The Gorilla Weekend at Nature-in-Art (near Gloucester UK) on behalf of The Gorilla Organization was a great success, raising over £800. The aim of the series of events was to raise awareness and in particular the activity weekend was designed to get youngsters interested in gorillas.

Nature-in-Art is the world’s first museum dedicated exclusively to fine, decorative and applied art inspired by nature. On Friday 6th November, the doors opened at 7 pm to allow everyone time to look around the displays and exhibitions in the various galleries. Then there was a magnificient buffet followed by Ian Redmond’s excellent illustrated talk on the current situation regarding all species and subspecies of gorillas. Ian brought with him some special limited edition prints of a mountain gorilla and a cross-river gorilla by artist Daniel Taylor. Two cross-river gorilla prints and one mountain gorilla print were purchased. Also sold was a limited edition print of a mountain gorilla by artist Eric Wilson.

On Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th November, the education centre was home to a fun-filled family activity weekend. Christina, the education officer had drawn an enormous outline of a silverback gorilla onto thick card. This was placed on the floor and surrounded by an assortment of materials: paper, card, plastics, fabric, paint, glue, crayons. Families came in during the course of the weekend and helped to make up a huge collage. The walls were covered with pictures, prints and posters of gorillas so that everyone could see what the finished collage should look like.

DVDs of gorilla documentaries were watched by parents and grandparents, while children worked on the collage, although it must be said that many adults couldn’t resist getting down on their hands and knees to cut, stick, paint and glue. An area was set aside for children to make up their own posters by cutting and pasting pictures of gorillas onto large pieces of paper. There was an information table with Gorilla Organization leaflets and the local GO representatives were on hand to give talks and to answer any questions about gorillas.

A huge THANK YOU to Simon Trapnell (Nature-in-Art’s director) for inviting The Gorilla Organization to hold an event to celebrate the UN Year of the Gorilla, to Christina Leach for all her hard work during the activity weekend, to Jenny Craze the restaurant manager for the wonderful food and to the rest of the Nature-in-Art team. Thanks also to Ian Redmond OBE for the informative and inspiring talk, the artists for donating their work for the benefit of gorilla conservation and to everyone who came along to the events, particularly the children who helped to make the wonderful gorilla collage.

Written by GO Regional Fundraiser Phred Newbury