well as some bunting and decorations for the day.

Registering your Feast will also allow people in your neighbourhood to discover that your feast is happening and hopefully they can stop by on the day

Decide on a Location

A Street Feast can take place anywhere! On the street, in your front garden, in a car park, your local field once it's easy to access and welcoming to everyone then you're all set! Some things to keep in mind:

Closing your street

You don’t have to close your street at all but if you do like the sound of moving the cars out of the way for the day and setting up bang in the middle of your street then there are ways to make it happen. You’ll need permission from your council to close a public road for a couple of hours. Your local council’s website will have a form to fill in. Apply well in advance. It’s easier than it sounds!

The Weather

Rain Rain never stopped us before! But we’ve got a mighty memory for forgetting the sunny days, and remembering the washouts. Keep your fingers crossed. Odds are on for a cracking summer, but there is no harm in being prepared for possible rain. And we can be, after all we’ve been dealing with the stuff for long enough now. Borrow a light tarpaulin and string it over the street as a practice run for possible downpours. Agree on somewhere beforehand that everyone will relocate to if the heavens open. How about the community centre? Somebody’s garage opened up or a spacious farm shed?

Cerca il cibo

locale

Poiché la festa di strada è una celebrazione della strada locale, perché non cercare di sostenere il più possibile gli agricoltori e i fornitori locali?

Chiedete in giro - potrebbero essere un paio di spiccioli in più, ma almeno quei soldi rimangono nella vostra zona, sostenendo una famiglia locale.

Consigli

Quando si prepara il cibo, vale il buon senso! La più grande insidia del barbecue è la carne non cotta. Un suggerimento utile: cuocete la carne nel forno e finitela sul barbecue, in modo da conservare quei sapori deliziosi.

Comprate irlandese! Aiuta le aziende irlandesi e mantiene il posto di lavoro del tuo amico/familiare/vicino di casa.

Acquista prodotti di stagione I migliori prodotti da cucinare in questo periodo dell'anno? Praticamente tutto, tranne le radici.

Non dimenticate che i prodotti irlandesi possono esplodere di colore.

Il cibo di stagione è ottimo perché è di qualità migliore, è più fresco e quindi più sano, deve percorrere meno strada, il che significa meno emissioni di carbonio e meno impatto sull'ambiente. Un cibo più felice per tutti!

Throw a Great Party

This is the one day in the year when we have complete control over our streets! The day when we can cover the car-park in colour. The moment we’ll cover the cul-de-sac with chairs and tables. Lose that perfection and capture creativity. Flags, bunting, props. Everything and anything goes; the more colour the better!

Recipe for bunting

Get lost in your nearest cupboard. Old tents, umbrellas, 70’s tablecloths, kid’s cartoon bedsheets, dad’s hawaiian shirts, dodgy curtains – all are welcome! Find some garden twine or extralong string. Cut the fabric into long thin diamond shapes. Fold in half between the shortest points. Wrap around the string and glue sides together. Find a responsible daredevil who’ll tie the string between neighbours windows or a willing tree. Celebrate the instant colour that transforms the street!

Film your Feast

A simple video of your Street Feast will help to encourage neighbours to get involved for next year. Make sure to get a good range of shots, ie. long, medium, close-up range. Why not share out the finished piece; you could upload it to the Street Feast YouTube channel (make sure you’ve got permission!).

Tips

Make sure to get as many willing people as possible to clean up, preferably before they all slink off! Try making the area cleaner and better than when you started!

Capturing the Memories

Capture those photos, they’ll be great for the memories. Uploading online is the way to go these days, much easier to make your friends jealous! Use your blog, facebook, flickr, to share them and link your shots to the Street Feast groups on flickr and facebook.

Music and Games

Everyone’s musical! There are probably more musicians per square km of turf in Ireland than any other country worldwide. Think about all the closet ones out there – go find them! Get that group together! Play it live, set up acoustic park sessions, everyone wants to be part of the tin-cankitchenpot-dustbin-lid collective. What better way to break down barriers than getting those tunes out onto the street? Instruments From the handy spoons to the pickupable guitar, from the all-cando triangle to the everso-welcome trumpet. If you’re playing the bendy saw be careful!

Games are only limited by your imagination! Keep them simple – hopscotch, noughts & crosses, snakes and ladders, draughts and hangman, all you need is some chalk and some willing competitors. With any luck, the games will be improvised into spectacles that will be remembered for years – twister-street-style, breakdance-off, crab-football, musical-car-parking