Category: Charity

AGM, Charity

Reminder: Rainbow Turtle AGM 2023

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When: Tuesday 10th October at 7pm.
Where: Paisley Methodist Central Hall (Smithhills Street entrance).

The annual general meeting of the Rainbow Turtle charity will take place in person as above. We would be delighted if you could attend to hear about the progress of the organisation. 

For more information about the AGM, and to obtain copies of the papers for it, please click on the following link.

The business section of the meeting will be followed by the showing of a set of 5 short films commissioned by the Scottish Fair Trade Forum marking the 10th anniversary of Scotland as a fair trade nation. The films feature people from 5 different towns across Scotland (Alford, Castle Douglas, Motherwell and Wishaw, Paisley and Perth) celebrating the work that they are doing for fair trade. After the films we will have a discussion about them featuring a panel including Charles Sim of the Scottish Fair Trade Forum, John Riches of True Origin (formerly JTS), and Nate Strawser of The Gatehouse Coffee Roasters. Tea and coffee will be provided with an opportunity to sample some Rwandan coffee from the Gatehouse and Kilombero Rice from True Origin.

Please email us to let us know if you can or can’t attend.

We do look forward to seeing you at the AGM.

Charity

Rainbow Turtle Charity AGM 2023

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We’re delighted to announce our charity’s AGM on Tuesday 10th October 2023 at 7pm in the Methodist Central Halls in Paisley (Smithhills Street entrance). Tea and coffee will be provided. All welcome. Please email info@rainbowturtle.org.uk if you plan to attend.

The business section of the meeting will be followed by the showing of a set of 5 short films by the Scottish Fair Trade Forum marking the 10th anniversary of Scotland as a fair trade nation. The films feature people from 5 different towns across Scotland (Alford, Castle Douglas, Motherwell and Wishaw, Paisley and Perth) celebrating the work that they are doing for fair trade. After the films we will have a discussion about the films featuring a panel including Scottish Fair Trade Forum, JTS, Gatehouse Coffee Roasters, Alternative Coffee Co. and Rainbow Turtle.

Enclosed are the papers for the meeting (please click on the link to open the relevant paper):

  1. Agenda
  2. Minutes of AGM 2022
  3. Chair’s report
  4. Financial report

Charity, Shop, Volunteer

Farewell to Fiona and Jim Rutherford

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Left to right: Shop manager Elise Kelly with retiring volunteers Jim and Fiona Rutherford

Rainbow Turtle volunteers gathered recently to say goodbye to Fiona and Jim Rutherford. They started helping out at the shop at its beginning over 20 years ago! They are a bright friendly couple who were always welcoming to people coming in to browse or to shop.

Rainbow Turtle ceilidh 2017 with band Dlù.

They were passionate about fair trade and got involved our events. For many years they served on the board of trustees, with Jim as chairperson and Fiona as treasurer.

Volunteers’ gathering 2018

They are a talented couple both having worked many years as social workers in Inverclyde. Jim was also a beautiful singer and had organised many shows and musical events in Renfrewshire. He was probably best known as the creator of the play for the famous Renfrewshire Witch Project that remembered the Paisley witch hunt in 1697. The show was performed a number of times across Paisley town centre.

Jim and Fiona will be sorely missed, though I’m sure we’ll see them in the shop or at our events in the future.

Charity, Education

Scottish Fair Trade film about Paisley

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Many of you will be aware of the Scottish Fair Trade Forum’s (SFTF) celebrations marking the 10th anniversary of Scotland as a fair trade nation. As part of their activities they produced a series of 5 films highlighting the work going on in Scotland to support fair trade. Each film was set in a different town in Scotland and we in Paisley were privileged to be chosen for one of them. All of the films can be seen here on the SFTF website, but as we thought ours was the best we have shared it on the page below.

The Paisley film shows the direct links between producers in Africa and our town, from True Origin (formally JTS) and Kilombero Rice, to The Gatehouse Coffee Roasters and Cocagi Coffee in Rwanda. Needless to say, all these products can be purchased in our shop. This for us creates a virtuous circle, where by buying fair trade products in Paisley we can support producers across the world and, not only can we benefit from their quality products, we also employ people in Paisley. True Origin also support the local food banks from their excess stock.

So, make yourself a cup of Cocagi Coffee (or a cup of fair trade tea from our shop), settle yourself down into a comfy chair and watch our film…

Charity, Education, Podcasts

Rachel Farey Interview

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In this episode I am delighted to be talking with Rachel Farey of the One World Shop in Edinburgh. It’s a beautiful shop positioned at the western end of Princes Street in Edinburgh with the historic castle as a backdrop.

Rachel has had an interesting journey that started with working with L’Arche after she left school. L’arche is an international federation of Non-profit organisations working to create networks of community where people with and without intellectual disabilities live and work together. From there she studied theology at Kent University where a friendship took her to Edinburgh and she started volunteering for the fledgling One World Shop. After a few years volunteering and then working for the organisation, she retrained as a religious education teacher and taught for a few years, before finally returning to the shop as manager. 

Rachel was involved setting up the British Association of Fair Trade Shops, was chair of the Edinburgh fair trade group, helped set up the Scottish Fair Trade Forum and was part of the team that helped Scotland become recognised as a fair trade nation.

In addition, Rachel has travelled extensively in the Indian subcontinent meeting producers and understanding the difference that fair trade makes to their lives.

Whilst I was chatting with Rachel I was struck by her knowledge of fair trade, the people involved, and the place that Scotland has played in helping producers and farmers across the world. We are fortunate to have people like her on our side! 

Charity, Education, Podcasts

Rainbow Turtle Rebooted – Mary Popple interview

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Picture of Mary Popple from her LinkedIn page

In this episode we meet Mary Popple the current chair of JTS, the company that imports fair trade goods into Scotland and distributes them throughout the UK.

Mary grew up in Northern Ireland during the 50s and 60s on the border between the republic and the north. Her father was a church minister who tried not to take sides and, as tensions increased, took his family to Scotland. Those early years in northern Ireland gave Mary a strong sense of the importance of equality and of treating people fairly.

Mary has had an interesting journey to fair trade that has gone via the diamond industry and business management. It was her expertise in managing a business that led her to being invited onto the board of JTS. When she was a member of the St. Andrew’s Fair Trade group they contacted the Royal and Ancient to ask if they would consider using fair trade teas and coffees. A successful relationship was established and now it is written into their procedures to use fair trade products at the Open golf championship.

Mary has a bright and positive outlook on life and it was a real pleasure to listen to her thoughts on how a fair trade business should be run. 

Charity, Education, Fair Trade Fortnight, Podcasts

Rainbow Turtle Rebooted – John Riches Interview – Part 2

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John Riches

In this episode we bring you part 2 of the John Riches interview. (If you’ve not heard it, do check out part 1 where John talks about his early life and influences.)

We join John where he talks about setting up the Balmore Trust and The Coach House, instruments that were used to generate funds for overseas projects. Very quickly they got involved in buying products from people in small communities in Asia when they realised it was better to do that than give them grants. From there it was a small jump to getting involved in fair trade where it’s about supporting the farmers and producers which then benefit their families and creates stable communities.

He’s had about 40 years working in fair trade that includes setting up JTS that got involved in the Scotland Malawi partnership and buying and importing rice from small farmers in a land locked country. For the farmer, selling 90Kg of rice would allow them to send a child to school for a year.  He has a lot of insights into fair trade and I’m sure you’ll enjoy this episode as much as I did.

Charity, Education, Podcasts

Rainbow Turtle Rebooted – John Riches Interview – Part 1

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John Riches of JTS, The Balmore Trust and Gavin’s Mill, talks to Rainbow Turtle about his life and fair trade.

In part 1 of a two part interview, John tells interesting stories of working in a refugee camp in Austria after the 2nd world war, of being a chaplain at Cambridge University at the height of the student protests in the late 60s, of working in the Transkei in South Africa during the apartheid era and meeting anti-apartheid activist, Steve Biko.

He covers his time at Glasgow University teaching about the new testament in the bible and following a student out to Burmah to meet local villagers trying to live under the oppressive regime there. We end this episode in Glasgow during the late 1970s where he is teaching divinity to students and wrestling with the concept of how to help those struggling in developing countries around the world.

Charity, Education, Fair Trade Fortnight, Podcasts

Rainbow Turtle Rebooted Series 2 taster

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We’re in the final stages of preparing series 2 of our podcast, Rainbow Turtle Rebooted. We thought that we’d put out a wee taster as preparation for the start.

In this new series we have interviews with:

  • John Riches, founder of JTS, Professor of Divinity and Episcopal church minister.
  • Mary Popple, member of St. Andrew’s fair trade group and chairperson of JTS.
  • Kiera Wilkins, development officer with the Scottish Fair Trade Forum and one of the founders of the Alternative Coffee Co. A social enterprise set up to link fair trade coffee producers with specialty coffee roasters in the UK.

We hope to have our first episode of this new series out for the beginning of fair trade fortnight 2023 on Monday 27th February.

Charity, Education, Podcasts

Rainbow Turtle Rebooted – Series 2

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We’re excited to announce that we’ve started planning the 2nd series of our podcast, Rainbow Turtle Rebooted. We hope to have the first episode out for the beginning of Fair Trade Fortnight 2023. Look out for our taster episode that will be coming out in the next couple of weeks.

If you’d like to be notified when our next episode is published please subscribe to our series through your favourite podcast provider.

For those of you who are new to our podcast, you can find all our previous episodes here.