The River Summit & Festival Community Day
in Association with
HoTWater
The River Summit and Festival continues on 5th September with a free, community-led day by the river at Mill Meadows in Henley-on-Thames, in association with HoTWater, the citizen science group that has been monitoring this stretch of the Thames for three years. The day runs from 10am - 3pm.
This is a day for everyone. Come and connect with the river, share stories and get involved in workshops and talks, explore your own relationship with water and find out how you can become part of the growing community of people looking after it.
Opening Ceremony
Together we will create a beautiful offering of gratitude to the mighty River Thames and all rivers. All ages are welcome to this uplifting ceremony with songs. Feel free to bring a flower and/or a drop of water from your locale. No experience needed!
HoTWater
HoT Water is a volunteer citizen science group based in Henley-on-Thames. For the last 3 years, they have been monitoring the river quality on the Henley stretch and beyond. Its mission is to use scientific methods and data collection to understand what is impacting river quality. They have used increasingly sophisticated techniques to measure and monitor levels of pollutants including Phosphates, Nitrates, E. coli, Enterococci, and ammonia. They report results through an app used by 100s of local residents. They test every week in rain or shine. A stated aim was to have one of the most monitored stretches of river in the UK, and they are well on track to achieve this. Over the last 3 years, they have partnered with, amongst others, River Action, Earthwatch, Fluidion, Seneye, Trace Bio, QCL with Coliminder, Batiquik, and undertaken dual testing with the EA and Thames Water.
Be a Citizen Scientist for the day with Earthwatch Europe
Earthwatch, valued members of the Testing the Waters Consortium, have generously donated a number of water testing kits for the community day giving some lucky participants the chance to try their hand at testing the Thames for phosphates and nitrates right here at Mill Meadows. And… if you catch the citizen science bug, the next Great UK WaterBlitz takes place 18th -21st September, just two weeks after the community day where anyone can get involved and contribute to a national picture of water quality. 🔗 earthwatch.org.uk/greatukwaterblitz
We are delighted that Freddie Van Mierlo, MP for Henley and Thame, will be joining us at Mill Meadows on Saturday 5th September to give a short talk at the free community day. A wonderful opportunity to hear from the local MP right by the river he represents.
Mónica Feria-Tinta is an international human rights barrister who has spent her career arguing that nature deserves not just protection but legal standing — and that the rights of rivers, ecosystems and communities are inseparable. Her acclaimed book, Barrister for the Earth, tells the story of that work in vivid and compelling detail. Signed copies will be available at The Bell Bookshop in Henley-on-Thames.
Be a River Detective with Mike Blackmore
Reading the clues rivers leave behind
Join Mike Blackmore for a hands-on investigation into damaged waterways. Working like detectives at a crime scene, we'll examine physical evidence - eroded banks, unusual sediment, changed flow patterns, vegetation loss - to piece together what happened to degrade a river system.
Learn to read the landscape's story: Was it agricultural runoff? Urban development? Channel modification? Each damaged river leaves telltale signs for those who know how to look.
More importantly, discover how understanding the damage points to solutions. When you can diagnose the problem from physical clues, you can design the cure.
Perfect for: Citizen scientists, river groups, anyone curious about what rivers are trying to tell us
What you'll gain: The skills to assess river health wherever you are, and the knowledge to advocate for targeted restoration
The Goddess of the Wye & Lady Wye
The striking Goddess of the Wye puppet returns tothe River Summit, accompanied by ceremonialist Vey Straker as Lady Wye to bring the spirit of the river to life at the Festival. Fresh from leading the historic Charter for the River Wye launch, they'll share the story behind the UK's first full-catchment Rights of River Charter and what it means to treat a river as a living being with rights of its own. Expect colour and joy - a celebration of the river as much as a call to protect it.
The Shared Picnic
The day closes with everyone coming together for a shared picnic on the grass at Mill Meadows - right by the Thames. Bring your own lunch, find a spot alongside your fellow river lovers and share the stories, ideas and connections that the day has sparked. This is the moment where the conversation continues informally, where new friendships form and where the river itself provides the perfect backdrop.
Healthy Rivers Board Game
A fun, interactive game that helps children discover how everyday actions can make a big difference for healthy rivers and biodiversity.
On Saturday 5th The Nutrition Advisory Team will share a family game that encourages curiosity in river health and the parts we can play as humans. This sits within their Nutri-Kit modules. Healthy Rivers Board Game is a fun, interactive game that helps children discover how everyday actions can make a big difference for healthy rivers and biodiversity.
The NAT
The Nutrition Advisory Team is a multidisciplinary collective of professionals working across health, food systems and sustainability. Find out more about them here: www.thenat.co.uk
Nutri-Kit is a modular programme enabling children to explore the connections between food, health, nature and everyday life. Learn more here: https://www.nutri-kit.com/
The Warrior’s Way: Activism and Wellbeing
Becky Bön is a neuro-somatic psychotherapist, yoga therapist and Advanced EMDR practitioner whose work explores the connection between activism, wellbeing and nervous system health
Drawing from her own experience of burnout and recovery, she supports activists, carers, changemakers and those who give so much to the world around them that they are losing connection to themselves - helping them find ways to contribute without sacrificing their own wellbeing in the process.
Working with clients and groups across the UK and internationally, her work is grounded in the belief that we are not broken and do not need fixing. Instead, therapy becomes a process of self-awareness and gentle acceptance - learning to be deeply present with the body, acknowledge our patterns, recognising our needs to support creative lives that are more balanced, sustainable and connected.
Combining both top-down approaches through talking and reflection, and bottom-up approaches through working with the body and nervous system, Becky helps people move beyond survival and towards a more embodied way of living - where caring for themselves becomes just as important as caring for the world around them.
This session is free although please register claire@zambuni.com
The Water Café with Geoffrey Thomas
The first river Summit in Claire's garden in the south of France was a delightful gathering that concluded with a convivial dinner. Everyone enjoyed the event entirely, but as almost always happens, other human beings are so interesting and it's easy to ignore the rivers themselves. In thinking about that event, I wanted to create an occasion that invited a more distinct connection with our rivers. The Water Café was the eventual brainchild.
The Water Café combines sharing personal experiences with a river, and then going down to the river itself. The stories might reflect history, family memories, or historical anecdotes. A group comes together to speak, recount, and retell stories of experiences and the history of a local river. Such stories can connect each member of the group to the river in particular ways. Perhaps the river was important for industry or for angling or for shipping. What emerges is a groups description of the river.
The Water Café then moves from talk into more direct contact with the river. Perhaps you can even wade into the river or at the very least gaze at the river. It can be helpful to move into a more sensory or meditative or even spiritual space by paying close attention to the sounds of the river, its smells, bird song, the surface of the river. The goal is to bring together the verbal and the sensory. To engage as much of the self or even some kind of merging with the river. For some, it can be difficult to move from the pollution levels or pH or water flow into an engagement with the river that is more emotional and somatic. Participants may vary greatly in this kind of engagement but meeting the complexity of a river with the multitude of one's own being can create a move vivid connection.
As a possible conclusion, the group can address questions related to the river. What should the river be like in ten years? What could be in the river and around the river? How can the river play a more central role in the life of the area? How can we bring children to the river?
The Water Café is a template, not a fixed structure. Groups can create new rules and vary the structure. The most critical element is people and rivers in the new connection between the two.
Ruth Broadbent
Ruth Broadbent is an artist and educator, based in the UK. Her creative practice is inspired by nature and ecology, lines of landscape, and line in drawing and sculpture.The process of walking and movement is central to the way that she creatively responds to place. Recent works explore ground and water, from a material engagement with the surface of the ground and its multi-layered stories, to responses to seas, rivers, rainwater puddles, hail and snow. She exhibits her work internationally, is a member of drawing, walking and ecology artist networks, the founder of walk.draw, and a Co-Director of Walking the Land CIC.
A Local Perspective - Laura Reineke
Join Henley Mermaid and Friends of the Thames founder Laura Reineke for a fascinating and sometimes uncomfortable look at the true state of our River Thames. From increasingly extreme floods to record-breaking drought, falling river levels, sewage and chemical pollution, abstraction, development and the alarming decline of biodiversity. Laura will explore the pressures facing the river we live alongside, and depend upon. Is our drinking water supply secure? Who is responsible for protecting our river and are the regulators and Thames Water doing enough? What can we do locally to make a difference. Drawing on her work campaigning for the Thames and her experience as an ultra-distance open water swimmer, Laura will explain what is happening to our river, why it matters to everyone in Henley and what needs to change. The talk will be followed by an open Q&A, so bring your questions, concerns and ideas for the future of our river.