Minutes of Zoom Meeting of 21st April 2021

Those present

  • Mike King
  • Sarah Moroz
  • Sheena King
  • Ivan Cicin-Sain – Wycombe Friends of the Earth

Apologies

Jhon Munoz and Ivan Cicin-Sain hope to join for 2nd half of meeting

Gold Cup award for Coope Victoria coffee

MK –sent out the news re: Coope Victoria’s Gold Cup award to the company we are hoping will produce the Costa Rican anniversary coffee. Maria sent details of the award and MK sent these to Tony to put onto our website. MK wrote an introduction to go with it.

Social media

SM – asked re: contact section of website – what happens to any comments/messages put on there by people going onto the website?

MK – need to ask Tony. Also need to sort out rota for looking at our new public e-mail address

Costa Rican trip

MK – MK/SK planning to go to Costa Rica in October – this will coincide with the 78th anniversary of Coope Victoria becoming a co-operative.

Fairtrade Fortnight events

SM – hasn’t yet sent links round to the steering group for the 2 webinars that she attended in Fairtrade Fortnight (Bruce Crowther interview and the one organised by the Tunbridge Wells group re: the challenges of climate change for food producers) – but will do so.

Bucks Climate Action Alliance/May 6th elections

MK – Bucks Climate Action Alliance now has many members – such as the Chiltern Society (who have done a good presentation re: lowering of the water table). BCAA has encouraged people to vote on May 6th for candidates who have signed the climate pledge.

MK – wrote to 11 councillors re: climate pledge. MK has delivered BCAA leaflets to 250 households re: May 6th election. This was targeted to Amersham Common and Little Chalfont (Martin Tett’s ward). MK has also delivered 200 leaflets for the independent candidates.

SK – re: hustings on 19th April – organised by BCAA – Steve Guy (Independent) was there, also candidates for the Green Party and the Labour Party – the Conservatives were not represented but Martin Tett sent a letter outlining their position.

MK – attended a BCAA follow-up meeting last night. All the parties were wanting to collaborate. The issues are national as well as local. MK will also be helping to deliver some further leaflets. MK will send SM the link showing details of the leaflet and BCAA

Treasurer’s report

SK – Nothing has changed in our balance since last meeting (£251.75). Tony has highlighted that we should perhaps be supporting St Vincent re: the volcano eruption disaster appeal.

Perhaps we could make a donation to the St Vincent Second Generation group (SV2G) which is organising a collection. SK suggested that we could make a donation of £50 via the Just Giving page.

MK – St Vincent are very dependent on their banana crop and this has been wiped out.

MK – we haven’t had to spend anything on insurance this year, so we could perhaps make this donation. Sebert Graham is also organising some aid.

MK – although it would be good to have a link with a banana-producer country, it may be better to make contact with the Dominican Republic for this.

Banners for Grecia/Coope Victoria link

MK – has a meeting tomorrow with Maria and JM. Maria has a completed version of the 2 banners (English and Spanish). MK will send these round to the group. They look eye-catching. Tony also sent a link to a company which could produce the banner for us – could cost about £40.

I C-S joined the meeting.

Other matters/World Fairtrade Day

MK – Tony has been working on updates to the website.

IC-S – agreed with £50 donation to St Vincent fund.

MK – re: ideas for World FT Day, May 8th. Maria sent a pdf of the Gold cup event and some photos; banner is done. MK has written a report re: Kate Raworth’s webinar on circular economics.

SM – Rapanui is a clothing company which uses the circular model

MK – this system puts people and planet first. It can be used on national level as well.

SM – it would be good to have a history of our link with Grecia/Coope Victoria on our website and highlight it for World FT Day.

MK – there is a bilingual school in Grecia which may want to form links with a school in Wycombe

SM – there is info on MK’s e-mail on 27/10/20 re: the history of our link with Grecia/Coope Victoria

SK – SK/SM could put some paragraphs together on this for the website.

Churches mini-team

MK – has had an e-mail from Chrysi Dimaki giving an update on how far the FT Foundation has got with their campaign to contact churches. She will be sending any info they have on churches in HP12 and HP13, as requested by MK. Angus has had problems with Data Protection for sending out our e-mail letter to churches so it may take longer to compile details for churches in the town.

Next meeting

To be arranged

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