Fairtrade Fortnight Events

We got together last night to plan what we're doing this year for Fairtrade Fortnight.
The theme this year is Take A Step, so the obvious choice was to involve the Hay Walkers - and maybe even go along on a walk! The idea is to encourage them to bring Fairtrade snacks and drinks along on the walks.
We'll also be out on Market day (hoping it isn't as horrendously windy as last year!) with a sand tray treasure finding game marked out with all the Fairtrade businesses in Hay, and a board where people can write down all their ideas for taking a step towards Fairtrade.
We're also hoping to do something in conjunction with the school, and to get all the Fairtrade businesses in Hay to put something in their windows for the Fortnight.

Fairtrade Christmas Fair

This is the fourth year we've done a Christmas Fair - it's becoming a tradition.
We had a mix of old favourite stalls, and newcomers. Martha from Love Zimbabwe brought her new baby along, whose name means "We are blessed" - and she was so good all day.
The lady from Bagage has started a new Fairtrade group in Newcastle Emlyn.
The Ice Queen (somewhat surprisingly) managed to sell some ice cream, despite the low temperatures, and the Fairtrade Hay stall was kept busy with hot chocolate and mince pies.
We also had Hay2Timbuktu and Jump4Timbuktu, hand woven and naturally dyed goods from Chile, handicrafts from Egypt, Thailand's Karen people, and Zimele's Zulus, and Tools for Self Reliance, who deal with people in Tanzania. Athene English sent some of her fairly traded goods along too.
Our music in the morning was provided by Toby Parker, on guitar and mouth organ, a last minute stand in for the musicians who couldn't come. Toby is a regular performer at Kilvert's Open Mic nights, and also busks outside the HSBC bank in Hay.
We chose the same day as the Hay School Fair, but children came along in the afternoon (many of them with their faces painted!).

Preparing for the Christmas Fair

The season is almost upon us, and last night the members of Fairtrade Hay sat down in the lovely little lounge in the Swan to put the final touches to the preparations for our fourth Christmas Fair.
The date is Saturday 10th December, from around 10am to dusk (around 4ish), when the world comes to Hay. We will have some old favourites like Love Zimbabwe, and some new ones like Ananuca from Peru. We've got musicians in the morning - and we were thinking of having a Father Christmas, but Hay will be awash with Father Christmas's that day (well, two of them....). We were going to borrow the Booths Bookshop Father Christmas for an hour, and there will also be one at Hay School - so we decided to do something a bit different. From 2pm onwards we are having an Ice Queen selling ice cream! We've also got the Town Cryer, and the Lady Mayor will be opening the proceedings with a speech at 11am. Hot chocolate and mince pies will be available from the Fairtrade stall. Tools for Self Reliance will be back, along with Jump4Timbuktu and Medics4Timbuktu, and fairly traded goods from all over the world.
(and we're hoping it won't be as cold as last year!)

Meeting at the Swan

We've had a bit of a quiet time since the Picnic, but now is the time to start thinking about the Christmas Fair, and Fairtrade Fortnight, and renewing our status as a Fairtrade Town - and a few other things as well.
The Christmas Fair (slogan this year will be "Have Yourself A Fairly Traded Christmas") will be held on the 10th December, and we'll have a mix of regulars and new stalls from all around the world. One new trader we're hoping to have is Trade Africa, who have batik and other handicrafts from Tanzania and Malawi, and there's also a small charity called Obumu which works with villages in Uganda.
Chris, who does the lion's share of organising the Fair, is also active in Jump4Timbuktu, and he told us that they now have a new co-ordinator, who is fluent in French (important for Mali, where one of the main languages is French). They have also been working on some new projects, in particular an IT centre and a gardening project. They've even been trying out some of the techniques for the gardens at Hayfield Garden here in Hay (under slightly different conditions than the edge of the Sahara desert!)
Chris is also involved with the Cheesemarket project in Hay, to renovate the old Cheesemarket for community use, and because of this he's involved with ambitious plans for the Hay Festival. For several years now, the Fair on the Square has been put on during the first weekend of the Hay Festival, to tempt Festival goers into the middle of town. Now they want to link up events in the Square, the Buttermarket and the Parish Hall, with stalls, workshops, and entertainment. Many of the stalls will be Fairtrade, so he was suggesting that Fairtrade Hay should get involved with the organisation of this. More on that nearer the time!
And while we're touching on the subject of the Cheesemarket, Jo Eliot is involved in a fund-raising fashion show at the Swan for the Cheesemarket on 3rd November! They, too, have a new co-ordinator, who is needed to put the bid together for the money they really want, to renovate the building.
And then there was the renewal form to fill in - or make a start at, anyway! I think we've actually done rather well. The only thing we said we were going to do in 2009 that hasn't happened yet is the putting up of a Fairtrade banner outside the Council Chambers, and we've raised money, and got agreement in principle from the Council for that. We've held events, liased with other local groups and other local Fairtrade Towns, brought out a new Fairtrade Directory, and publicised everything we've done in the local press.

Fair World Project

On Facebook, there's a campaign to encourage major brands and companies to source Fair Trade products.
More information at www.fairworldproduct.org

Fairtrade Fashion

"Oh! Have you come to take it down already?" asked Jayne the Librarian. She sounded rather disappointed. They seem to have enjoyed playing host to the Fairtrade Fashion exhibition over the last two weeks. "The walls look very bare now," she said.
So now the pictures are all safely packed up and ready to head off to their next venue.

The Exhibition is Up!

I went up to the Library this morning with the parcel of pictures to put up for the photographic exhibition. They were delivered yesterday, to the shop where I used to work, by a courier who's been coming to Hay for a long time and knows that Mary Fellowes at Broad Street Books would get the parcel to the right person! He didn't want to take them back to the depot where they'd be flung around by the staff there despite the labels saying "Fragile".
Once there, we hit a snag - the pictures wouldn't go on the Library display board. But every problem is an opportunity for creative thinking, so we put up the exhibition on top of the bookshelves around the walls instead! Many thanks to Jayne (who wouldn't let me climb the ladder) and her assistant, and to the lady who gave artistic advice about the placing of the pictures (everyone's a critic!) - they really did look better after we'd moved them round.
Even as they were going up there was a lot of interest. A chap working on his laptop said he might have to move so he couldn't see one of the celebrity pictures, as it was taking his mind off his work! And he knew who the celebrities were - I have to confess my woeful ignorance of popular culture here! Another lady asked how long the exhibition would be on, so she could come back and look at it when we'd finished putting the pictures up.
And on the way home, I met a neighbour who actually used to know the photographer Trevor Leighton!