2014 Chairman’s Report

 

Thank you to everyone on our committee who make my job so easy:- Rosemary Dunhill our Secretary, David Lloyd our Treasurer and Webmaster, Dave Morton our invaluable contact with Winchester University, Kathy East and Jeannette Archdeacon who have strong links with schools, churches and the wider community and Cllr Janet Berry who is a link with Winchester City Council.

The report covers Fairtrade Fortnight, Other Events and Future Plans

Fairtrade Fortnight 24 February-7 March 2014

The Banner advertising Fairtrade Fortnight was displayed across the High Street for the second week.

The Fairtrade Fortnight lecture by David Pain was well attended. He spoke on “Beyond Charity: Transforming Business, Ending Poverty”, showing ways in which Fairtrade is working in partnerships with businesses and communities to effect transformations out of poverty.

Winchester University event management students arranged a cocktail evening to promote fairtrade and visited schools.

‘The Big Brew’ was celebrated in two or three venues with Fairtrade tea, coffee and cakes and Fairtrade goods for sale.

Radio Solent broadcast interviews from the Big Brew in St Mark’s Church and University students recorded participants’ views at the St Maurice’s Covert event.

We provided Fairtrade information for pancake day events at the Cathedral and the United Church.

A stall at St Maurice’s Covert showed passers by the variety of Fairtrade products available in and around Winchester and there was much interest and discussion. Our thanks to Sainsbury for providing Fairtrade bananas to hand out and to Tesco for some other donated products. Over 150 signatures were collected for the national petition for supermarkets to pay a fair price for all bananas including Fairtrade ones.

Other events and actions.

As last year’s AGM coincided with One World Week we joined with St Peter’s church for two presentations. One was by Agnes Sitjar of the Filipino Community in Winchester on “Employment and family life issues for Filipinos in the UK and in the Philippines” and the second was “Making Food Fair” with Becca Rowlands of the Fairtrade National Campaigner Committee.

Winchester City has been awarded a renewal of its status as an accredited Fairtrade City. Presentations were made to the Town Forum and to the Mayor Cllr Ernie Jeffs with the chance for discussion on the value of Fairtrade status to the City.

We met with WCC officers to discuss ways in which the City Council can help to promote Fairtrade.

I gave a presentation to the ‘Major Attractions’ partnership organised by the Tourist Office. Many of the larger Winchester District attractions were represented and some have expressed an interest in making more of their Fairtrade connections.

Our website has been improved with thanks to David Lloyd and Cllr Martin Tod.

Members from Winchester attended the Hampshire Fairtrade Network AGM.

We are still supporting the Hampshire Network towards making Hampshire a Fairtrade County. There are 5 goals to achieve this and the only one not achieved is for HCC to pass a resolution and to serve Fairtrade products in meetings, offices and cafés (which they already do). So far Hart, Rushmore, Basingstoke and Deane, Test Valley, Fareham, Havant and Gosport are all Fairtrade Boroughs and Districts with Ringwood and Winchester City as Fairtrade Town.

Kathy East has links with the Centre for Global Awareness which works closely with schools to help them towards Fairtrade School status. St Peter’s remains the only Fairtrade school in the Winchester area but St Bede’s school is working towards achieving this status and Kathy has given two presentations at Weston School.

Future Plans

Fairtrade Fortnight is from 23 February – 8 March 2015.

We will once again hold an event in St Maurice’s Covert to promote the awareness and buying of Fairtrade goods.

There will be a lecture at the University on Fairtrade Gold by Greg Valerio.

Winchester University will again be organising an event during Fairtrade Fortnight and we look forward to their proposals. We particularly thank Dave Morton and the University for their strong commitment to Fairtrade.

We will contact supermarkets to encourage a greater participation during Fairtrade Fortnight.

We will continue to make links with businesses in the whole district with the aim of making Winchester a Fairtrade District.

We will continue to support the actions necessary to make Hampshire a Fairtrade County.

We will be looking at ways to link Fairtrade with Trade Justice and Sustainability in the events we organise and to join with others for an event in One World Week.

In order to effect change we need more help! We would welcome more people to join the committee. Please contact me or anyone else on the committee if you are interested.

Charlotte Bailey

Chairman

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