World Fair Trade day is tomorrow Saturday 10th May! Ethos are having a coffee morning in aid of Shakti Nepal childrens home in Katmandu. The theme for this years world Fair Trade Day is sustainability so we have lots of alternatives to the plastic bag. Traidcraft stall, coffee, tea and home made cakes available. Come and find out about fair trade and ditch the plastic bag. 10.00 am to 2.00 pm. Ethos, Little Tarrington Farm.

Definition of a Panter: Someone who loves pants but hates the fact that most of our underwear is made from unfairly traded cotton, grown with the use of pesticides and produced in sweat shops. Someone who wants to rid the world of bad pants.

Pants to Poverty, the crack team who are working to rid the world of bad pants, is inviting people from all over the West Midlands to become Panters and join the World Record Pants Flash attempt in Birmingham on Saturday 17 May 2008.

Hundreds of Panters will be joining force by simultaneously standing motionless, in their pants, for five minutes, to raise awareness of the unfinished business of third world debt and the issue of unfair trade at the same time as setting a new world record of ‘the most people wearing just their pants in public’.

Date: Saturday 17 May 2008

This is the eve of the Jubilee Debt Campaign’s day of celebration marking the 10 year anniversary of the 70,000 human chain which took place in Birmingham.

Time: Meeting at 10.00am at Walkabout pub, Langley Building, Regency Wharf, 266A-271 Broad Street, Birmingham, to get changed into your free pair of Pants to Poverty fair trade and organic pants (plus white boob tubes for women).

The World Record: All Panters will proceed to Centenary Square (a major Birmingham landmark) for 11.30am to create the world record. All Panters will strip down to just their pants (and fairtrade boob tubes for women!) in order to set a new world record for the largest group of people wearing just their pants in public.

Pants to Poverty is a new kind of campaigning social enterprise organisation that really does have it feet firmly planted at a grass roots level at the same time as developing edgy streetwise underwear. Working directly with farms and factory workers, Pants to Poverty sources and sells designer fair trade, organic, sweatshop free pants from India. All of the profits are invested in supporting its mission to rid the world of bad pants.

For further information about this event, please contact:

Kristine Nudds, Kristine.nudds@pantstopoverty.com, 07941 672226

Our local / Fairtrade food odyssey continues - month 2 of the Herefoodshire Challenge is now complete.

Eating in has been delightful - eating out is harder work and admittedly involves rather more forward thought than is convenient.

Its lucky I'm fond of cheese & chutney sandwiches with excellent local salad leaves...

We’ve said goodbye to parsnips and to most of our first sack of flour.

And hello to baby carrots, rhubarb – and news that the first asparagus is up. We’ve created a few raised beds at home and have broad beans, lettuce and radishes waving – and are already running out of room.

The 5minute Herefoodshire video, skilfully made by Paul Wright, has been shown and enjoyed atseveral events. We have copies on DVD you can borrow - just email. We also have more publicity cards if you’d like some.

We’ve continued to do well on publicity and now have more than a page of hits on Yahoo. I’ve talked to the county WI, Transition Towns (Hereford), kept the radio up to date, had an excellent brunch at Bircher and pushed local food at the Borderlines Film Festival’s Rural Perspectives event last Saturday. The day included 2 powerful films, The Lie of the Land by Molly Dinnen, which laid bare the threats small UK farmers face in a sure footed and entirely undogmatic way and an appalling German film, Our Daily Bread, silently documenting the indignities visited on people, animals and the planet by industrial agriculture. The most positive response to both films – in my opinion - is to buy lots more local food from small producers! Which luckily is not difficult in Herefordshire.

For more info on the Herefoodshire Challenge look at myherefordshire.com and our blog (see links at the bottom). Do join Lucy & make your own pledge on myherefordshire by pressing contribute: it all adds to the momentum!

Events coming up

* Year of Food & Farming free event this Saturday (April 19th) in High Town, Hereford from 10-4pm, including a Food Trail, free tastings & Farmers Market www.yearoffoodandfarming.org.uk
* National Mills Weekend, May 10 -11th, features 2 historic corn and feed mills at Rowlestone & Staunton on Arrow: email me for programme or ring Alan Stoyel on 01544 230235
* Mortimer Country Food Fare in Brampton Bryan on Saturday 19th June from 10-4pm, free entry: Slow food, Carolyn Chesshire, stalls & Aardvark books (cookery specialists)
* Shobdon Food & Garden Festival 28/29th June: lots on including cookery demonstrations, see http://www.shobdonfestival.co.uk/index.htm for more info
* Food themed walk in Hereford, followed by local refreshments: date to be confirmed

Looking ahead

* A short project is looking at the feasibility of a mill in the county so we could access Herefordshire flour
* 16 acres of naked oats have been planted – I may yet get some local oats!
* A survey of shops in Hereford and Ross offering local food is underway
* 3 primary schools in the Kingstone area will be making 10 minute films about local food as part of the Year of Food and Farming, working with Catcher Media. These should be complete next March.

The public are invited to attend a public meeting to look at ways forward to develop Hereford City Centre as a vibrant, enjoyable and economically viable place to work, live and visit. The meeting is organised by Hereford City Partnership and Herefordshire Council.

WEDNESDAY 30TH APRIL 2008
5.45 PM
HEREFORD TOWN HALL

I am ashamed
That my style of living makes others suffer,
That my house and garden packed with goods
means others have terrible lives;
with working conditions resembling Charles Dickens’s stories.

My desire for cheap goods
means people
have poor wages,
quite often loose their land,
some become slaves,
and some
even die
of starvation.

As teenagers in the 60’s we thought we would bring freedom;
what we brought to this world was slavery to possessions.

The youngsters of today talk about ‘Fair Play’.
I do hope they will bring better things than we have.

Barbara Mark

Is there anyone from Hereford Sixth Form College, or any of the Hereford Colleges, who could help with the Leominster Fairtrade Cafe on the second Saturday of every month. We run it to support the Farmers Market on that morning and to promote other outlets selling Fairtrade in the area. You could just come once or go onto our volunteers list and be called every now and then, on a rota basis. Please contact us if you can help.

Tupsley Fairtrade day on 8th March was a great success as part of Fairtrade Fortnight. A Fairtrade Lunch, plus numerous Fairtrade stalls including Traidcraft, Ethos and Love Zimbabwe added to the festivities.

Herefordshire Friends of the Earth and Transition Hereford present the HereFOODshire Challenge: Eating the County.

CANAL ROAD DAY CENTRE (behind Morrison’s supermarket)on WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2ND, AT 7:30PM.

Trish is a sustainability officer with Herefordshire Council and has taken up the challenge for a whole year to eat only food and drink produced within the county. The only exceptions to this will be for Fair Trade items such as coffee and bananas. She will be talking about the problems and benefits involved and how she is dealing with them.

An excerpt from the film, CUBA – THE POWER OF COMMUNITY will be shown as an introduction to her talk, explaining how the Cuban people learned to feed themselves when their Russian support system and oil supplies were suddenly cut off.

Trish will also show a short film about local Herefordshire food and then be issuing a challenge herself to anyone who would like to try the idea for a week or a month to discover what food lies on our doorstep.

Transition Town Hereford and Friends of the Earth urge you to come along and be inspired by Trish’s example to prepare ourselves for the difficult times ahead of oil and energy shortages and food security.

A question and answer session will follow and a discussion on local food security.

FAIRTRADE tea and coffee will be available.

ADMISSION FREE – a collection will be made to defray Trish’s expenses.

Christian Aid is helping poor communities to recover from the ravages of climate change. Join us for a sponsored/donation walk on BANK HOLIDAY Monday MAY 5th 10:30 am for 6 miles, starting Clehonger Old Church. We'll be taking a circular walk along river, roads and fields and lunching at Belmont Abbey (sandwiches, baguettes etc for sale - please support their special opening for us if possible). Sponsorship forms from are available from 01432 860974.

All welcome, even last minute, but to help catering, please book your meal on 01568 797561.

A traditional Filipino meal and talk on Christian Aid’s work helping communities after Typhoon Durian in the Philippines
7.00pm, 18th April 2008
St John’s Methodist Church, Hereford

Join Hereford Christian Aid for a Filipino meal and hear from Jo Fisher about her visit to the Philippines where Christian Aid has been helping the people of Bicol recover from a typhoon that caused a catastrophic mud slide.

Jo Fisher (Dinnen) grew up in Much Birch and went to Bishops School. She now works for Christian Aid. It would be helpful if you could book your meal in advance by ringing Merryn Hellier on 01568 797561. All welcome.

Also join us for a sponsored walk for Christian Aid’s work on 5th May.

At Hereford Sixth Form College the students marked Fairtrade Fortnight by running a Fairtrade Café. The Café and Traidcraft stall sold £200 worth of goods and raised £175 for various charities.

“The students were very enthusiastic and there was a great atmosphere in the Café.” said John Dinnen of Hereford City Fairtrade Steering Committee. “Some of the students asked searching questions about how international trade should be reformed to improve the life of people in the developing World”.

Its a while since we all met, so I hope all of you involved in Fairtrade either through business or campaigning work will be able to join us for this meeting to catch up on Fairtrade Fortnight and see how and what all the groups are doing.

The meeting is on Tuesday 4th March in Shire Hall, Committee Room 2, starting at 5.30pm.

The agenda currently includes the following - please let me know if there are other matters you would like to raise.

Agenda

• Update on developments from all the groups around the county
  • Views on link to myherefordshire.com
• Feedback on Fairtrade fortnight events
• Publicity: what would people find most useful?
  • County Directory
  • Postcards
  • Banner
• Our website -any new signings?
  • Business members: Kingspan, Bulmers,
• Feedback on
• stand at Herefordshire Food Festival 27/28 October
• Fairtrade film and Social (Oct 07)
• Other Events planned
• Any other links with local food and farmers markets
• Work with schools- what done and future plans
  • Update on Kington School situation
  • AOB