Photos & Summers Past
Photos from the 12th Vegan Summer Gathering, held 11-18 June 2005 in Mumbles in South Wales, shows many of the group on top of Mumbles Hill.
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The weather was fantastic, which always helps! Mumbles is a lovely seaside resort, and three of our houses were right by the sea front. At night the lights from Swansea twinkled from across the bay. The nearby Gower Peninsula is a great attraction too, and one of the day trips took us to Rhossili Bay and its long expanse of sandy beach.
During assorted meetings we discussed veganism (of course!), animal rights, Buddhism, psychology, health & diet, promoting vegetarianism/veganism in the developing world, and more. Yoga and Tai Chi featured, plus a raw food lunch. And we ran two large meetings at the nearby Vivian Hall, with everyone bringing a contribution of food. This "pot luck" approach always works really well, producing a wide array of mouthwatering dishes. A Welsh language magazine ran an article on the gathering, and veganism in general, and their headline was Food Without Frills - which was rather wide of the mark!
On one evening we took over Govinda's, Swansea's main vegetarian/vegan restaurant, and around 40 people enjoyed a meal followed by music from singer/songwriter Nicola Williams (a member of Swansea Vegans).
See below for photos from last year’s gathering (taken by Kevin, Malcolm, Ann, Heather and Karen) - but if you want to see more photos of the actual Mumbles area then one excellent website is www.tharg.com/webcam/mumblescam.htm (look especially at the Panoramics section). Other websites, with photos and information covering Mumbles and Gower, are www.mumbles.info and www.enjoygower.com
Hold the cursor over any photo to find out more about it, and click on any image to see it full-size.
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Also see www.veganviews.org.uk/brynderwen for photos of Brynderwen Vegan Community (including some of the people from the gathering).
HISTORY OF THE VEGAN SUMMER GATHERING:
The first Summer Gathering was held in Exmouth, Devon, in 1994 - and Exmouth continued to be its home (except for Sheffield in 1996) until it moved to Mumbles in South Wales in 2003. So there have been eight gatherings in Exmouth, three in Mumbles, and one in Sheffield. Typically about 40 people have come for the week (mainly from the UK but also a few from abroad), and this number has usually been about doubled by local people and day visitors. Many people have stayed together in large self-catering houses or flats, and we've always tried to keep charges as low as possible. In 2005 it cost £85 for the week for a shared room (concessions £55). At the same time we raised small amounts of money - totalling about £2,700 over 12 years - for assorted vegan groups, notably Vegfam (see Links on left). The gatherings have been a mixture of conference and holiday, with discussions and talks mixed with communal meals, and many trips out and about. Some people have come just once, but many others (of all ages) have come regularly over the years and made lasting friendships.