2024 has been a memorable year for us. We celebrated our 20 years as a Fairtrade City and also commemorated 30 years of the Fairtrade Foundation.
The Lord Mayor of Portsmouth, Councillor Tom Coles, invited people who had been involved with Fairtrade to a Civic reception in the Lord Mayor’s parlour on 5th March. This was a great opportunity to catch up with friends and celebrate what we have been doing over the 20 years since received our award. We produced an album of photographs showing some of the activities we had been involved with. We were able to reuse our banner from 2014; Sue Ward baked a cake for us; Christine went to huge lengths to put different Fairtrade flowers together for me and we presented a gift to Jane Singh to thank her for her invaluable support.
We also handed our new Fairtrade community certificate to the Lord Mayor at this event and we were delighted to welcome Stefan Donnelly from the Fairtrade Foundation to our reception.
Jane Singh had persuaded her son Ben to produce a special handout for us (which linked to the 50 ideas for action) as well as a video which was displayed (surprisingly often) on the Big Screen in Guildhall Square.
Jane also arranged for A1 posters to be displayed at 10 sites around the city, both during our anniversary celebration and again during Fairtrade Fortnight.
On 19/3 Sue J and Christine attended the full council meeting. We had asked Cllrs Hugh Mason and Suzy Horton to propose and second a motion of support for Fairtrade and Christine did a powerful deputation to the council asking them to reassert their support. This was passed unanimously and the Lord Mayor said he would be happy to help us and wear a banana suit.
We took a Fairtrade stall to a Stand Up to Racism event at the Discovery Centre on 8/4.
The leader of the council, Councillors Steve Pitt and Suzy Horton suggested that our group should be considered for a civic award. We were invited to the Mayor-Making in the Guildhall on May 14th at which we received a certificate and badge, a real honour for our group.
Fairtrade Fortnight was moved to September this year so after the reception, we began to think about what we might do including an exhibition in the Central library. We also wanted to set up a stall in Cascades and to hold a special service. And most importantly, we wanted to get the information out to as many local groups as possible to try and revive their interest and get them to take some action during Fairtrade Fortnight. So, we spent a lot of time on mailings to churches, schools, Churches Together groups, PCC staff etc We got some good publicity out, particularly articles in the Diocesan newsletters. We held a special meeting with a range of Fairtrade supporters around SE Hants and got some good ideas on getting publicity out to different groups. We continued to use our website and Facebook page.
Jane had arranged to do a PCC stall at the Victorious Festival and we managed to get a supply of chocolate from Tony’s Chocoloney and bananas from Primafruit. Jane did a great job of getting children to colour in pictures and submitted the video her son had done to play to the whole audience.
Our main events during Fairtrade Fortnight were the exhibition in the Central library which Christine put together with help from Penny Chinery from the Co-op Group. It was to convey the story of Fairtrade In Portsmouth since 2002 and also the story of the Fairtrade Foundation. This generated some potentially useful conversations. As well as archive material, we used some posters designed by Sarah Hirom from the Gosport group.
Then we had a successful day in Cascades, again with chocolate and bananas to give out as well as leaflets designed by Ben. This generated a lot of interest. The former Lord Mayor kept his promise and accompanied us dressed as a banana. We had help from Penny Chinery of the Coop Group.
We held a special service at St Mary’s church on 8/9 with Councillor Hugh Mason explaining the importance of Fairtrade. We were grateful to Fr Bob White and the organist Brian Moles as well as to Sue W for delicious refreshments.
Sue Ward managed once again to organise a successful Fairtrade breakfast at St Thomas’s cathedral. This generated about £250, of which £200 was donated to the Fairtrade Foundation.
Miriam organised events in Drayton and Clare at St Jude’s Church.
Future ideas
We needed to build on the obvious links between Fairtrade and Climate and advertise the fact that support for Fairtrade is a requirement for Eco Church status.
Making contact with Muslim groups. Jim Graham had kindly got his son-in-law to produce copies of the FTF’s leaflet FT Mosques: Start Your Journey and Christine had made a start on contacting local mosques and Muslim friends.
Publicising Fairtrade projects at stages through the year
Asking local MPs to pledge support for Fairtrade
Getting churches and schools to recommit and to sign up on the national map
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