MMMM! Monday 20 July, Movie (Beavers, Beavers, Beavers!), Meal & Mingling
Hi all,
MMMM! Monday Movie, Meal & Mingling is back on Monday 20 July!
https://ud.coop/beavers
Bridport's lovely fortnightly film and food event in the lovely White Room at the Chapel in the Garden (entry via Rax Lane)
This week we're screening: A Beavers Double Bill: Beavers (31 mins) 1988 and Beaver Fever (28 mins) 2023.
We'll also be joined by West Dorset Wilding's Dr Sam Rose to discuss their plans to release wild beavers in the Brit Valley. Please complete their related survey to express your views about this and also consider joining West Dorset Wilding to support their wonderful work.
A reminder to check out our MMMM! Next film? site where you can suggest and upvote films you think we should screen. It's easy to login, you just enter your email and then click the link it sends you.
You can also Join West Dorset Commons to get into MMMM! for free and to support our ongoing work to make West Dorset a home to thriving people, in a thriving place, whilst respecting the wellbeing of all people, and the health of the whole planet.
But back to MMMM! on Monday 20 July:
We'll have a delicious (mostly organic) vegan curry from 6ish:
Courgette balls with tomato chutney
Kodova Mushroom,
Ginger and Garlic potatoes
Masoor Dal
Served with rice and Indian salads.
To avoid disappointment, please pre-book food (or at least let us know you'd like food) before 3pm Monday. 🎟️ 🍲😋
Shorts from around 6:30pm ish
And the main feature from 7pm:
Beavers (31 mins) 1988
First released in 1988, Beavers was the first giant screen feature with a natural history focus on a single creature.
Exhibited in IMAX® and other giant screen theatres, the film’s furry stars and their story garnered awards and drew extensive family and school audiences and more than 10 million viewers across the planet. Beavers has screened in 21 countries in 17 different languages and remains distinctively, “the Biggest Dam Movie…Anyone Ever Saw” and for the choosy, the ultimate giant screen treat. The film is now set to wow new generations of audiences.
A charming film with lots of footage of beavers just being beavers.
Beaver Fever: The busy beavers bringing wetlands back to the UK (28 mins) 2023
The surprise return of beavers to the British countryside brings benefits and controversy for humans and wildlife alike.
The work of these famously busy rodents increases local biodiversity, reduces storm-induced flooding, and restores wilderness to a highly manicured landscape. It also injects some chaos into the lives of the beavers’ human neighbours. Can the British beavers regain their former glory as powerful ecosystem engineers, or is their new home too domesticated to return to the wild?
The verdant British countryside today is a landscape brought to heel: tamed vistas dotted with manicured hedgerows; creeks and streams whose meanders have been straightened; and forests of neatly planted trees. Rewind the clock a few thousand years, and you’d see a very different world. Wildlands home to elk, lynx, wolves, and bears. And wetlands inhabited and shaped by beavers—creatures with an astonishing ability to transform the community around them.
Centuries ago, Eurasian beavers were driven extinct—in Britain, at least. But now these preeminent ecosystem engineers are back—charming many Britons, perturbing others, and all the while stimulating a healthy debate about whether the island nation is ready to embrace a wilder future.
Scientists have found that the ponds, braided streams, and wetlands created by the beaver dams have a dramatic effect on the landscape itself. “Little did we know what profound change we would observe,” says Richard Brazier, an ecologist at the University of Exeter. The new waterworks act like a giant sponge during torrential rains—absorbing water that would otherwise rush directly downstream. One village just below a beaver dam suffered from flooding for decades before the beavers arrived but hasn’t had a single flood since.
We'll also have:
Delicious (mostly) organic vegan curries from Fergus Bradbeer aka Vegie Vortex (who also used to do the curries at Beach and Barnicott), plus hot and cold drinks.
Please note:
Our room hire costs £48/ week so if you're able to able to contribute more than the default ticket amount then please do so.
We also need to ensure enough people come along to make it worthwhile for Fergus to keep coming along to cook up the delicious food - so invite a friend!
Many thanks in advance. Together We Have Everything.
Get your tickets and pre-book your food now 🎟️ 🍲😋 https://ud.coop/beavers
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