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.
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.
After the great success of our anniversary ceilidh last year, we’d like to give you an early warning of our upcoming ceilidh on Saturday 11th March from 7 to 11pm at the Methodist Central Hall in Paisley. We’re delighted to announce that Tuesday International will be our band for that evening. The cost has still to be confirmed, but we’d like to make it family friendly and open to as many as we can.
As usual refreshments will be provided along with a raffle. BYOB, no alcohol, please!
This ceilidh will be a fund raiser for Rainbow Turtle’s charitable work.
Tickets are now available from our Paisley shop in Gauze Street, or from Eventbrite. Tickets cost £6 for adults and £3 per child plus Eventbrite’s booking fees if buying online.
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.
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.
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.
