Those present:
- Mike King
- Jhon Munoz
- Sheena King
- Tony Thornby
- Sarah Moroz
Apologies
Ivan Cicin-Sain
Minutes
MK – Correction to minutes of 17/11/20 meeting – it should be Jade
Collis, not Jane.
Bucks New Uni may have an upcoming meeting in February of the Environmental, Sustainability and Fairtrade committee which MK will attend.
Draft document on trade justice and climate change
Re: draft document by I C-S
MK read out Ivan’s document
MK – The idea is to put the document onto our website in a prominent position. The importance of the trade justice/climate change link has also been discussed in a couple of recent webinars that MK/SK have joined.
No other updates to report from I C-S re: Population
Matters / Wycombe Friends of the Earth
SM – the final sentence is a source of hope that such a large
percentage of food producers in the developing world are small scale
and would be more concerned with looking after their environment
TT – we could list this as a related topic on the WFF website
Other website/media issues
MK – will check if the artisan listing on the ‘related topics’ section is still current or can be removed.
MK – has put quite a few documents onto our Gridhost site
TT – has also put quite a lot onto our Facebook page. We need to put effort into getting people to look at our content
MK – Ivan says that the Transition Town group in Wycombe has now finished so that could come off our website
TT – asked re: the Wycombe Environment Centre
SM – doesn’t think they have a building but they have a Facebook page called Ecobuzz
Grecia/High Wycombe link banner
MK – has made the suggested alterations to the banner
SM – raised the point re: use of Fair Trade as two separate words – is
this so that it makes the definition wider?
MK – yes, this is to include other groups/businesses who haven’t
certified with the FT Foundation Journal of Fair Trade article
MK – re: the article that he wrote together with Tony B plus input by Maria Angela. Have incorporated Pauline Tiffen’s suggestions and are hopeful that it will be published in an upcoming edition of the FT Journal. Would then hope to write a second article focussing on practical issues of supply chains, using material from Coope Victoria and other producer groups.
Treasurer’s report/funding
SK – re: membership fees as agreed previously – please could everyone send these in before end of Jan. The current balance is about £221
TT – looked at sources of funding with MK. Bucks Source didn’t seem possible for us. Just Giving seems to be just for registered charities but there is a site called ‘Golden Giving’ which covers non-registered charities as well. There is a charge for registering with them but it is quite reasonable and on a par with other crowd funding sites
MK – received e-mail from FT Foundation Head office to say they are offering free public liability insurance up to end of Nov 2021
There was a discussion on this and it was decided to take up on this offer
TT – the more groups who sign up for this, the more it will indicate to the FT Foundation how much need there is.
National aid budget
MK – the aid budget has been reduced from 0.7% to 0.5% GDP but
with the proviso that it will be changed back again to 0.7% after the
Covid crisis. Also the all-party parliamentary group will still have
teeth in these decisions.
Fairtrade Fortnight/churches
SK – re: FT Yorkshire are doing a community arts festival on-line with a different event each day. This would be worthwhile for us to follow. Have to register (free) via Eventbrite
MK – also would like to pursue the connections with churches for FT Fortnight. The FT Foundation (Chrysi Dimaki) has sent MK some info – a link for churches to click on to re-register their FT status. The Foundation will also be contacting all churches registered with them. We could also contact churches ourselves.
SK – Christ the Servant King church sent an e-mail before Christmas re: their links with other groups eg. Wycombe for Fairtrade, Traidcraft and asking for feedback. MK/SK wrote back and made some suggestions.
Costa Rican anniversary coffee
MK – got an e-mail from Darren of Kingdom coffee. He is still very keen on producing a coffee using Coope Victoria beans in support of the 200th anniversary. It is very difficult at the moment because cafes etc are not using so much coffee and they have to use up any coffee already in the pipeline before ordering more.
JM – most of the UK producers still have stock from last year so are not placing a lot of orders
MK – cannot really predict timings at the moment
SK – Darren was asking for suggestions for a name for the coffee.
MK – in addition to the main anniversary product, there will also be 100 bags or so with the High Wycombe/Grecia link printed on them.
Next meeting
16th February 2021 (date arranged after the meeting
ended)