Wellbeing & Climate Festival

Overview

From September 7 to October 7, 2024, the Shapinsay Wellbeing & Climate Festival brought residents and visitors together for a month-long celebration of holistic wellbeing, environmental stewardship, creativity, and cultural connection.

The Festival was intentionally designed using the SPIRE framework: Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Relational, and Emotional wellbeing; ensuring that each activity supported one or more pillars of wholebeing. Guided by Isaac Prilleltensky’s Human Thriving Equation (personal wellbeing + fairness + worthiness), the Festival created opportunities for people to:

  • feel valued and add value
  • share and pass down skills and knowledge
  • participate in meaningful community experiences
  • strengthen relationships
  • explore creative and nature-based practices
  • reconnect with themselves, each other, and their environment
  • try new experiences

Every activity was free or by donation, ensuring accessibility for all and supporting fairness, voice, and choice. Most offerings were volunteer-led or delivered in collaboration with local residents whose skills were honoured through small funded partnerships.

The Festival reflected a preventative wellbeing approach; addressing the root causes of physical and mental health challenges by building connection, meaning, confidence, and community capacity.

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Activities Inspired by SPIRE

All activities were chosen for their ability to support the pillars of wholebeing: Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Relational, Emotional.

(Spiritual & Emotional)

Mindful Nature Activities

  • Wildflower seed harvest
  • Photography walks
  • Silent saunters

These practices cultivated presence, calm, and connection to Shapinsay’s natural landscapes.

(Emotional, Relational, Spiritual)

Creative Practice & Cultural Sharing

  • Community-led evening of music, poetry, storytelling, and singing
  • Live performance by broken david as part of their album Weathering

Creativity served as a gateway for emotional expression, identity, and belonging.

(Intellectual, Relational, Worthiness)

Skill-Building Workshops

A core intention of the Festival was to support worthiness by helping residents feel valued and add value through teaching and sharing expertise.

Workshops included:

  • Woodturning with Steve Adams
  • Dry stone dyke building taught by Ivan Houston & Ian Eunson

The dyke workshop began when Alison learned that Ivan, Shapinsay's oldest resident's, wall had been damaged years earlier. With support from the North Isles Landscape Partnership Scheme, this repair became a hands-on community learning experience. It revived heritage skills, boosted confidence, fostered intergenerational connection, and strengthened cultural pride.

Additional funding has since been secured for more dyke-repair workshops.

(Intellectual, Relational, Planetary Wellbeing)

Environmental Stewardship

  • Beach clean
  • Plastic labelling and recycling education
  • Upcycling conversations

These activities highlighted how caring for the environment supports community wellbeing.

(Physical & Relational)

Movement & Exercise

  • Chair-based movement and line dancing (Orkney Dance & Fitness)
  • Junior badminton (Badminton Scotland)
  • Free e-bike hire

Movement supported physical health, emotional regulation, and social connection.

(Relational, Emotional, Fairness)

The Community Café

The monthly free or by-donation café offered warmth, nourishment, and access to wellbeing support.

Highlights:

  • Healthy homemade food and naturally sweetened baking
  • Representatives from Age Scotland, Scam Action Orkney, Marie Curie, THAW, Warmworks, and Citizens Advice
  • A short film by Julia Parks about seaweed heritage
  • A pre-event beach clean strengthening environmental care
  • Collaboration with Shapinsay Men’s Shed, Parent Council, and other groups

The Café exemplified how simple, inclusive spaces can nurture relational, financial and emotional wellbeing.

Expanding to an Orkney-wide Festival in 2027

Building on the success of the 2024 Shapinsay Festival, the Orkney Wellbeing Festival 2027 is happening this autumn — running from September 13 to October 10, closing on World Mental Health Day.

The festival spans the Orkney Mainland and Isles, inviting artists, wellbeing practitioners, studios, community groups, organisations, and island communities to co-create a shared programme of activities rooted in wholebeing, creativity, cultural connection, and care for people and place.

Each partner has the opportunity to host an event or a series of events, shaped by their purpose, interests, skills, passions, and local identity. Participation can be as simple as listing an existing session or event within the festival programme — or if you've been thinking about putting something new out into your community, this could be a great opportunity to test it. Where activities naturally align with environmental care and climate action, there will also be opportunities for collaboration and cross-promotion with the Highlands & Islands Climate Festival.

View the Orkney Wellbeing Festival Overview

If you, your business, group, or community would like to be involved, we’d love to hear from you.

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