With the FoodCycle Annual Conference mere weeks away, we’ve been asking some of our Project Leaders what they enjoyed about last year’s conference and why they can’t wait to come again this year! Here, the brilliant Geertje Van Rees of FoodCycle Cambridge describes her experience meeting other FoodCyclers from across the country, getting stuck into some strategy discussions and learning more about nutrition – notably mozzarella (drool).
Last year was my first visit to the FoodCycle conference – I wasn’t sure what to expect, but came away after the weekend with plenty of inspiration for our projects in Cambridge. It was a great chance to meet the volunteers behind successful projects across the country. Every project brings its own experiences, ideas and fresh ways of looking at the issues we all face as volunteers. We all learned so much – especially from each other!
The training workshops were really useful – especially the ones about dealing with challenging guests and nutrition. I never knew mozzarella was so high in protein! There were lots of useful tips and tricks to take away to improve our sessions even further – all really practical stuff. We also really welcomed the chance to sit down, away from the hustle and bustle of the kitchen, to work out long term goals for our projects and think about what direction we wanted to go in. We don’t often get the chance to think clearly about what we do well, or what we could improve on – or to swap these ideas with other FoodCyclers.
All in all, I highly recommend going along – you’ll get your brain really fired up with ideas and thoughts and you’ll be wanting to run back to your project and give some love to those veggies!
