Clarification re. Greenbelt post

Categories: greenbelt

Date: 31 July 2010 14:55:53

It appears I have been playing with the big boys recently, so to speak. Kester Brewin responded to my thing on Greenbelt and TAZ with this post.

Apparently in my post he reckons I was suggesting that sponsors may exert influence overtly on the talks team, this is not the case. Reply posted in his comments posted on here for clarification.

"Thanks for the engagement with my post. I am quite aware, through my own involvement with the teams, that sponsors don’t influence the contect directly. However, my point was that for the festival to exist it needs sponsors. If all the sponsors were to decide they didn’t like the direction was going in, (which is unlikely but theoretically possible), that could influence the content. Additionally like Simon says parts of the content are influenced by the sponsors. This is particularly the case beyond the main talks. CMS had some great stuff on in their tent which reflected the CMS ethos of engaging in mission in the contemporary environment. The Outerspace talks are seperate to the main talks programme, and Outerspace aren’t a sponsor, (but their talks reflect their place as part of the festival).
If there is a TAZ space in GB I would say it is sometimes the campsite where “happenings” seem to occur and then disipate.
One area I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on is the impact of TAZ spaces on people afterwards who temporarily find freedom but then find it difficult going back to the “everyday” experience of church."

I am being very careful here. I know from previous experience what can happen if your blog post gets taken as criticism by someone involved with GB..........you find yourself challenged, involved and working on one of the festival sub-groups (or maybe that's just me).