Fairtrade Fortnight Challenge 4

Tracy Mitchell is a Shared Interest ambassador and the views expressed herein are her own and do not necessarily represent the views of Shared Interest Society.

By Wednesday last week I’d reached 9 completed challenges from the Fairtrade Fortnight Member Challenge list. I’ve hardly stopped since then but I’m not sure I’ve added any new ones to my total…..

On Friday I went to Renfrewshire’s Fairtrade Business Brunch. Renfrewshire has recently achieved Fairtrade Zone Status and has a very active FT campaign running. The speakers at the event included Fergus Ewing MSP, Barend Salomo the Chairperson of Wupperthal Rooibos Tea Association in South Africa and Liz Cotton from Rainbow Turtle. Wupperthal have a trade credit facility with Shared Interest and I understand Barend had been in to see Kirsteen and Geoff in Newcastle earlier in the week. Lunch time saw me taking part in a photo call with Paisley’s local MSPs – with a huge pile of a brand new fair trade product – rice from Malawi. But…I still haven’t got my camera out for the photo challenge!

Saturday morning saw me driving to Balerno – just outside Edinburgh. I had been asked to have a Shared Interest stall the Balerno Fair trade Group’s annual coffee morning – it was a very well supported event with lots of families from the community there as well as the local MSP. As well as teas and coffees with plenty of home baking, there were stalls from Tearcraft, the One World Shop, and several other organisations, face painting and “pedal your own smoothie” – an exercise bike linked up to a blender to make smoothies – plus of course the chance for me to I speak to folks about Shared Interest. So maybe that’s spread the word ticked off!

Later on Saturday (and again on Sunday) I was on duty at the Fair Trade Experience in Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall. I was there for Just Trading Scotland – a new joint venture between Rainbow Turtle and The Balmore Coach House. Whilst there, it was great to catch up with Sarah and Patrick from the office and to hear how many events the team are at over Fairtrade Fortnight doing their best to ensure as many people as possible get to hear about Shared Interest’s work. Let’s hope all their hard work, combined with members responding to the Member Challenge, generates loads more investment for Shared Interest and takes us a big step closer to the £75m target!

So a busy few days even if there’s only one new challenge ticked off! I am off to Dumfries tomorrow to take part in a Fair Trade film/debate evening so that will be another one done. On the home straight now!