Six Months for Supporter Relations Officer North

By Ruth Taylor

During the month of June I celebrated six months working with the world’s only 100% fair trade lender and continued to explore the variety of events and conferences in the region.

UKSIF (UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association) hosted the summer Ethical Investment Association conference in Edinburgh. While the conference was geared mainly towards financial advisors, I attended to learn more about what investors want in terms of their financial and social return. The members of UKSIF range from Independent Financial Advisors to NGOs and Investment Banks. A positive message from the Standard Life Bank presentation was that investors are becoming increasingly interested in fair trade. Remember, our minimum investment of £100 can be split between four signatories, meaning that ethical investment is a concept accessible to most people.

Also in June I have continued to attend business networking opportunities in the North, going along to meetings hosted by the North East Chamber of Commerce and Business Networking International.
Shared Interest also had a presence at the Northern Schools Conference, which was organised by the Fairtrade Foundation and took place at the Leeds University Business School. Many teachers and students heard about our withdraw-able share account for the first time and took our fair trade fun pack back to the classroom to use. A Shared Interest account can show a schools’ continuing commitment to the fair trade movement and the Supporter Relations Team are always on the look-out for further partnerships, so if you are involved with an education institution and would like to know more, please get in touch. I also had a very good meeting with the Sunderland Partnership fairtrade steering group and look forward to working with schools in the Wearside region.

Coming up over the next few weeks are the daisygreenmagazine.co.uk events as well as an in-store talk at Neals Yard Remedies who are launching their fair trade products.

I would like to say thanks to those who helped to raise the profile of Shared Interest in Preston on Saturday 27th June, particularly to Joan Stableford and Susan Murphy.

As always, we look forward to hearing from you if you have any suggestions for the team.