NGCV are hosting their first ever Green Week from Saturday September 9 to Sunday September 17 across their venues, with a wide range of themed and fun activities and initiatives for the public and staff.
Philip Bernays, Chief Executive at Newcastle Theatre Royal and NGCV Green Champion, said: “We started our NGCV Green Campaign in 2012, believing that working together we could do more to make our venues and visits to them more sustainable. Five years on, we have achieved a lot in terms of reducing our collective carbon footprint, saving energy and minimizing waste, as well as promoting recycling, sustainable transport and energy and resource efficiency.
Our NGCV Green Week will help reinvigorate our campaign and enable staff, the public and visiting artists and performers to engage in fun activities, which also promote green behaviours and positive messages across our venues and beyond.”
As part of Green Week, we’re holding a staff ‘clear out and recycle day’, as well as a clothes swap event for staff and visitors:
Clothes Swap
Fri 15th Sept, 1-5pm, Dance City
Bring your unwanted but good quality clothes/shoes and get a token for each item to trade in for something new to you!
Un-swapped clothes will be donated to a local charity shop.
NGCV are asking the public to share ideas about how venues and visitors can be greener. People can enter the prize draw, with 10 prizes to be won for the best ideas, including free tickets to some great shows and activities, shopping vouchers and family passes. Click here to share your green ideas and enter the prize draw. The deadline for ideas submitted is midnight on 17 September.
What’s happening and how you can get involved
In terms of activities there are lots to choose from, but below are some highlights. Click here for the full list of activities.
The Life Science Centre is dedicating its Making Space activities to recycling and upcycling over two weekends, children and families can make a motorized dinosaur on 9 and 10 September and at the end of Green Week on 16 and 17 September, use ‘roar’ materials to make their own flat pack dino!
Sage Gateshead soars into action on Monday (11) from 10 to 12, with a mass paper plane throw in its main concert hall, using recycled paper and newspapers.
From Monday to Friday (11-15), Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums are inviting children and families to design and build something using recycled materials to help make the world a better place, as part of their Play + Invent Design Challenge at Discovery museum in Newcastle.
Seven Stories is running Story times with a ‘green’ theme on Wednesday 13 and at 6pm that day, Tyneside Cinema is hosting a special screening of An Inconvenient Sequel (the follow up to An Inconvenient Truth). On Friday Tyneside Cinema is encouraging visitors to travel green, with discounts on hot drinks at their Vicolo café for people who show they have travelled by bike and discounted cycle hire from The Cycle Hub all September for Tyneside Cinema customers. You can also get 50p off a cup of tea or coffee at McKenna’s in Northern Stage if you bring your own cup on Wednesday 13th.
Staff at Live Theatre are pledging to car share or use public transport and read scripts from the screen rather than printing out and every day BALTIC will be raising awareness of the venue’s green achievements through information on the ground floor for the public and staff.
Theatre Royal is challenging staff to get creative and put together an interesting lunch using left-overs and back of the cupboard items and sharing the recipes on social media. Both Northern Stage from Monday 11th to Thursday 14th and Theatre Royal on Wednesday 13th are hosting collections for foodbanks. They are also both staging a Pedometer Challenge to encourage staff to walk more.
NGCV are also running their annual audience travel survey until 13th October, which looks at how people travel to their venues, with a view to helping people travel more sustainably. Last year the survey attracted more than 16,000 responses and this year 3000 people have already responded. To take part and also have the chance to win £50 worth of shopping vouchers, simply go online and complete the short survey here
