Thanks to all the fatty queers

Pic by Emli Bendixen, see more of her incredible photos of The Fat of the Land.

Thanks to everyone for making The Fat of the Land such a rip-roaring success! Special thanks to my co-organisers Jason, Naz, and Bill, and all the volunteers, stall-holders, and supporters. Nearly 200 people came, we pretty much ran out of cakes and savouries, and the tea and squash flowed from the time that BJ cut the ribbon to the last of the Morris dancing. Everyone seemed to have a great time and we made enough money to cover our expenses. Thank you all!

A couple of things:

There's a Fat of the Land page on Facebook, and you can become a fan if you are so inclined. Just click the "Become a fan" button.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Fat-of-the-Land-A-Queer-Chub-Harvest-Festival/145532791657

We would love to see your own pics and videos of the day, you can upload them onto the Facebook page or link to them there, if you are a fan, or get in touch with us via this blog for us to upload here (more people see the blog than the Facebook stuff).

We'd also love to keep the discussions and the community going, so please chip in on the blog or the Facebook page with thoughts, recollections of the day (check out what Crazycrone said), ideas for how we might all take the good feeling from yesterday onwards, perhaps into future projects.

Ok, tired now.

Sublime and ridiculous

DIVA are going to be at The Fat of the Land: A Queer Chub Harvest Festival this Saturday. they've made a cut-out cover of their current fat issue for you to poke your head through. You too can be a glamazon lesbo high femme magazine cover chubber. Amazing.

Wanna be a Judge?

You Could Be Fat of the Land Competition Judge

It's not just the official judges who will be judging the Fat of the Land competitions, there are some special guest judging spots up for grabs too. You could be a judge! You could have first bite and first taste! Here's how…

There are seven precious and exclusive guest judge spots for sale. You will be judging competition entries alongside our official fat of the Land judges.

The guest judge spots cost £10 or £5 concessions.

Once these seven places have been sold, they are gone forever.

You can notify Charlotte, the competitions person, beforehand if you want to be a judge. Send her an email: mail@charlottecooper.net

Or you can offer your judging capabilities and cash on the day.

Judging will take place at 4pm sharp, and winners will be announced at 4.30pm.

Please let Charlotte know if you have a preferred category.

Best Jam
Best Chutney
Best Decorated Cupcakes
Best Cake (Fancy)
Best Cake (Teatime)
Best Vegetable Monster (Junior) – aged 12 and under
Best Vegetable Monster (Senior) – aged 12 and over

Please note that people will know if you are both a judge and a competition entrant, and if you judge your own entry to be the winner it will be deemed bad form!

How to Enter Fat of the Land Competitions: A step-by-step guide

The competition categories are:

Best Jam
Best Chutney
Best Decorated Cupcakes
Best Cake (Fancy)
Best Cake (Teatime)
Best Vegetable Monster (Junior) – aged 12 and under
Best Vegetable Monster (Senior) – aged 12 and over

1. Make some stuff that fits those categories, use whatever judgement and recipes you like.

2. Remember that you can enter more than one competition and, if you're really enthusiastic, you can enter competitions more than once.

3. Bring your makings to the Fat of the Land before 3.30pm.

4. Tell the competitions person (Charlotte, most likely) if it's okay for the Fat of the Land to sell or auction your entry to help us cover our costs. Winning entries will be auctioned in aid of the harvest festival, runners-up will be sold at a price you agree.

5. Write your name, contact details and, if relevant, a price, on a sticker, which will be generously provided by your harvest festival organisers.

6. Stick the sticker underneath your entry, so the judges can judge each entry anonymously.

7. Place your entry on the space provided for harvest festival goers to admire.

8. Judging will take place at 4pm and winners will be announced at 4.30pm and will receive their winning certificates.

9. If you are neither auctioning nor selling your entry, you may take it away with you after 4.30pm.

10. Good luck!

The Diet Box of Doom

I remember going to harvest festivals when I was a kid with a tin of some unwanted food to put into a crepe paper-covered box for 'the needy'. This was usually some random group of old or disabled people who hadn't asked for our somewhat stingy charity and who would have been better off with civil rights than a dusty can of rice pudding from the back of my family's cupboard.

But a harvest festival is a festival of giving that comes from being glad of what we have, yet also slightly condescending to those whom we perceive to have less than us, and wanting them to be grateful for our beneficence. We want to uphold this tradition at the Fat of the Land, and give to those who are less well-off than ourselves, the somewhat tragic, the people and organisations who just don't get it.

We're going to be giving some queer chub action back to the diet industry.

The Fat of the Land will feature a Diet Box of Doom, a place where you can leave unwanted slimming ephemera, as well as any other non-perishables you'd like to donate. This will then be given to a weight loss multinational, or an odious diet guru voted for by people at the Fat of the Land.

What to bring:

Diet books and magazines, calorie counting accessories, weight loss recipes, tape measures, diet scales, weighing scales, defaced slimming advertisements, laxatives, personal accounts of dieting, stories of body fascism, pictures, poems, food diaries, videos and DVDs, diet sheets, clothes that you bought to slim into but never managed to fit, anything that you'd like people who profit from dieting to know or to have, or whatever you think should go into a Diet Box of Doom.

What will happen:

When we have voted for a recipient, Charlotte will package up the box nicely and deliver it by hand to the company's UK CEO or guru at their headquarters. This will be documented on the Fat of the Land blog.

Love and Thanks to Our Fat of the Land Raffle Sponsors

We're having a raffle and we're giving away some fantastic prizes. Big fat thanks to the following people and organisations who have generously donated their stuff:

In alphabetical order, applause for:

Allyson Mitchell, for goodies from her artist's studio.

Becky Sanchez for the beautiful sampler.

Bill Savage, Unskinny Bop's most talented poster artist, for donating original art in mini-form. Swoon.

Charley Stone, the brilliant musician and mainstay of more bands than you've had hot dinners. Charley will record a Classic Cover of your choice in her own inimitable style.

Katie D, for gorgeous fat zines and knitted treats.

Katy 'Chanko Nabe' Hathaway, for genuine sumo stuff!

Lady Lucy, for a really blimmin' lovely drawing. It's ahem, of me (blush) and it's all about fat and queer activism.

Me, for pinching a spare goodie bag from the Beth Ditto for Evans launch back in August (you know, the party where Beth sang karaoke with Kate Moss). The bag contains promo copy of Gossip's Music for Men, a limited edition domino print scarf and a bunch of other bits and pieces, plus a mint condition copy of Love magazine, with extensive coverage of Beth, our patron saint.

Me again for donating a kit for growing giant vegetables, which includes assorted giant vegetable seeds (some for Clive's Giant Cucumber! oo-err) and an instruction booklet.

Raw Nerve, for a copy of the excellent Fat Studies in the UK book, featuring a bunch of people who are going to be doing their thing at the Fat of the Land.

Re/Dress NYC, the world's best plus-size vintage/ second hand clothes shop and queer fat social enterprise, who have donated some fatshion for one lucky winner.

Substantia Jones at The Adipositivity Project, an incredible photo project that documents fat people's bodies. Substantia has donated some covetable merch.

Susan Stinson, writer extraordinaire, for signed copies of her gorgeous novels Venus of Chalk and Martha Moody. Extra special bonus prize: an ultra rare copy of her poetry chapbook, Belly Songs.

Tom O'Tottenham, our favourite stonemason about town, who will cut you a plaque with your initial on it. Unique and rare!

Unskinny Bop, for donating a one-of-a-kind mix CD called Hey Kids, It's A Podge Pop Party…with Unskinny Bop. According to DJ Ruth, "This will feature lots of amazing fat pop stars in the vein of the first ever UBop at Ladyfest." Yeah! The lucky winner also gets free tickets to The Bop.

What Will the Harvest Be? A lovely community vegetable garden in E15, for donating a box of veg, fresh out of the ground!

You can win these prizes, yes, you you you! And look, there are loads of prizes so you have a really good chance of winning something excellent. All you have to do is come along on the day and buy a raffle ticket.

More about competitions at the Fat of the Land

I've been making the certificates today for the winners of our competitions. They look great!

You'd better get baking and making if you'd like to be in with a chance of winning one of them. I should warn you at this stage that I have made some extremely delicious Pear and Ginger Chutney that I shall be entering, if it remains uneaten for that long.

Here's a reminder of the categories:

Best Jam
Best Chutney
Best Decorated Cupcakes
Best Cake (Fancy)
Best Cake (Teatime)
Best Vegetable Monster (Junior) – aged 12 and under
Best Vegetable Monster (Senior) – aged 12 and over

Please bring your creations with you on the day for judging. Winners will be announced about 5-ish. We are leaving the definitions of categories up to you, and you are free to use any recipe you choose.

Prizes needed

We're holding a raffle because The Fat of the Land is costing us a bit of money to put on and we need to make it back. Raffles need prizes, right? This is where you come in.

Can you donate some goods or services for us to raffle? Offering prizes can be a good way of getting publicity for whatever it is that you want to publicise. Maybe you make things, or have a business or something you produced that you'd like to give. Home-made treats are especially welcome, as are things that might appeal to a queer/fat sensibility, however you interpret that. Perhaps you organise a club or an event or something that you can offer free entry to as a prize.

Look at these amazing knitted things

I went to the Epping Forest Festival yesterday and saw many things, including this incredible array of knitted cosies. Intense!

I've been pestering Kay to make me some mug cosies and wondered if there were any knitters in the house who would like to have a stab at them, they look pretty simple. Perhaps someone could write down a pattern for us to share here? Or pictures of your own knitted endeavours?

Growing things, beautiful fat queer fruit!

Look what the tree gave me this morning! I'm still holding out for the pears on my pear tree, my first ever crop. Aren't they beautiful? What shall I do with them?

Do you grow things in your garden or allotment? Would you be interested in bringing them to show at The Fat of the Land: A Queer Chub Harvest Festival? Drop us a line if so.

Banner!

Got a blog? Got a website? Got a Twitter account? Then please help publicise The Fat of the Land with this sweet li'l banner.



Here's the code, simply swap round brackets ( ) for angled ones <>.

(a href="http://queerchub.blogspot.com")(img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkeEwbXl68Zqn4nl3CjjTW_wHnIWmPbHn0WCxQrin8HuMP2M8k7euNV4HeMlweHOGWRYuqk3D5YylwJUbYPnhzgk7D2SlPmdH-BGy-oToZb8UuUMu09y4NnWG7l9yjewSUaYZ8AFmtLnA/s400/fotl_banner.gif" border="0" alt="The Fat of the Land: A Queer Chub Harvest Festival "id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374984074173194178")(/a)

The Facebook has landed

Oh Facebook, you are so creepy and so wrong in many ways, but you allow us to publicise our events and talk to our pals. Hence here is a Facebook Events page for The Fat of the Land: A Queer Chub Harvest Festival. Feel free to RSVP, and use it to tell everyone you know about our humble gathering.

Over and out.

Volunteers and stall holders wanted

Hello lovely people,

I'm looking for folks who might be interested in running a stall (these must be fat related in some way - crafts, games, information, publications, baked goods etc) or volunteering (on the day or before the event as my catering team, putting fliers about and such like. Transport help is always welcome too).

Stalls will have a charge attached to them (yet to be decided how much) and volunteers will get free entry to the event, and probably a pie or so.

Please let me know if you would like to help or get involved. You can email me at queerinstitute@gmail.com and I'll be in touch with further details. Of course space is limited in the hall and we may not be able to have everyone's stalls, but we'll do our best.

Looking forward to hearing from you. Please forward to anyone you think might be interested.

x Naz

Pie Flyers for All! Please Help Us Out!

Well would you believe it? 21 August – 3 October 2009 is the annual drive to Do A Queer Fatty a Good Turn For Six Weeks, and here's one really easy way that you could help.

See, we're putting on an event for next to no money and, see, we want people to come to it. But people can't come to it unless they know about it. This is where you can help.

1. Download the .pdf of our lovely roughly hewn pie flyer (see link below)
2. Print it on A4 paper
3. Photocopy it a load of times
4. Chop it up into individual flyers
5. Give a flyer to everyone you know and tell them about our fabulous Harvest Festival
6. Bathe in our adoration of you

Easy!

A4 Fat of the Land Pie Flyer (.pdf, 280kb)