Karen Knowler * The Raw Food Coach

More Fresh Festival Photos

Here's some great new photos from the recent Fresh Festival courtesy of Elaine Bruce. Thanks Elaine!

(Elaine celebrated her 70th birthday at the Festival and has never looked more radiant!)

Click on pictures to make them bigger...

 

The Fresh Festival 2006

Wow! That's where I'll start and it may be where I end.

Just back from The Fresh Festival 2006. It was a long road in and yet the Festival itself seemed to be over in the blink of an eye.

And I'm really not sure where to start, and hoping that Get Fresh! editor Sarah will furnish me with a review to post in the next few days as I'm pretty worn out now that it's all over! (This pic is of me on Saturday night dressed in my waitress outfit collecting dinner tickets with Luke, my son. This turned out to be a 20 hour day!)

So, while I wait for Sarah to help me out here, here are some of the highlights for me personally as far as I can remember...

The Fresh Festival Is Nearly Here!

Just 4 days to go until The Fresh Festival 2006 begins!

I can hardly believe it, already one year has passed since the last and it all feels a bit deja vu.

What doesn't feel deja vu however, is the line up which is pretty different to last year, but a terrific line up all the same! I know it's short notice now for people to book but I have to at least remind you that it's happening this coming weekend : ) (That said people are still booking and we can process right up until the last minute if necessary).

If you've never heard about the Fresh Festival before either through me or the proverbial grapevine, then you definitely need to as there's nothing quite like it - all the info you need can be found here.

So, if you're at a loose end on one day or more this weekend, why not make the trip to Somerset and be with us at the rather lovely Rookery Manor Hotel? As per the last two years, everything is looking really exciting for yet another fantastic and life-changing event that is unlike anything else in the world!

Come and join us and hear from the likes of Jason Vale, Paul Nison, Elaine Bruce, Dr Doug Graham, Professor Rozalind Graham, Rene Archner and so many more besides - including myself. Even if you can only make it for one day I promise it will be a day that lives on in your heart and mind forever.

Does that sound like something you could do with right now?!

See you there!

My 2007 Line Up of Events

Wow! How exciting to be able to announce next years programme of events!

Now, you might be thinking, "hang on a minute, it's only August!", but you know how quickly this year has gone already don't you? ...Exactly...!

Here's what the rest of 2006 has in store...

August: This month sees the Roe Gallo party (19th) and the Brian Clement teleclass (16th). Places still available on both.

September: A new Raw Food for Beginners course has been popped in to the schedule on Saturday 9th - Sunday 10th, with another (sold out) event at the end of the month, and our final (for the time being) Raw Food Leader Teleclass with Matthew Kenney on the 20th.

October: Well, it's the Fresh Festival of course! You are coming, right? Early bird bookings available til 1st September, then the prices go up! (Fri 27 - Sun 29 Oct)

November: My final Raw Food for Beginners course of 2006 - still 5 or 6 places left. (Sat 25 - Sun 26 Nov)

December: The Fresh Network Open Day in Ely on 10th and then a well-deserved rest!

Ready for the 2007 schedule? Here goes....

The Fresh Festival 2005 Mini-Review

The Fresh Festival is over and wow - what an event!

It went swimmingly from start to finish, which was great, of course. But what was best was the comments from the many grateful guests who felt their life had been markedly changed, which was truly gratifying.

"Fantastic awe inspiring uplifting joyous occasion! I could go on and on......... Thank you Fresh Network for being and for the hard work that you all put in to bring together an extremely gifted and special group of people. I feel very privileged to have been in the company of many of the people that I met on Saturday. My only misfortune was to be with you all for only one day! This shall be remedied next time around I assure you. Everything was perfect from the food which outshone expectation - God bless Chad Sarno - to seminars which I attended, Gabriel Cousens, Dr Doug Graham, Live Food Demo, Prof Rozalind Graham all equally informative and engaging. The highlight of my evening though was dancing for Jackie Rawe (megastar) together with Jason Vale. Fame at last! Like minded people sharing knowledge and experience, the best classroom in the world. Long may it be so." - Sonia

Day 1: Friday 28th October 2005

About 200 people were present in the building each day. Friday kicked off with the opening ceremony, which was myself introducing the Festival and what was about to happen, followed by the fantastic Jackie Rawe, who really helped make our Festival last year. Jackie was a former member of Shakatak, as well as backing singer for Elton John, Celine Dion, Cher and Eric Clapton, and has one of the most powerful voices you will ever hear live. She was awesome as ever.

The highlight of Day 1, apart from the ever-fascinating lectures from Dr Doug Graham, Professor Rozalind Graham, Mike Nash, Elaine Bruce, Chad Sarno, Gabriel Cousens MD and Tonya Zavasta, was the Smoothie Making Competition. This equated to our Friday night entertainment, and boy, was it entertaining! The contestants were Chad Sarno, Rene Archner, Mike Nash, Jason Vale, Trish Tucker, Tonya Zavasta and myself. It was a riot from start to finish with Tonya and her husband Nick quite literally making the audience cry with laughter with their double act (he made the smoothie while she basically took the rip out of him!), and she and the rest of the competitors sharing their best smoothie recipe for 5 members of the audience to taste after each demo.

The winner was Rene (pictured left) with his pear smoothie and 45 points out of a possible 50. Chad and I came joint runners up with 41/50 each - that score AND tying with "the world's best raw food chef" I can live with! I made a variation of my Chocolate Mmmmilk smoothie (see recipe featured on second entry) and even I was impressed!

Day 2: Saturday 29th October 2005

Saturday was the longest day, and, as predicted, was the most eventful of all. The inimitable Jason Vale started the proceedings with his funky music, fast talking and manic rebounding. The room was a riot as usual and, after Jason's 90 minute session, the day started off just as we anticipated - leaving people completely energised and raring to go.

After Jason, Saturday featured Brian Clement, Dr Doug Graham, Rene Archner, Gabriel Cousens and Professor Rozalind Graham. All of whom gave terrific presentations, and all of whom are available on CD or cassette if you want to hear what they had to say!

But the biggest highlights of Saturday, day 2, were:

1) The arrival of Woody Harrelson!

2) The grand buffet dinner

3) The evening entertainment from Jackie Rawe followed by the all-night disco

Over 150 people, including Woody Harrelson, sat down to the most exquisite all-raw evening meal, prepared by Chad Sarno and his Vital Creations team. To see what we ate on this fun and food-filled night, view the menu here.

Once dinner was over, our very own Pete and guest singer Jackie sat among the diners and Pete played "A Mighty Love" on his guitar as Jackie sung the song (co-written by her) live and mike-free to a hugely impressed and grateful audience.

The evening moved on with Jackie singing some covers as well as her own songs, live and loud on stage, and the floor filled with groovy people in the blink of an eye! Jackie handed over to DJ Mark and thus followed a night of dancing to the mixed sounds of our resident DJ.

At 1am the night was over, but would people leave?! Not without a gentle ushering out the door from the management! "Come back tomorrow ladies and gents, there's still much more fun to be had..." Thank goodness the clocks went back an hour so we could all rest and recouperate after hours of running around being busy!

Day 3: Sunday 30th October 2005

The third day and presentations today were from Brian Clement, Anna Maria Clement, Gabriel Cousens, Jill Swyers, Myself and Chad Sarno. The speaker panel, after lunch, was a great part of the programme and featured Gabriel, Brian, Anna Maria, Rozalind, Doug and Tonya. This provided the audience with the opportunity to ask questions to their chosen speaker and for 90 minutes diverse subjects were covered such as athletes and diet, feeding children, feeding husbands, personal care products, "which way is the right way?" and much more. Most memorable comment of the session was Tonya's "Don't throw away a perfectly good man just because he won't eat grass with you!". Needless to say, Tonya will be invited back again next year - husband willing!

The closing ceremony saw the Vita-Mix prize draw being made (congratulations to lucky winner Jill Swyers), the long list of thank yous and tributes being paid by myself and Pete, Chad and his wonderful team being honoured for all their hard work producing the food and dinner throughout the long weekend, and Jackie sending us off with some more fantastic live singing. The audience got on their feet one last time to finish the weekend off on the ultimate high, before the clock struck 7pm and... the event was over.

Everyone left with a smile on their face and feeling very different to how they had first arrived. 3 days of raw food eating, information and that feel-good factor has a lot to be said for it... So much so, that in spite of originally planning NOT to run a Festival in 2006, there will be another. Quite likely same time, same place... This will be confirmed in the next few days.

A big thanks to everyone who supported this event. It was an all-round winner and we can't wait to revise, expand and better the event for you all in October 2006. Any suggestions, feedback or ideas warmly welcomed either via this blog or emailed direct to me.

To take a look at a whole range of photos from the Fresh Festival 2005 and to share in the event if you weren't there or to remember it fondly if you were, click here.