The Dragonfly Festival was held on the 13th July 2019 to kick start the beginning of National Dragonfly Week, celebrating the idea of saving the mosslands. There was also a magical element of weaving in the RoundView themes of formation, exploitation and restoration. At the time of formation of the peat bogs just after the ice age dragons roamed the earth. However, during times of exploitation and peat extraction, the dragons had to become tiny and when the sites have been restored they have returned as dragonflies. It was a fantastic way to engage with the local community groups in the Salford area and bring the community together.
In the run up to the festival workshops involved decorating nine dragonfly willow lanterns with 1st Cadishead Scouts, Lady James' Hall Art Group, Lady James' Hall Gardening Club and Prince's Park Garden Centre. These lanterns were paraded on the day of the festival and the groups that designed them get to keep them. The wood work group at the garden centre made a sign post and four chalkboard signs that were used for the festival and will be used at future Carbon Landscape events.
The location for the festival was Princes Park in Irlam, due to its proximity to Cadishead and Little Woolden Moss. The social enterprise garden centre is heavily involved in plant raising thousands of mossland plants for green the nature reserve such as cotton grass and crossed leaved heath. The festival also gave the chance to promote the newly opened onsite cafe. The festival boasted fifteen stalls representing conservation organisations and community groups. They were asked to theme their stalls towards dragonflies and activities included paracord keyring making and dragonfly clay lifecycle making by Nomad Rangers; The Conservation Volunteers (TCV) ran a Leaf Identification activity and a Hapa Zome activity and Carbon Landscape ran a seed bomb making stall and had the interactive bog in the box set which allowed the promotion of the Large Heath butterfly reintroduction project. The market stallholders consisted of a baked good stall, a candle and soy wax melt stall, a few unique handmade jewellery stalls and personalised unique gift stalls. An ice cream van was also present and Tesco Extra Irlam also provided a fruit. Market stall holders were asking for a donation and a total of £90.00 was raised for the garden centre.
The festival was family focused with over 200 in attendance. The lantern parade involved Toby the Dragon, professional storyteller Professor Jiggett and the nine dragonfly lanterns which were paraded by those who had decorated them with a few members of the public taking part as well. Feedback from stallholders and families attending was that the event was well executed, organised and that there were a good range of stalls for people to browse for items and engage with. The run up and the festival was led by trainee Hanifah Master. Her sister and mum also helped as volunteers. She had never done anything similar before and embraced everything and the officer staff were really impressed by her energy levels and excellent attention to detail.
