UK Tree Hugging Champion: Hannah Willows and the Magic of Buffet Spiritualism

We Can Be Weirdos

Global

Philosophy, Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality, Spirituality

4.9 • 736 Ratings

🗓️ 6 February 2025

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Hannah Willow, a 36-year-old early years teacher and children's author from Glasgow, was crowned the city's first tree-hugging champion in October 2024. The event, held at Dams to Darnley Country Park, featured various rounds, including speed hugging, dedicated hugging, and freestyle hugging. Willow's spontaneous dance around a tree during the dedicated hugging round secured her victory. She now plans to represent the UK at the World Tree Hugging Championships in Finland and has initiated a crowdfunding campaign to support her participation.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a global player original podcast.
0:05.0	Hireth. Have you heard of the word heret?
0:08.0	So it means a longing for home.
0:09.0	And I sometimes get this feeling like this isn't actually my home.
0:13.0	The earth isn't my home. I belong somewhere else.
0:16.0	Oh, oh, oh, everyone. Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of We Can Be Weirdos.
0:42.1	My name is Dan Schreiber.
0:43.5	I am coming to you today from my home at Roughway by sea.
0:47.6	And today I am joined by guests who hit the headlines of all the national newspapers in the UK back in October of 2024 after having
0:56.5	been crowned UK's tree-hugging champion of the year. So this was a competition that took
1:02.4	place in Glasgow. Everyone who was competing had to take part three different events. There was
1:07.7	the speed hugging event in which he had to dart in between trees, hugging as many as you could in the time allotted. Then there was the speed-hugging event, in which he had to dart in between trees,
1:11.1	hugging as many as you could in the time allotted. Then there was the freestyle section,
1:15.4	then there was the freestyle event, and finally a dedication event, where you were asked to
1:19.9	display devotion, passion, and loyalty to a single tree. Anyway, there were roughly 25 people in the
1:25.5	event, and my guest today, Hannah Willow won the competition, which means she advances to the international championship, which is happening in Finland in August this year, where this whole tree-hugging competition started.
1:38.5	Now, as well as hitting all the headlines, she was also featured on TV shows like Have I Got News For You, and she was a headline fact on a live show of my other podcast, no such thing as a fish.
1:49.1	Heard me say on it that I fancied hugging a tree myself.
1:52.5	And so I woke up one morning to a DM from her saying, hey, want me to teach you how to
1:57.5	hug trees?
1:58.5	Well, I haven't managed to do that yet, but what we did manage to do was get Hannah to come down to London from Scotland and come to the haunted studios
2:06.4	to sit down with us and fill in the bat shit list. And I'm so glad that she did. This is such a
	...

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