...this will be more than just a commercial event for those who can afford the silly prices of the items for sale. The Sumac centre should be an anti-capitalist space for the whole community.

... even if they live in houses that are colder than the average and eat far more locally sourced food, campaigners deserve a sustainable income, and one that gives them the flexibility to climb chimneys or glue themselves to office doors. Many of the skills involved in creating the crafts at the fair were freely shared at the Sumac Skillshare events.

The proceeds of the event go to good causes, including sumac, and at least half of the stalls are by activists scratching a living from sustainable crafts, home made preserves, vegan cakes, etc, or clearing out spare stuff do declutter their lives. I'd call it a community event rather than a commercial one, but I may be biased. And if it relieves some of the stress and burnout of the many front-line full-on campaigners, don't they deserve to chill out occasionally?

Comments received from others include:

"Events like this are an opportunity for the Sumac to reach out beyond the activist ghetto and actually involve people from the locality. Sumac should make a bigger point of trying to get people more involved in the Sumac when they come along to social events.

"If it wasn't for purely social events bringing new people in, then plenty of people might never have found their way to activism. I don't believe this event is in a particularly different class from, say, the Vegan Festival. Sure, the Vegan Festival is about promoting veganism, but it's also about some 100% commercial enterprises selling their wares.

"Unfortunately in this society which revolves around the exchange of money, it's rather hard to remove it completely from all situations - if the real hours of work put into making things were reflected in their price, then almost nobody would be able to afford them. We've got so used to paying rock bottom prices for things (thanks to industrialisation and the globalised race to the bottom) that when we encounter products that actually reflect a reasonable price (eg. minimum wage for the hours taken to make them by hand), then a jar of chutney for two quid or whatever is actually still rather cheap."

2007 event report at  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2007/12/387501.html