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WOMAD and oxfam: festival volunteer fun

7/8/2019

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Want to have an amazing, music filled summer but you’re on a budget? Love meeting new people? Want to support a great charity? Then you need to volunteer for Oxfam. 

Me and Rebekah were volunteers at Womad festival, held at Charlton Park in Wiltshire. This world music festival has a super-chilled vibe with so much to do and see for people of all ages, it was a great first volunteering experience for us. We worked as stewards, we did three 8 hour shifts in exchange for free entrance to the festival, exclusive campsite and meal vouchers.
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Our first shift involved patrolling the campsite as festival-goers arrived and pitched their tents. Duties involved smiling, saying hi, checking for open fires, keeping fire lanes clear and trying to find out where the bin liners were. On the hottest day of the year, we clocked up 21kms of walking! Everyone was excited and really appreciated help.

Our second shift was thankfully more stationary. Monitoring the gate to backstage camping involved checking wristbands and opening and closing the gate to authorised vehicles. We had the best spot though - really near one of the stages so we could dance the shift away! 

We signed up for a post-festival shift meaning we had two whole days off to enjoy the festival. Meditation session and talk with Gelong Thubten, yoga, tai-chi, poetry, panel discussion, dance workshops and so much music! There’s nothing like being at the front of a crowd watching a performer as captivating as Anna Calvi - Saturday night’s headliner. The food stalls were great too. Indian dosas and vegan churros were the highlights but the wood fired pizza place, and their vegan cheese, was amazing too. 

It was impossible to see everything and sometimes it was necessary just to chill at the campsite. The Oxfield had a marquee with boiling water and tea and coffee as well as phone charging. It was nice to sit around chatting with other volunteers. Some veterans of Oxfam have volunteered year after year and had some amazing tales to tell. *Oxfield’s showers were hot, clean and not often busy* 
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Our final shift involved covering other people’s breaks on various gates, giving directions and then gently suggesting to the last campers that they might like to go home. 

Rebekah writes:

“Volunteering is such a good experience. My experiences as a festival volunteer this summer have been really positive. It was a great way to meet new people. You can get into some great discussions about the world, different cultures and ways of thinking. In our role as volunteer stewards we were able to take on the day to day running of parts of the festival and use our people-skills throughout. It was all about helping the festival goers have the best time they could! It was great to be on the other side of a festival and experience it in this way. WOMAD festival was fun, different, exhausting, magical and something I will never forget! I will definitely be trying out a new festival next year.”

I was a bit concerned that the other volunteers would mostly be younger than us, people would come in groups or I wouldn't know what to do. Oxfam provide training, stewarding is mostly common sense and there was an amazing age-range! Some people came alone and others met up with volunteer friends from other festivals - I needn't have worried.
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Oxfam raises £1 million over the course of the summer through providing stewards for festivals, enabling them to fund their work around the world. If you want to find out more visit their website here 
or get in touch by posting a comment below.  Summer's not over yet!
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Runderwear: product review

6/8/2019

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Running is such a great hobby -  you don't need to know how to inflate tyres or the off-side rule, and there's no reason to travel to a gym or playing field, just go outside and off you go. When you're starting out, you don't need much kit either, good running shoes are really important but any clothes that you feel comfortable in will do. However, as your distance and time increase then kit matters more. I remember one long training run for the first half marathon I did where I was wearing a nice purple vest. After an hour in that vest the inside of my biceps were sore from brushing past the seam for so long. Ouch! Another source of chaffing can be underwear. Pants that don't wick sweat away from your skin, or an ill-fitting bra can both be a source of irritation to your skin and your mind. Enter RUNDERWEAR. Read on for my review of two of their products. 
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There are three main designs of pants to pick from for women - I got 'low rise hipster' in black. Where have these pants been all my life?! They're soft, so soft. Not to mention super stretchy, and they wick that sweat like there's no tomorrow. It makes them quick-drying after a wash too, (perfect for backpackers doing a sneaky bit of sink laundry in a dorm.) I like the wide elastic at the top - practical and stylish. Seriously, they're so comfortable that I forgot they were there. 
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The Runderwear Support Bra is rather more high-tech than the pants. Sports bras are strange articles with many different designs. It's extremely hard to decide on the right kind of design. In my experience of sports bras, they usually fall into one of several categories. This one falls into the category of "boobs definitely restrained, may dislocate shoulder upon exit". That's to say that it provides fantastic support, fits well (I got the same size as I would in a normal bra) but has to be removed over the head. When hot and sweaty after a run this can be somewhat challenging, as it needs to be a snug fit to do its job. One has to undo the clasp, remove one arm by tucking it under the main body of the device, then use the other arm to pull the whole thing over the head in a diagonal direction before finally waving it victoriously in the air. 

The only other negative thing I can say is that the padding makes it a bit slow at drying after washing but I didn't notice any issue with sweat-wicking as the padding is away from the armpit area. Overall, the dramatic exit manoeuvre is worth the comfort and support. I have other bras that come undone like a normal bra which don't provide nearly as much support. 

Other than functionality, another factor to consider before purchasing is environmental impact. I was unable to find out where Runderwear products are produced so I can't comment on fair wages or factory conditions. However, it would be great to see Runderwear reducing their plastic and packaging. Perhaps some bamboo fibre can reduce the dependence on plastic, and the plastic bag inside the cardboard packaging seems unnecessary. 

Thanks for sending me the Runderwear, here's to hundred more chafe-free miles.

How do you remove yourself from your sports bra? What are the comfiest pants you've found for running? Comment below!

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    Hannah the traveller

    is a travel and lifestyle blog with focus on running, vegan eating and of course global travel.

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