Suffolk Association of Fairtrade Towns (SAFT)
Report of the Annual Conference, Woodbridge, 8 July 2023
Summary
Introduction (Sue Bale)
Sue, from the Woodbridge group, welcomed delegates and said how pleased she was that Woodbridge had recently regained Fairtrade Town status. After a short video clip from our Patron, Patrick Kaberia, chairman Richard Stainer introduced reports from other member towns. (The full accounts are available at the end of this report. Patrick’s video clip is also available on the website.)
Leiston had a slow start out of Covid but held a successful coffee morning during Fairtrade Fortnight. They are preparing for renewal of Fairtrade Town status with the support of the town council and are hoping for renewed interest from them.
Beccles had a busy year with talks, visits to schools and events such as decorating a tree at Christmas. During Fairtrade Fortnight they raised a flag and worked to promote local businesses selling Fairtrade. They provided taster items for school staff and sponsored tea and coffee at the library.
Framlingham worked closely with the town council and local businesses throughout the year but especially during Fairtrade Fortnight. Their impressive social media presence continues with over 300 followers on Facebook and over 1000 on Instagram.
Felixstowe introduced their new mascot, Fairtrade Ted, who played a major role in promoting Fairtrade on social and print media during Fairtrade Fortnight. They also produced a shops and cafes leaflet to promote local businesses selling Fairtrade products.
Ipswich has worked hard, with some success, to recruit Fairtrade champions in various town organisations as an effective way to raise the profile of Fairtrade in this large town. Ipswich Borough Council is very supportive and makes an annual grant. Mike Gidney was guest speaker at a very successful event at the Town Hall.
Ipswich Fairtrade Shop had a difficult year with the demise of Traidcraft and various problems with their premises in Ipswich town centre. However the shop remains viable, with the support of their team of dedicated volunteers, and is popular with residents and visitors to Ipswich.
Sudbury had a successful market stall during Fairtrade Fortnight but needs to recruit more volunteers to help promote Fairtrade in the Town. Richard Stainer, from the Bury St Edmunds group, has offered help. Bury St Edmunds has recently updated and printed its directory. Various events were organised during Fairtrade Fortnight and a large banner was put up at the cathedral. The cathedral has been very supportive of Fairtrade, with monthly events, and their café is Fairtrade. Richard is an active member of the cathedral team and is happy to be contacted about involvement of Anglican churches in Fairtrade throughout the diocese.
Lowestoft is the oldest Fairtrade town in Suffolk and celebrates 20 years as a Fairtrade town in 2024. Like many member towns, it has experienced difficulties and needs to recruit more people to actively promote Fairtrade in the town. However it has continued to organise regular Fairtrade stalls despite the difficulties associated with the supply of Fairtrade goods. Other events have been held at the library.
Plans for 2023/24 (Alan Muchal)
Alan, secretary of SAFT, introduced a discussion on possible SAFT initiatives for 2023/24. He proposed that we should concentrate on involving young people with Fairtrade. One idea is a video for schools, produced and edited by a chosen group of secondary schools. Delegates agreed to canvass this idea with their groups, for a possible launch for Fairtrade Fortnight 2024. Mike Gidney explained that Fairtrade Fortnight is being rescheduled to September in future which would give more time to plan.
Fairtrade and the Future of Food (Mike Gidney)
Mike Gidney is the chief executive of the Fairtrade Foundation. He started his talk by emphasising the importance of Fairtrade groups, such as those in membership of SAFT, in bringing about change. He then went on to talk about some of the less well-known benefits of Fairtrade including, particularly, the empowering of female workers. They were often the front-line workers and had a wealth of practical knowledge which could, and should, be exploited to ensure long-term global food security. He also gave examples of how encouragement and support from Fairtrade has enabled workers to develop new skills and initiate developments, such as the production of finished goods, which brings increased prosperity to their communities.
Looking at challenges for the Fairtrade movement, Mike highlighted climate change, which disproportionally affects those whose contribution to global warming has been the least. He also emphasised the dangers of ‘power imbalance’ where millions of small farmers and billions of consumers are dependent on processing and management by a relatively small group of international companies. Prices paid to farmers reflect this imbalance and reduce the scope for investments to improve productivity. For greater food security we need to draw on the expertise of smallholders. One of the key concerns of the Fairtrade movement will be to continue to facilitate this.
Reports from Member Towns
Ipswich (Elaine Coltham)
Since the last SAFT meeting, Ipswich has been continuing our work to encourage more people to become champions for Fairtrade within our town. We have concentrated our efforts on outreach and media coverage. One outstanding event was a mayoral event last November at our Town Hall. Mike Gidney came and inspired us with a presentation how climate change is deeply impacting the lives of farmers and growers and their families in vulnerable countries. We also talked about the positive role of Fairtrade champions who within their daily place of work, education, worship or leisure could spread the good news of Fairtrade further. We enjoyed a wonderful Fairtrade cake made by Suffolk College students and artistically created to reflect different aspects of climate change.
We have now increased our Fairtrade champions from 2 to 5.
We have had good media coverage with a large article and photographs in The Ipswich Star and two radio interviews.
Our group has made contact again with all churches and faith groups in our town.
In Fairtrade Fortnight we were delighted to see a Fairtrade flag flying on The Town Hall alongside the Fairtrade banners.
These are just a few examples of our group member’s dedicated work. But, we do remain a very small core group covering a large town with a population of almost 140,000 residents. We regularly try to encourage new members to join the group.
Our Fairtrade Town status is due to be renewed in August and we hope that our continued commitment to Fairtrade will see that happen.
We are very grateful that Ipswich Borough Council continue to support us with a budget to enhance our outreach work.
Also, here is a report about the
Ipswich Fair Trade Shop…
They value all their customers, whether they are regular committed shoppers with them, simply browsing or have just discovered the shop. The centre of Ipswich has lost a number of established shops and many people are no longer finding it necessary to travel into town. The shop is, however, situated in a busy street, near Sainsburys and Wilko and is kept reasonably busy; in addition to their fairly-traded products, they offer a refill service for cleaning and toiletry products and stock an eco-range. They try to spread the fair trade message in their window displays and social media postings on a regular basis.
They were very sad that Traidcraft went into administration early in the year and have not been able to find alternative sources for biscuits, muesli and a number of other items. A company has been set up called We Are Fair Trade but it has a limited range of Traidcraft stock, and the shop is not inclined to support this company at the present time as they offer no wholesale service. It would be good to hear other Fairtraders’ views on this.
Their part-time shop manager Delly has been on maternity leave and Gurinder has been ably fulfilling the role over this period. From July they will be sharing the role and they look forward to working with them both. The shop could not continue to function without their loyal volunteers and they value their commitment. They feel customers enjoy buying from the shop, which has many beautiful and high quality products – not everyone because they support fair trade but it is hoped that the service they receive and lovely merchandise will see them returning again and again.
Felixstowe (Alan Muchal)
Last summer we produced a printed leaflet showing all the shops and cafes in Felixstowe selling or serving Fairtrade goods. This went on display at the tourist hut on the sea front and also the library. Jenny, our new secretary, is co-ordinating a new edition for this season.
Robin redesigned our website to make it more accessible and easily updated. At the conference I hope to be able to show you how it looks. I think it is quite impressive. Robin has co-ordinated it with our Facebook page and all our Facebook posts now appear on the site, keeping it topical. We are also active on Instagram and Twitter.
Having produced our leaflet and updated our website we decided to focus our efforts during Fairtrade Fortnight on promoting the Fairtrade outlets in Felixstowe, using our new mascot, Fairtrade Ted. (Ted will be attending the conference.)
To launch the fortnight we had flags raised at St John’s Church and the Town Hall and Fairtrade Ted, took tea with the mayor.
We had displays at Morrisons and The Co-op, the library and a small one at Tesco. Fairtrade Ted visited each venue and pictures were taken. At Morrisons and the Co-op they had a stand promoting their own Fairtrade goods and both provided free samples. Fairtrade Ted also visited local cafes selling Fairtrade drinks and ice cream.
Stephen and I did talks at the library and Kate used a visit by Fairtrade Ted to talk about Fairtrade to some of the younger children at Trimley St Mary School. Marianne encouraged Felixstowe School to organise their own activities during the fortnight, which they did with great success. We also had a stall at Tuesday Tunes at Trinity Methodist Church.
Fairtrade Ted featured in the ‘Spot the Difference’ competition published in Spotlight magazine which is delivered door-to-door in Felixstowe and surrounding villages. We had a record number of entries.
We placed a big emphasis on the use of social media following advice that this was the best way to reach a large audience. Jenny led on this and achieved impressive results as a consequence of which she was asked to prepare a report for use by the Fairtrade Foundation.
We enjoy strong support from Felixstowe Town Council and we have a regular column in their quarterly magazine. We also make good use of other print and spoken media.
Lowestoft (Mick Dobney)
I promised an up-to-date report but, as in November we celebrate the 20th anniversary of our Fairtrade stall, I hope you will accept a potted history.
2003 Grace and Mick add a Fairtrade stall to the Autumn Missions Fair at Christ Church, Lowestoft. Stall well supported by the vicar who would buy geobars by the boxful. Grace and Mick were soon recruited onto the town’s Fairtrade Steering Committee.
2004 Lowestoft becomes Suffolk’s first Fairtrade Town. Next year we will celebrate the 20th anniversary.
2007 We went on Traidcraft’s escorted Fairtrade tour of South Africa. It was a wonderful experience, many aspects of which are not to be forgotten. This inspired to book to go to Chile in 2010.
2010 Multiple earthquakes in the spring meant that the tour of Chile had to be postponed till the autumn. Chile was experiencing the aftermath of the Pinochet regime. It was a joy, however to meet the warm-hearted, honest people – the producers we had supported.
One week into the tour Grace suffered her first stroke. After three weeks of world-class care at Temuco and then Santiago, we flew home in the care of a specialist nurse. Meanwhile the group proceeded to Chino’s Apico-op with the geobars we had smuggled in, which contained his honey and dried fruit. He was delighted to see the finished product. A photo of the group with Chino holding a geobar later appeared in a follow up booklet.
2011 Grace was one of three volunteers from Christ Church to play the organ at the United Reformed Church in town. The URC was already a certified Fairtrade church, serving Fairtrade tea and coffee at their coffee mornings Tuesdays and Fridays. Naturally she negotiated the addition of our stall which still plods on today.
2014 Traidcraft informed us of our sales total for the previous financial year. We had exceeded £10,000 and we were the 28th top seller in the UK.
2015 Grace suffered a lethal stroke. I pressed on with the Lord’s work, forever inspired by Grace’s example.
2018 Helped with the bail-out of Traidcraft, which was facing serious financial difficulties.
2019 Josie, a retired nurse, returned to Lowestoft. She has been an indispensable help at the bigger events. She proved a wonderful friend in supervising my recovery, after my total left hip replacement.
2020 -2022 Covid confined my stall to home. My mother and close friends kept it ticking over.
2023 On January 31st Traidcraft ceased trading. I turned to Kingdom Coffee. With help from a friend, who regularly orders from Kingdom Coffee for her shop, I have restocked tea, coffee, chocolate and sugar sachets. Quite a lot of old stock, approaching its ‘best before’ dates went to the town’s food bank.
During all these years of talks and the stall we took in churches, schools and various social groups. With Chris Brooks I took the stall to the sea scouts in Wroxham, with Jo Knight to the rotary club and with Josie to the Stella Maris Church in Lowestoft. We have also had events at the library, organised by Jo Wilde and we attended a five-day event at St Mark’s in November, organised by Jo Knight. Others help with the big events, but the URC is just me.
Finally, I must mention the visit to Pakefield Primary School by Patrick Kaberia in 2016 – which was a great success. I presented him with two Fairtrade footballs from Bala sports.
Framlingham (Steph Bennell)
Being only a small town we don’t do any major events but go steadily through the year on a dripping tap basis! We continue with regular Pop-Up stalls in the church and at Community Events. The centrally placed library provides storage space for the stock, and has a permanent top shelf ‘shop’ of Fairtrade items, with 10% going into the Friends of the Library funds. Sadly, the demise of our main suppliers, Traidcraft, has made it more difficult to source stock. We work closely with the Christian Aid Group, particularly during Christian Aid Week and with the Friends of St Michael’s Church at their fund-raising events. We decorated a Fairtrade tree at the Christmas Tree Festival. Framlingham Library held a Quiz and several coffee mornings, all featuring Fairtrade wine and beverages and scrummy cakes made with Fairtrade ingredients. Our main event during Fairtrade Fortnight was a Spot the FT Mark competition with the FT logo displayed in a shop windows. This gave us the opportunity to engage with local businesses in the town. The Town Council was most supportive with flying our new flag on the main flagpole on Market Hill. Our facebook page is kept ticking over with 304 followers, and our instagram account on which we have put 260 posts, currently has 1,078 followers. The Fairtrade Foundation has given us a new date of 1/8/23 to renew our FT Town status, so we are now working on this, and The Town Council has renewed their pledge of support.
Beccles (Elizabeth Bracken)
Beccles celebrated Fairtrade Fortnight 2023 in the following ways:
*In common with much of the county we held a Fairtrade flag-raising ceremony in which the Mayor of Beccles raised our flag over the Town Hall.
*We visited the six primary schools in Beccles and Worlingham with complimentary baskets of Fairtrade produce for their school staff rooms. Morrisons provided the chocolate for these.
*We also visited local businesses which stock or have in the past stocked Fairtrade products, providing them with Fairtrade Foundation certificates or We are a Fairtrade Community posters as appropriate.
*St. Luke’s Church held a Fairtrade coffee morning.
*We did a talk for Beccles Quakers on the theme of “Choose Fairtrade Now and Help Save our Favourite Foods.”
*We ran The Trading Game for the National Women’s Register local group.
*There was a display next to the counter in Beccles Library.
Both the flag-raising and the school visits provided good photo opportunities and the Beccles and Bungay Journal and Eastern Daily Press covered these events well both online and in print.
*In the following week we had a stall at the Town Council Showcase for Voluntary Organisations.
Ongoing Activities:
*St. Michael’s Church runs a stall at their weekly coffee morning.
*The Beccles Facebook page is kept up to date with Spot the Fairtrade product photos from local stores.
*We continue to circulate news items to our Network of supporters via email.
* We sponsor Fairtrade tea and coffee on a regular basis both at Beccles Library and the town’s Community Hub, with attendant publicity.
*We have decorated a Fairtrade Tree annually for the Christmas Tree Festival in Hungate Methodist and United Reformed Church.
Bury St Edmunds (Richard Stainer)
Much of our activity through the year has centred on researching and updating out Fairtrade Town Directory which we published in time for Fairtrade Fortnight. This is now available throughout the town and in particular at the Apex and the Tourist Information hubs. We also brought the Fairtrade message to a variety of publications in the town including the Bury Free Press. We continued to try to get Fairtrade signage into the town. This seems to be an impossible task, but we keep persevering!
In Fairtrade Fortnight we held a coffee morning at Trinity Methodist Church, close to the town centre, which was well attended. We also had a display in the Apex and a large banner outside the cathedral facing up into the town. The cathedral are great supporters of Fairtrade and a stall is held monthly, as it is at St Edmund’s Catholic Church. The Cathedral Shop and Pilgrims’ Kitchen marked Fairtrade fortnight with displays. On one day during FT Fortnight we were invited by the Co-op in Mildenhall Road to greet shoppers, offer Fairtrade freebies and give out our directories.
Challenges:
- Like most FT groups most of our members are of advanced years (!) and we need to attract younger members.
- Now Traidcraft has gone it is harder to source FT goods to sell in churches.
- Getting the town council to agree to signage that announces we are a Fairtrade Town.
Leiston (Ann Nunn)
The Leiston-cum-Sizewell Fairtrade Town Steering Group held a Coffee Morning to celebrate Fairtrade Fortnight on Friday 10th March at the Leiston United Church Room. This event coincided with the church’s Food Bank being open and we supplied free Fairtrade Tea and Coffee to Food Bank clients and visitors.
In connection with our application to renew Leiston-cum-Sizewell’s Fairtrade Town Status we have requested that the Town Council renew its commitment to Fairtrade, either by passing a resolution or by providing a letter of support. This proposal went before the Town Council at their last meeting and they agreed to renew their support for Fairtrade, we need to wait for the minutes of the meeting to find out what was specifically agreed.
The Town Council appointed a Town Councillor to the Steering Group.
We are pleased that the Town Council website incorporates a Fairtrade page although we have requested that this is amended to include the address of the Leiston-cum-Sizewell Fairtrade Town Steering Group website and our contact email address.
The Steering Group continues to maintain contact with SAFT.
Future work will include trying to increase the membership of the Steering Group and improving our online presence.
The group are currently working on the renewal of the Town’s Fairtrade status which is due in August.