Tales from the South East by Sally Reith

Hello and welcome to the April update from the South East. This month has felt marginally calmer though no less busy than the preceding weeks, which included fairtrade fortnight.

The AGM was a first experience for me as one of the newer members of staff at Shared Interest. It was a great day and a fantastic opportunity to meet some of our more Northerly supporters, as well as many who travelled from the South. We heard all the latest news from Paul, Rachel and Hugo about developments in the overseas offices. We were also treated to a fantastic video from Hugo about some of the producers, which is available on You Tube here. I look forward to hearing more of these stories and being able to use them to raise awareness of our work. The AGM was also a fantastic chance to get feedback from members about what the Supporter Relations Team should be doing in the forthcoming months and beyond. If you have any further thoughts or suggestions about this, please do get in touch.

I returned to Islington Arts and Media School to see how the pupils there had applied and used the information I gave them during my presentation during Fairtrade Fortnight. This involved the students going on to talk to local primary schools, which was a great success, with the schools coming together to exchange ideas about fairtrade.

By the time you read this I will have also attended UK Aware 09 in Olympia. This event aims to provide people with a variety of ideas for greener living and in terms of its entirely environmental and ethical approach, is one of a kind. Thank you so much to the 12 members and Ambassadors who came to help over the two days. It was a successful event for us and fingers crossed it results in some new members. Another highlight was Shared Interest board member Michael Walton speaking about ‘A NEW ERA FOR ETHICAL INVESTMENT?’ on a speaker panel chaired by Penny Shepherd of UKSIF. We are hoping a video of this will be available online soon.

Sally