Become a Star Weave Community
What is a Star Weave Community?
One of the ways to make a larger impact as part of the One Billion Stars project is to register and become a Star Weave Community.
A registered Star Weave Community is a community of people who pledge to weave anywhere between 10,000 and one million stars over the next 2 – 5 years. Star Weave Communities are also encouraged to display their woven stars once they’re reached their target. Each total will be counted towards the goal of one billion woven stars by 2032.
We had over 200 communities register as Star Weave Communities leading up to the One Million Stars installation for the 2018 Commonwealth Games, including Maroonah City Council in Victoria Australia. Watch their video (left) and learn why they became a Star Weave Community.
Every star woven is a message that we stand in solidarity to end all forms of violence, including violence against women.
This time, we’re on a mission to bring millions of people together to experience joy and community connection through star weaving.
Have a chat to your local community or workplace, read our Check List below and join One Billion Stars by becoming a Star Weave Community today.
Register to become a Star Weave Community
It’s super simple to register.
Many of our star weavers take the idea of becoming a Star Weave Community to their communities, knowing that they will love it and come on board. Others need a little bit more preparation.
If you’re ready to get going or you’ve discussed the idea of becoming a Star Weave Community with your people, all you need to do is send us an email via our contact page and write Register to be a Star Weave Community in the subject line.
We’ll get in touch with you to get some more details and to answer any questions you might have.
There are many benefits of becoming a Star Weave Community:
· Learning more about the communities you serve and care about and building stronger, meaningful relationships.
· You get to be part of a global network of star weavers who share similar values and visions for violence free communities.
· You get to create impact through the arts and mobilise people to make positive change across your villages, cities and towns.
· Creating displays of woven stars to celebrate your achievements and stories of resilience and community connection.
We also recommend you read our check list below, to help you prepare for some of the issues that will arise.
If you have any other questions, we’re only an email away. Your query can only help us to get better at supporting our star weaving community. Contact us here.
A Check List for Star Weave Communities
We’ve learnt a lot over the last 10 years, through our partnership with the Queensland Government and other stake holders, to create a one million star installation.
So, we’ve a compiled a check list for those communities that feel inspired to participate and be part of our global movement of star weaving for violence free communities.
Each Star Weave Community is unique with its own rich culture and stories of place, land and people. There are endless opportunities to grow, learn and heal together.
Becoming a Star Weave Community is a powerful opportunity to celebrate all of this and be vocal in your stance against violence.
Here’s a list of things each Star Weave Community should consider before registering:
- Nominate a Project Leader
Project Leaders can be an individual or a group of people who will drive the project in their area. Sometimes, it will be one person who is inspired by the One Billion Stars project and they will take it to their local communities. Most times, others will naturally step up to help organise and run workshops etc. It is helpful to build a team that you can bounce ideas around with and to plan the star weaving journey ahead.
This role is really important as you will be the organiser and action taker for your Star Weave Community, delegating roles and inviting people in to participate. You’ll also be listening to ideas from you community about who else can benefit from weaving stars in your local area.
Roles and expectations:
– Project Leaders will liaise directly with me and be part of a monthly online Q&A with other Project Leaders.
– Provide a short bio about yourself, including your organisation/school/business name plus City & Country location. This info is for our database and our website’s global map (coming soon)
– Provide a profile pic with your name and pronouns.
- Set a goal and end date
Decide how many stars you want to weave and work out a goal for your community to strive towards. Having a date to work towards can help build momentum and enthusiasm. Your display could be part of a significant national event like Mental Health Day, World Environment Day or International Women’s Day.
- Plan your woven star display
Have a think about the venues in your community where a woven star installation can be displayed.
Our amazing Star Weave Community in Ireland, Malaysia and Victoria created incredible displays in multiple locations.
There could be an existing structure that you could use inside a local building. You might choose to partner with a local builder, like the Ireland Star Weavers, who worked with JM Steel Kilkenny to create large scaled words to fill with woven stars.
There are many creative ways for you to display your stars. This is a wonderful way to celebrate your community’s star weaving efforts and motivate action and connection. We’ve even created a guide on how you can display your stars, including tools and materials. It can be one big installation or several across your village or city.
- Choose your Star weaving materials
We are passionate about looking after the environment as best we can, so we are weaving many of our stars using recycled paper.
Many of our communities use a variety of materials, including polypropylene plastic ribbon, more commonly known as tear or florist ribbon. Some communities have woven their stars using flax and pandanus leaves.
Most communities use florist ribbon because of the beautiful colours choices and its ability to be displayed outdoor. Florist ribbon was the main material used for the Commonwealth Games installation.
We encourage communities to use materials that suit their budget and installation design.
- Create star weaving workshops, stations or star weaving kits
Some communities run monthly star weaving workshops for the first few months to build some momentum and awareness about their community. You might also choose to respond to the need for workshops as they arise.
We’ve seen workplaces set up tables with pre-cut ribbon, instructions (see our YouTube tutorial video) and a small collection box for anyone to sit and weave a star when they need.
If you’re a not for profit or community organisation, consider raising funds for your materials and star weaving kits. Star weaving kits are a great way to get star weaving materials out into the community, or you can advertise that people are welcome to pick materials up and drop completed stars off when finished.
We love that recycled paper is a great cost effective way for anyone to learn how to weave a star, however, we do love the colours that tear ribbon comes in for star weaving!
- Store your stars for safely for your installation
To store 10,000 woven stars, we used about ten 35 Litre plastic tubs, again, depending on the materials and size of the stars you weave.
We like to bundle our stars in lots of 10 so that it’s easier to keep count. Simply place an A4 sheet of paper on the top of each filled container or box with the number and list of communities that wove stars.
We also estimate that one million woven stars can fit into a 20ft shipping container that measures 6m x 2.4m x 2.4m or 19.7 ft x 7.9 ft x 7.9 ft.
- Find ways to connect and communicate with your Star Weave Community.
Some Star Weave Communities created social media pages, like Facebook and Instagram (eg. @onemillionstarstexas) Some even created simple websites to share and document their star weaving journey and to inspire their communities.
This is completely optional and not necessary, however, it’s a great way to stay connected and for communities to stay in touch with you. There are lots of free WordPress templates that you can use, or you can ask your organisation to add a Page to their website that can have all the details about your Star Weave Community.
- Repurpose your stars
Once you’ve completed your installation, consider what you want to do with the stars. Perhaps they can be sold at a fundraiser to raise much needed funds for local family and youth services.
Your stars can also be donated to local schools, hospitals and community centres. Please contact us if you need any help deciding what to do with your stars and any of these options in more detail. We want to recycle and repurpose all these precious woven stars as best we can.
I decided to keep about 350,000 woven stars from the One Million Stars installation in 2018. They currently take up about one quarter of our 2 car garage (it’s also where our office is set up, so I get to see these beautiful stars everyday!) My dream is to hang these stars in my own home studio one day and to run other weaving workshops in the future.
Most of the stars were donated to Reverse Garbage Queensland, an amazing facility of reused materials for the public to buy and use for a few dollars. Every cent goes back into their sustainability and waste reduction programs. At OBS head quarters, we are currently not planning to receive any stars from Star Weave Communities. Any future installations organised by us will shared here on our website.
Join our amazing community for Star Weavers
Our Check list is designed to be a starting point to help you consider some of the responsibilities that come with creating a Star Weaving Community.
Sharing One Billion Stars with your community is one of the most rewarding things you will get to do!
Just take a look at our Ireland, Malaysia and USA star weavers.
Some of them are just getting started and some of them look like they’ve been doing this for years!
The messages that some of our Project Leaders get, the stories of laughter and smiles on people’s faces when they’ve completed their first woven star.
Many times, there are no adequate words to explain the joy and calm that people experience when they weave stars and feel part of a community that cares.
Make sure to check out our other resources like, 8 reasons why weaving is good for our mental health.
Get in touch if you have any more questions and we look forward to welcoming you into our network of Star Weave Communities.