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.
As part of our celebration of fair trade fortnight, and in conjunction with The Alternative Coffee Co. and The Gatehouse Coffee Roasters, we’d like to invite you to our fair trade coffee morning on Saturday 4th March, 10:30am, at The Life Church, Moss Street, Paisley.
Nate from The Gatehouse Coffee Roasters will pour you a cup of freshly brewed, single origin, speciality coffee. The coffee is sustainable and grown and produced with respect for the environment and the farmers. It tastes great and it feels great!
Kiera from Scottish Fair Trade Forum will talk to us about a different way of shaping trade relations across the globe based upon the example of The Alternative Coffee Company. This new coffee supplier is changing business locally and globally by making it more personal and fair.
We will also have delicious fresh baking (available for small donations), which will pair nicely with the coffee and set you up for the rest of the day.
Rainbow Turtle will also provide a stall with a selection of fairly traded and environmentally sustainable goods. Both cash and cards are accepted.
The event is free, but donations will be welcome to help us cover the cost of the hall hire and to organise future events. Book your place with this EventBrite link.
As a preparation for fair trade fortnight this year, we would like to welcome you to our exciting chocolate tasting event on Saturday 11th February at 12:30pm in the Methodist Central Hall, Paisley.
We have invited Juan Andres from Pacari Chocolates UK to come and take us on a journey through the world of chocolate. Listen to his expert knowledge and try out delicious, organic, vegan, WFTO (World Fair Trade Organisation) certified bean-to-bar chocolate from Ecuador. We are already salivating!
Get your tickets by using the enclosed EventBrite link. Ticket are priced at £15.
The Paisley Daily kindly printed a double page spread on Friday of our birthday celebrations from the 31st August as well as photos from the past, marking our 20 years in Paisley.
Page 6 from Paisley Daily Express 2/9/22Page 7 from Paisley Daily Express 2/9/22
To paraphrase a line from Dylan Thomas’ poem, Poem In October, August 31st is our 20th anniversary of being a shop and charity in Paisley, Renfrewshire. We have had an incredible journey over these last 20 years and it’s amazing that we’re still here.
We started back in 2002, when four friends – Liz Cotton, Phil Cotton, Kate Cox and Alison Patrick – had this exciting idea to move from running stalls in church halls to open a fair trade shop in Paisley. Those early years were about stepping out in trust, not knowing what the outcome would be.
We went through the heady years of growth, when we had a warehouse in Paisley and shared it with JTS, the importer and distributer of WFTO foods. Then our periods of financial difficulty when we looked like closing and had to pull back to just the shop again. Days when we were deep in our overdraft and didn’t have enough to pay the staff the next day. There was the impact of Covid when we didn’t know if we’d open again…
And yet we are still here, selling fair trade goods from our delightful Paisley shop and educating the young people of the west of Scotland about fair trade. We’ve welcomed rice farmers from Africa, honey producers from Guatemala, clothing makers from India, and who can forget Foncho our banana farmer from Colombia? We’ve even helped in making Paisley a fair trade town and Renfrewshire a fair trade zone. Last year we hosted Mauro Pereira from Brazil, a delegate at the COP26 conference in Glasgow who gave an impassioned talk on our podcast.
Foncho , banana farmer from ColombiaKenneth and Howard, rice farmers from MalawiIsmael Diaz, honey producer from GuatemalaMauro Pereira, climate change activist from Brazil
With all our ups and downs, recently one volunteer described Rainbow Turtle as the Miracle Shop. It’s been a constant theme throughout our existence, that when we’ve been at our lowest, and everything is bleak, something miraculous happens to revitalise us.
Along with our miracles we wouldn’t be here without the assistance of so many people and organisations. Primarily we’re grateful to our volunteers who bring their smiles and their enthusiasm to the shop. We particularly remember those who have passed away and are no longer with us. Many’s the time we’ve had positive feedback for the helpfulness and friendliness of a particular volunteer.
RT staff and volunteers at our fair trade meal in 2016
We’d never have started without the vision of Liz, Phil, Alison and Kate and the help of the Paisley Methodist Central Hall, who kindly offered us accommodation on a very low rent. We’re grateful to all the schools and church groups who’ve supported us by ordering fair trade stalls or inviting us in for talks and conferences.
Finally, we can’t forget the people of Paisley and the west of Scotland who’ve embraced us and shopped at 7 Gauze Street. It’s by buying our fair trade goods that we can help farmers and producers in developing countries. Through them we create this global bridge between Paisley and other parts of the world. The tiny actions of individuals here make a massive difference to others elsewhere.
Our delightful Paisley shop with shop manager and volunteers
What’s next? To celebrate our anniversary, we’ll be holding a cake cutting in the shop on the 31st August 2022, and a ceilidh (but of course!) in the Paisley Methodist Central Hall on Saturday 3rd September. Watch this space for more details and how to book for these events.
The new summer edition of Love Paisley, the magazine produced by Paisley First, featured an article on Rainbow Turtle on page 11. It explains why we believe that fair trade is so important and how Paisley’s past links well with what we do. Click on the image below and it should take you straight to page 11. In order to read the article you’ll probably need to maximise the screen (there is a little frame icon in the bottom right of the magazine window. Alternatively, you can read a fuller version of the article if you click here. Enjoy!
As some of you may remember, this year’s Fairtrade Fortnight brought focus to young people and their call for action to slow down the environmental crisis and help those most affected.
To encourage local youth to think about it, Rainbow Turtle has organised a competition for school-aged children. The task was to design a Fairtrade t-shirt that corresponded with the “Choose the world you want” theme.
We are happy to announce, that the winners have been chosen, even though the choice wasn’t easy. We were flooded by the submission and they were all very unique and attractive! We want to thank all the parents, guardians and teachers, who encouraged children to think about Fairtrade and to take part in the competition. We also want to say a huge THANK YOU to all the young people who took part. You are our future leaders and the faith of our planet and its habitants depends also on your choices. We thank you for taking the time to think about the current environmental emergency and about farmers in producers living and working in the global south. You may not be earning, spending and investing money just yet, but Fairtrade is more than just a shopping logo. It’s a movement of people who care about others and sharing that message and awareness is a fantastic way of making sure our guardians, teachers or local and global decision-makers hear your voice and act upon it.
The number of designs and their quality prompted us to split the artworks and prizes into 3 categories: Primary School years 1-3, Primary School years 4-7 and Secondary School.
Congratulations to all the winners and please bear with us, if your prize hasn’t arrived yet. We are working hard to arrange everything so that each of the winners will get a small token of gratitude.
You can see all the winning artworks and a selection of other entries in our shop’s window. It adds a lovely splash of colour to our building 🙂
Below you can see photos of laureates from the secondary school category with their certificates. Their teacher rewarded them with a trip to our shop, where they were able to receive their prizes and certificates in person.
It’s with real sadness that we announce the passing of Molly McGavigan last Sunday (27th March). Molly was a great fair trade campaigner and supporter of Rainbow Turtle. As a volunteer, Molly originally set up our education programme where she would go into schools and teach them about fair trade. Now we have a full time education officer, but we wouldn’t have this if Molly hadn’t have set it up at the beginning.
We would like to collect memories and photos of Molly that you may have so that we can share them on our website. If have you have any stories or pictures of Molly please send them into our office email address.
Molly’s funeral will be on Wednesday 6th April at 11am. You can watch it online here:
We’re back to February 2016 to the original Rainbow Turtle podcast series which was previously thought to be lost. This is part 2 of that first episode which takes us to an number of interesting places:
Josh interviews Martin Rhodes and Graham Clark of the Scottish Fair Trade Forum at their AGM, where he also meets fair trade campaigner, Mary Alice Mansell of the Lochwinnoch fair trade group.
He talks to rice farmer, Howard Msukwa, from Malawi, to Ishmael Diaz, a honey producer from Guatemala, and Liam McLaughlin, former warehouse manager at JTS, the Scottish fair trade importer and supplier.
Josh records MPs, Gavin Newlands and Mhairi Black, answering questions from pupils from Gryffe High School in Renfrewshire.
Finally, there is a wee piece from Jings and Scrivens talking about the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
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Volunteers, Steph Mayo (left) and Clotilde Rayon (right), with education officer, Linda Okhuoya-Ologe (centre)
To celebrate Fair Trade Fortnight, Rainbow Turtle is hosting a series of tastings of fair trade goodies and home baking outside its Paisley shop in Gauze Street. If you come down to the shop between 10am and 2pm on Saturday 26th February, Friday 4th or Saturday 5th March you’ll be able to meet some of our wonderful volunteers and taste the delights of some of the products we sell in the shop. The home baking includes ingredients made with fair trade sugar, chocolate, olive oil and even beer bread mix! Also, on offer is fair trade coffee and hot chocolate.
The tasting is free but we also hope that you’ll like the products or ingredients so much that you’ll want to buy some for yourself inside the shop. Failing that, come and chat to our volunteers and staff at the stall, they’d love to meet you. Also, you’ll be taking part in one of our events to mark Fair Trade Fortnight where we remember the producers in developing countries and everyone that makes fair trade possible.
Our thanks go to all the staff and volunteers who prepared the stall, cooked the home baking, looked after the stall and encouraged passers by to try the food.
