Author Archives: Sheena King

AGM 2020 – Treasurer’s Report

Introduction

Wycombe For Fairtrade formed in August 2008, but for the first 8 years of its existence, had no funds or community bank account, relying entirely on the generosity and goodwill of individual members. In 2016 the Steering Group decided that a Community Not-For-Profit bank account was essential in order to provide a financial base for future promotional campaigns and planned activities.

The Chairman has previously sent Steering Group members the receipts and payment account Excel spreadsheets for the tax years Sept 2016 to March 2017; April 2017 to March 2018; April 2018 to March 2019; April 2019 to March 2020, and April 2020 – Sept 2020. These figures are based on regular Barclays Community Bank balance updates. You may have noticed an anomaly on the accounts from 1st April 2019 to 31st March 2020 which has now been rectified and the accounts amended and re-circulated.

Worth noting is that the majority of receipts were from Christ The Servant King Church donations from their Missions Committee during 2016 and early 2018 of 2 x £250.00 cheques for which the Group was exceedingly grateful.

These funds enabled the purchase of a laminated roller banner with “We are a Fairtrade Town” in 2016 which has graced many Fairtrade stalls, presentations and other live events. More recent Fairtrade Foundation publications like an A2 poster, flyers and booklets were bought in 2020.

Remarks will now focus on the accounts from 2019 to the present.

During Fairtrade Fortnight 2019, Wycombe for Fairtrade in conjunction with CSK Church held a ‘Big Brew’ event over 2 consecutive days to celebrate Traidcraft’s 40th birthday. We were fortunate to find an excellent cake maker, Jo Brain, who freely gave her time to make a sumptuous collection of cakes. We gave her £45.84 to cover the cost of the ingredients. All monies raised at these events went to support the work of Traidcraft Exchange.

A major expenditure for 2019 – 2020 was the outlay of £95.00 to Fairtrade Foundation for 12 months Public Liability Insurance, a necessary evil if Wycombe Fairtrade is to attend public events at venues where there is a risk of injury to the public e.g. Pann Mill Open Days.
Other notable expenses were the hire of the Wright’s Meadow Community Centre (£36.00) when Louise Whitaker, Bewley’s UK Group Sustainability Manager gave an enlightening talk covering Fairtrade coffee and the Impact of Climate Change as part of our International Fair Trade Weekend in May 2019.

Louise and David Turney from Bewley’s kindly donated Fairtrade teas, coffees, snacks, flapjacks and soft drinks for our future Fairtrade stalls which we sold from May 2019 onwards at Fairtrade stalls at CSK church, the Population Matters’ Climate Comedy Event, and Pann Mill Open Days. This added £76.10 (£50 and £26.10 being banked respectively) to our account which currently stands at £161.75.

With the Missions Team refocusing their giving abroad, and the corona outbreak meaning no public gatherings to sell Fairtrade products, our income streams have effectively evaporated. The Group’s decision not to purchase PLI this year has given us some breathing space and the chance to exploit private charities, community and voluntary body funding, and grant making trusts suggested by our contact with and the joining of “Community Impact Bucks”.

To broaden our income stream and spread our net wider, MK completed a Waitrose “Green Token” Community Matters request form and submitted it on Monday 13th July 2020 at Waitrose, Handy Cross. It is suggested that this action needs to be repeated across all the supermarket chains in order to fund possible future promotional and campaign projects involving the Grecia/CoopeVictoria friendship links; their Fairtrade coffee and any possible 2021 deals with Masteroast and Kingdom Coffee Company. Post coronavirus, there is much work to be done setting up dialogue and promoting educational links between Grecia and High Wycombe Schools especially in the fields of languages; geography; economic;, environment; and business studies which could lead on to possible exchanges of staff and students.
It was also proposed at our last Steering Group meeting to introduce a membership fee for members of Wycombe for Fairtrade: £15 for regular waged members, £10 for concessions and £5 for students.

To conclude, we need to explore every avenue to discover what other funding sources exist, exploit them, write positive business cases, and even possibly create a specific “Fundraiser post” on the Committee as well as giving ourselves by way of a member subscription.

Wycombe For Fairtrade Treasurer – Sheena King. 15th September 2020

Minutes of 7th January 2020

Location:

Micklefield Library, Micklefield Road

Those present

Mike King
Jhon Munoz
Sarah Moroz
Tony Thornby
Sheena King
Ivan Cicin-Sain – Wycombe Friends of the Earth
Steve Morton – Wycombe Friends of the Earth “
Angus Massie
Bob Smith

Air raid cafe seems to be still open.

MK – also went to the Coffee Lounge. Although they don’t have the Fairtrade logo, their coffee is ethically sourced. MK spoke to the manager.

The FT renewal certificate was shown round. MK will put it in a photo frame ready for the presentation event.

TT – Wycombe District Council will be dissolving in April.

MK – Matt Knight thinks that there will be a Town Council for Wycombe. MK met Trevor Snaith in the Coffee Lounge and he thought the same.

I C-S – Wyc FOE are trying to launch a climate action group.

St M – Nationally FOE has a climate action group which feeds into government and includes individuals who are not FOE members.

I C-S – Wyc FOE are trying to form an alliance of individuals/groups to campaign for action on climate change.

St M – there is a Facebook group also working on this. Next Tuesday there is a group launching in Aylesbury to lobby the new county authority re: the climate emergency.

MK – suggests that Wycombe for Fairtrade could be involved in this joint effort. Everyone voted for this.

JM – Costa Rica are taking practical action to tackle climate change

MK – the all-party committee for Central America haven’t met for many months. During the meeting with the Costa Rican ambassador the possibility of forming a committee for Costa Rica on its own was discussed.

MK/JM would both like to go to the Wyc FOE meeting next Thursday evening to discuss the joint group on climate change.

St M – the more people involved, the more leverage there would be with local government.

TT – a company is producing bricks from recycled material – prevents a lot going to landfill. There is also a company who are working on an electric aeroplane fleet.

MK – Bucks New Uni have plans for their volunteers week. Handing out FT bananas and ‘Smile Week’. They are also arranging to have a speaker from Bewleys. They have about 125 students they can call on in the Sustainability etc group

JM – it was a very useful meeting with Costa Rican ambassador. He wanted to talk about a wide range of topics involving environmental action in Costa Rica in general. He was also talking about engaging with local politicians and about setting up an all-party parliamentary group for Costa Rica.

MK – It would be really good if the ambassador could meet with the new Wycombe Town Council. The ambassador was very interested in what we have done with the linking model. He said that there is lots of potential for increasing trade with Costa Rica. He suggested targeting new Tory MPs in northern seats. The meeting lasted about 3 hours.

JM – the ambassador came from the Grecia area and knew the mayor and Co-op Victoria.

MK – re: FT Fortnight. JM and TT are willing to go on Wyc Sound radio with MK.

The presentation event is on Jan 21st. MK will do a shortened version of his climate presentation. It would be a good opportunity to get signatures on a document to support the idea of a partnership between the Grecia and Wycombe. There will be refreshments after the presentation and before the rest of the council meeting.

The churches/faith groups think-tank on FT is booked for 7th March. MK showed a poster. 3 speakers are arranged – Margaret Dykes, Angorad Hopkinson (the head person for faith and churches at the FT Foundation) and Mike (the effect of climate change on FT). Heather will lead a FT service at the end. Heather has lots of links with local churches. It may also be possible for Maranda St John Nicholle to be there (Christian Concern for One World).

TT – on the poster for this event, please can people be encouraged to join our Facebook group – also at the event itself.

MK – our website is looking really good, many thanks to TT

TT – need to get better at reporting on what we have done.

BS – the Avenue church is now up and running again, following the repairs.

SM – re: if other faith groups are also being invited, we may need to make the poster inclusive of them.

MK – re: the John Hampden Politicon event 6 – 8.30pm on 13th Feb. We will have a stall there.

MK – showed a proposed poster for use at events to promote ourselves – showing how we are campaigning on the 5 goals for a FT Town. Suggested it is printed on display board (foam inner) on A2 size. We would have to get a company to do this.

TT – has links with companies who could do this.

TT – the most recent work he has done is to bring our website up to date. We need to be more proactive in advertising events. If we set up a Facebook group then we can send invites to everyone in the group.

JM – we need to find ways of increasing our income. A lady from the Bristol FT group said they are a CIC (Community Interest Company) legal entity – can then get funding from businesses and government eg DFID. JM suggested we may be able to do something similar.

St M – Wycombe FOE get income from membership fees. It may be worth talking to James MacDonald (Friends of the Wye) to see where they get their funding from.

SK – there will be Traidcraft stall at the churches event on 7th March and at Christ the Servant King church the next day.

TT – has spoken to his church, Kings Church, about becoming a FT church – they use Kingdom Coffee but don’t seem to know that it is FT.

Next meeting: 11th February at Ivan’s at 8pm