It’s official: The Big Dress is the Biggest Dress in the world! During a glorious week of sun, the Big Dress took its latest tour stop in Endcliffe Park, Sheffield from the 8th – 12th May. Hundreds of Sheffielders entered its skirts over the festival to take action against exploitation of communities and environments in developing countries by multinational companies. Nearly 300 MP3 campaign messages were recorded, new Big Dress squares made in our mock sweat shop, and the message of God’s heart for Justice shared throughout Sheffield! Amongst other key local figures, Lord Mayor Arthur Dunworth launched the festival with his full-support, “It’s a great pleasure to see people come together to better the lives of our disadvantaged brothers and sisters across the world. SPEAK’s work is something we all need to connect with and find a way to support since we have a responsibility to ensure the benefits of society are shared fairly”.

Over the course of the festival, the Big Dress saw hoards of park dwellers entertained by the rock group ‘The Gentlemen”, exhibitions from local artists, comedians, and Mixmaster Morris who provided ‘seemless adventures into DJ Psychedelia’ at our fantastic conscious club night… But it wasn’t just the locals who got involved – Sunday became a network gathering of international proportions! SPEAK groups and links travelled from as far as the Netherlands and Germany to connect and share their stories. Ruth Valerio – theologian and author of ‘L is for Lifestyle’ lead a fantastic morning session speaking on the importance of maintaining relationships with God, the earth and each other. Challenging workshops and discussions in the campaigns, faith-sharing, international, arts, prayer and groups pods saw the network doing what they do best - working together to feed into the vision and action of SPEAK. Topped off by a momentous collective MP3 message, the day was an incredible time of connecting together to inspire and encourage in our quest against injustice.

…And what about the world record, I hear you cry? Well, the crowning glory was officiated by none other than a Vice-president of the European Parliament, Diana Wallis. She was able to verify that the Big Dress was 14.8 metres tall – at least 3 metres higher than the last record! Headlining a plethora of experts in a debate about Corporate Accountability, Diana left us all with great encouragement about just how much impact we can make; “I’m really looking forward to receiving the pray & post cards and letters from the SPEAK network –when you act, your voice can and will be stronger than the companies who lobby me”.