John Davis
Originally posted May 12, 2012; updated August 8, 2012
The 40th IVU World Congress/Vegfest will be in California, October 2012 - starting in San Francisco, October 5-8, then on to Los Angeles Oct 12-14.
The first IVU Congress was in Dresden, Germany, in 1908 and they've been held every 2 or 3 years since then. They will now be every year and California 2012 is the first of our new-style annual events which are as much Vegfest as Congress.
At the 1913 event, in the Netherlands, a visitor from San Francisco invited the delegates to hold the Congress in conjuction with the SF World's Fair in 1915. But the Europeans thought it was too far to go and voted for Paris, France, in 1916... which of course was cancelled due to the first world war. So almost 100 years later we are finally going to San Francisco, and as Scott McKenzie sang about the hippies in 1967:
If You're Going... To San Francisco... Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair If You're Going... To San Francsico... You're gonna meet some gentle people there
Appropriately enough the 2012 IVU Congress/Vegfest will begin next to the botanical gardens, at the San Francisco County Fair Building in the Golden Gate Park.
1968, the year after that song was #1, saw the founding of the San Francisco Vegetarian Society, which has been a member of IVU from the outset. The SFVS president, Dixie Mahy was a speaker at the 1975 IVU Congress in Maine, so they go back a long way with all this. [photo right is Dixie at the 1975 Congress]
This year we begin with a reception dinner at The Millennium, one of the world's leading vegan restaurants, on Friday Oct 5. Over the weekend there will be a wide range of events in the park, with all-vegan catering, including:
Children's Corner; Green Lifestyle Film Festival; Healthy Food Demos with Recipes & Samples; International Speakers & Workshops Live Entertainment; Vegan Cuisine to sample or buy; Veghealth Awards Ceremony by Vegetarian Health Institute; Catered Vegan Dinners: Saturday & Sunday, 6:30 p.m
We conclude the SF sessions on Monday, Oct 8, with a rooftop reception at the VegNews office.
Right: my photo of cable-cars heading out of Union Square, Feb 2010:
More info about the San Francisco events at www.sfvs.org/wvd - see the link to the 'four day package' for more details. More will be added soon.
