Mum of three, blogger at Squiggles and Bubbles, cloth nappy super hero (and ANA supporter member), Victoria McInnes brought the international Great Cloth Diaper Change (GCDC) event to Australia in 2011 and has been involved ever since. Here’s Victoria in the leadup to the 2017 GCDC event:
Seven years ago, I was sitting in front of my computer (yup, a proper PC – not even a laptop!) balancing my beautiful firstborn baby on my shoulder and scrolling through the land of Facebook, as she slept. As I scrolled I noticed a post from one of my favourite cloth nappy stores, Darlings Downunder.
The Real Diaper Association in the USA was organising a Guinness World Record attempt for the Most Cloth Diapers changed simultaneously at multiple events! I could get my baby a GWR certificate just by changing a nappy? How exciting?!
Sadly no-one in Australia was organising an event (perhaps because they weren’t insane!) – so I decided to organise one! Unfortunately, due to the time difference it meant our event was at a lovely 2am! But we had 3 dedicated Mums (and 2 Dads!) drag themselves out of their nice warm houses to come to the event in the middle of the night!
Since then there have been a few changes to the Great Cloth Diaper Change. It is no longer affiliated with Guinness, as unfortunately they decided they wanted us to video our events and many parents (quite rightly) were concerned about their babies’ privacy, AND the event now takes place at 11am local time so those of us in the Southern Hemisphere no longer have to get up at an ungodly hour!
With the help of Fiona from Darlings Downunder (my biggest support over the years!), we got the word out about the GCDC in Australia and soon had people from New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland joining us in hosting events! Tassie even tried to get an event going even though it’s quite cold down there in April!
GCDC day is such a fun day to be a part of! Australia tends to be the first country to change so after our change we get to see the Mexican wave effect of all the other countries joining in-it’s so fun to check in to Facebook and see all the photos of the other events-some with 1 or 2 participants and others like those in the Philippines with hundreds!
It’s a great event to go to if you’re thinking about making the switch as you can see all the different types of cloth nappies in action and chat to so many different parents who already use it and they can tell you honestly all the pros and cons.
For those of us who are already cloth converts we get to connect with other parents in our community who don’t think our cloth obsession is weird or crazy and many friendships are formed!
The Australian Nappy Association have a new and exciting event being planned for April so this year is our very last GCDC! Having run the GCDC for 7 years now it is near and dear to my heart and I’m hoping that we can make this year our best one yet but for that to happen we need people to step up and volunteer. My biggest dream would be to have at least one event in every state. We need YOU to host an event in your local town, or if one is already being planned near you please support your host and offer to help them, if you’re a business you can support us by offering a donation.
Hosting an event doesn’t need to be on over the top event either – it can be really casual. You can even meet in a park! It’s all about connecting in your community – so get together with a friend or two, register to host an event, and put a call out for those old to cloth, new to cloth, and thinking about cloth. Simple!
I hope we see you all at a GCDC event in April! You can follow all the exciting updates on the Great Cloth Diaper Change Australia Facebook page or visit the GCDC website to find an event near you!
Thanks to Forever Young Photography & Courts Camera Creations for some of the above photos.
