The Site Vibing volunteer team make the Festival site look amazing. Every gold-wrapped tree, hand-crafted venue sign, or triangle of bunting is made by this creative bunch.

And now, they're inviting you to join them!

The Site Vibers are running four Making Days in Leeds and London, at which the creative among you can contribute a little time and talent to making Cheltenham Racecourse a bit less like a racecourse and a bit more like Greenbelt.

If you have skills in cutting and sewing fabric, drawing and colouring, or crafty construction with card, plastic and other materials, then the Site Vibing Team would love to see you in Leeds in March, and in London in May…

LEEDS – Saturday 27th & Sunday 28th March
Left Bank Leeds
Cardigan Rd, Leeds, LS6 1LJ
(Click here for a map)
Time 10am to 5pm

LONDON – Saturday 22nd & Sunday 23rd May (please note changed dates)
Greenbelt HQ
All Hallows On The Wall, 83 London Wall, London, EC2M 5ND
(Click here for a map)
Time 10am to 5pm

For more information, check the Site Vibing Throughout The Year page, which also contains patterns for making bunting, or email volunteers@greenbelt.org.uk to RSVP and be added to the list.

Share your creativity with the GB community, and make something beautiful!

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Gawain Hewitt as the new Festival Director. Gawain will start his new position at Greenbelt in February 2010.

Gawain said of his new appointment: “Having always admired Greenbelt I am delighted to be appointed as Festival Director. It's a fantastic event and I am looking forward to working with Greenbelt's team to continue its success over the coming years."

Gawain Hewitt is currently Creative Director and Events Organiser at Community Music, a charity working with young people, underprivileged children and adults. In 2003 he helped set up an educational social enterprise company – Skillz – and has developed this as Director over the past seven years.

Greenbelt Trustees, who made the appointment, considered Gawain to be a strong communicator, an engaging manager, commercially aware, yet driven by the satisfaction gained in helping people realise and fulfil their potential through engagement with the arts. He has led initiatives in engaging individuals in this area which have been driven by his personal passion for social justice, and has a successful track record in the planning and organisation of numerous live music events.

Gawain Hewitt succeeds Beki Bateson, who left Greenbelt in September 2009 after nine years in the role.

Andy Turner, Chair of Trustees, is excited at the appointment and is looking forward to working closely with Gawain over the coming years: “Greenbelt is a festival like no other. Of significance to many people, assembled by an eclectic group of staff and volunteers, with a diverse and growing audience. Finding the right person with the vocation and that astonishing mix of skills, experience, vision and ideas to take us forward as Festival Director was always going to be a challenge. I'm therefore really pleased that following an exhaustive process, involving some excellent candidates, we have been able to appoint Gawain Hewitt as the new Festival Director. With an active Christian faith and a passion for justice and the arts, in Gawain we have appointed someone sensitive and astute, an entrepreneur who will lead Greenbelt, helping us to deepen our artistic vision, widen our community of volunteers and supporters, broaden our audience and nurture that important distinctiveness. With a background in charities and enterprise, Gawain is well placed to work with staff and volunteers to grow ambition. This is an exciting and challenging time for Greenbelt. I’m looking forward to Gawain starting, and the opportunity to work with him on the task ahead.”

The next Greenbelt podcast will feature an interview with Gawain, so if you want to find out more, come back in two weeks time.

As well as exploring GB09 through images over on Flickr, you can now relive the Festival with our interactive Soundscape. Crank up the volume, hover over the various icons and before you know it you'll be back in Cheltenham.

If you're a Greenbelt supporter, you should over the next couple of days receive a mailing from us, reminding you that the November ticket deadline is fast approaching. If nothing comes, then you can browse the mailing below, but you might also want to log in at my.greenbelt.org.uk and make sure we have the correct address for you and that your mailing preferences are correct.

At GB09 Festival partners DFID drew particular attention to Platform 2, which allows young people that wouldn't otherwise be able to afford it to visit developing countries. It's an amazing scheme. Check out the video below then visit the Platform 2 website to find out more.

This made everyone in the office smile muchly, thanks for the hard work Matt Downer

Greenbelt 2009 Video Blog from Matt Downer on Vimeo.

As you'll quickly tell if you do a search on twitter, browse flickr, take a look at our vimeo account or even check out AudioBoo or qik.com, Greenbelt's media teams produced a lot of content online over the festival weekend. And a lot of people who couldn't be with us in person seem to have been appreciating it.

For those at the festival, much of that content was invisible. Even if you have a laptop with you or a high-end mobile, keeping up with the festival online and in the physical world is—as I know all too well from several years' experience—a tall order. So this year we decided to print some of it out.

While We Were Here, a Greenbelt newspaper, hit site on Sunday evening and made the rounds on Monday. For more of the story check out this writeup from Matt (the man who pulled it all together). And in case you didn't get a copy (or if you just can't get enough), we've put it up as a PDF that you can download here.

(Many thanks to Hewlett Packard for their sponsorship of the paper. Their last minute support made it all possible.)

(by Simon Jones)

There's a problem though, sometimes. You come to get inspiration and it's easy to find. The artists are inspirational and so are the activists. The musicians can find the secret chord that David played and even the holy people can make you believe that being holy might matter. Greenbelt's creativity comes from its middle, its beginning and end.

But then. The artists are more artistic than you, and the activists more active. The holy people are holier than you and the comedians are funnier. The musicians play better than you and the poets are more poetic … sometimes, sometimes, it feels as if you can't add anything. Cant contribute, be part of it, join in.

But then and but then. Into this surfeit of excellence walks Billy Childish (a most excellent man). The trouble begins, he says, when people start trying to be successful with their artistic ability. Every artist is trying to get to the point where people applaud their special genius. It's the assumed part of creativity, that it's there to wow people, to impress them.

What rot, he scoffs. What nonsense. Either everyone is special or no one is. How does doing the thing that you're good at tell you anything about yourself? It's the failing that tells you that. It's in the failing that you find, and expand, your limits. It's in the failing that we reveal our true selves to each other, not in the triumph of our successes. Art – and religion, he adds – needs to be more than a cosy nest for the able.

Most days of the week this might be eight parts nonsense. His artistic failures sell quite well, after all. Even Billy knows, one suspects, that if you lined up everything he said against itself it wouldn't really add up. It would fail somewhat.

But today, when confidence leaks away in the face of a festival edifice of impossible achievements, it feels like a welcome corrective. Is the artist the master or the servant? Your skills aren't things to have confidence in, they're things to avoid. Having fewer of them might even mean that you're closer to self-discovery. Having weakness, you can read somewhere, might make you strong.

Fortunately, Greenbelt is full of people who have spent a lot of time failing. It's out there to find. In the meantime, do the thing you're not good at. Fail. Learn. Live a little.

With not long to go now, we are looking forward to the visual arts programme coming together after a year of planning.

As well as all our exhibitions that you can come to see, we've got lots of things you can take part in so here's a round up of what you can do & what you need to bring with you to the festival.

Photoflash Swap (The Hub)

Bring a photo [preferably mounted] to the hub on friday when you arrive where we are having an exhibition of everyones images over the weekend. then on Monday you can come back & swap your pic for another one in the exhibition.

(shhh!) (Ssaturday 6pm – The Hub)

A little moment of space on Saturday afternoon in the hub to come & be creative – knitting, drawing, writing, reading – whatever, with a mellow dj set playing in the background.

But remember – Shhh!, no talking just creating ! Some materials will be provided or bring your own.

greenhaus (Cottage Rake)

Bigger and better this year, we have 27 classes. Take a look here for the full line up – http://www.greenbelt.org.uk/system/downloads/visualarts/2009/greenhaus-timetable.pdf

Last year the classes were booked up very quickly so this year we are changing things a little & its first come first served, choose your class & then queue up outside cottage rake before the session is due to start.

Self Portrait (The Hub)

Back again this year, bring yourself and an open mind and have a go at your self portrait, teachers will be on hand to point you in the right direction and you might just surprise yourself.

Comic Book Portfolio Surgery (Sunday 2.45pm – The Hub)

Following on from the Marvel Comics panel, an opportunity for all you budding illustrators and graphic novelists to get advice from some real life comic book professionals. Bring a selection of your artwork along to the hub.

Art For All (All Visual Arts Venues)

Billy Childish one of our Visionaries artists and Speakers has created a limited edition print for us and we are giving 100 of them away free. Visit 6 of our visual arts venues to collect a rubber stamp on the back of your daily diary then come to the info desk in the hub to collect your print.

by James Stewart

For a few months now I've been spending quite a bit of my time playing with ever evolving development copies of the Greenbelt iPhone app. For the past few weeks I've been watching my email anxiously to see if it will make it through Apple's stringent review policies and be released. On Saturday evening we heard that it had made the cut, and was out just in time for the festival.

You can download it now at the iTunes App Store by following this link.

So what does it offer?

If you're like me you quickly run out of space in the "what I want to see" slots in the daily diary and carry around an increasingly ragged piece of paper all weekend. If you're an iPhone or iPod Touch user, those days are over, as are the problems of slipping extra events into the right spot after you've made your list. Simply mark an event as a "favourite" and it'll appear in just the right spot.

I'm also really pleased with the map functions. It's not easy getting a map as large as the Greenbelt site onto the phone—if you're new to the festival you'll probably still need some time on the ground to orient yourself—but being able to tap on a venue and get a list of what's happening, or to search for an event, click through to its venue and jump to that spot on the map is sure to help. Find yourself on the opposite side of site from where you'd intended and want to know what's coming up? Just tap on the nearby venues and you'll know.

So what are you waiting for (if you're an iPhone or iPod touch owner)? Head over to the store, get yourself a copy and start planning your festival.

(Much of the credit is due to festival trustee Paul Bennett who's spent many, many hours over the past months building and refining the app. If you want to follow his example and build apps for other types of mobiles, do let us know.)