Helping out in Whitworth Park

Last week, a group of staff from the Whitworth Art Gallery spent 3 hours helping the Friends of Whitworth Park with essential gardening and maintenance work. Staff shifted a large pile of mulch which was used around newly planted oak, birch and beech saplings, and also planted around 200 daffodil bulbs. Luckily the forecasted rain held off and everyone enjoyed a bit of fresh air, and a few hours away from their desks! Now that the work to reconnect the Gallery to its surrounding parkland is well underway (see Gallery’s Capital Development Blog: http://capitaldevelopmentwhitworth.wordpress.com/), we are hoping that Gallery staff assistance in the Park will become a regular event.

daffodils planted job well done

shifting mulch

newly mulched saplings

Sally’s Fairtrade Fortnight Facts no. 9

Fact no.9

Sweet success: Tate & Lyle are switching all their own label retail sugar to Fairtrade sugar. The move will benefit more than 6,000 farmers from Belize, who will receive Fairtrade premiums of around US $4 million (£2 million) for investment in their community, in the first year alone.

Source: http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/press_office/press_releases_and_statements/archive_2008/feb_2008/fairtrade_fantastic_facts.aspx

Sally ’2 sugars’ Thelwell
Collections Study Centre

Check out the green blog: http://whitworthgreen.wordpress.com/

Sally’s Fairtrade Fortnight Fact no. 8

Fact no.8

Fairtrade fans: three out of five people in the UK now recognise the FAIRTRADE Mark (TNS Omnimas 2007). Nine out of ten people have heard of Fairtrade and 65% percent of people in the UK think Fairtrade products should be available in cafés and restaurants as well as shops (OC&C 2007).

Sally ‘ Fact or Fiction’ Thelwell

Collections Study Centre Administrator

Sally’s Fairtrade Fortnight Facts – no. 7

Fact no.7
Fairtrade cotton certification is helping over 100,000 people – farmers, workers and their families around the world – to improve their lives.

Conventional cotton is grown using large amounts of pesticides, many of which are toxic chemicals. It is estimated that 50% of the pesticides used in India are used on cotton fields. All pesticides have the potential to deplete biodiversity, contaminate water supplies, damage soil fertility and cause long-term damage to farmers’ health. The World Health Organisation estimates that 20,000 people die from pesticide poisoning each year in developing countries.

Pesticide dependency also leads many farmers into crippling debt as pesticides and fertilisers are bought on credit which has to be paid even when harvests fail. In some cotton growing areas, the cost of chemicals amounts to 60% of production costs.

Under the Fairtrade system, cotton farmers have to adhere to strict environmental standards and are forbidden from using dangerous chemicals. They are actively encouraged to implement integrated crop management so that they can move progressively to organic cotton production.

An increasingly wide range of Fairtrade certified cotton products can now be found in high street stores, including Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Monsoon, Top Shop and Next.

Source: http://www.greeninformation.co.uk/clothes/fairtrade_cotton/

 

Sally ‘Bless my cotton socks’  Thelwell

Collections Study Centre Administrator

 

Sally’s Fairtrade Fortnight Facts no. 6

Fact No.6!

Cadbury has committed to the Fairtrade certification of Cadbury Dairy Milk for the whole of the British and Irish markets. This means that the millions of Cadbury Dairy Milk consumers enjoy Fairtrade ingredients in their favourite chocolate bar, while the taste stays the same.

The move, which also includes Cadbury’s hot chocolate beverage, marks the first anniversary of the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership (CCP), a historic initiative in which Cadbury is investing £45 million over the next ten years to secure the sustainable socio-economic future of cocoa farming in Ghana, India, Indonesia and the Caribbean where the cocoa farming industry is facing increasing challenges.

Fairtrade certification

Source: http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/press_office/press_releases_and_statements/archive_2009/march_2009/cadbury_dairy_milk_commits_to_going_fairtrade.aspx

Sally ‘I should cocoa’ Thelwell
Collections Study Centre Coordinator

Sally’s Fairtrade Fortnight Facts – Five!!

Fairtrade Fortnight Fact No.5

As it is Friday…raise a glass: More us are drinking Fairtrade certified alcohol than ever before. More than 100 Fairtrade wines are now available, as well as beers and ale. Churchgoers can sing the praises of new Poterian Fairtrade Communion Wine too!
Source: http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/press_office/press_releases_and_statements/archive_2008/feb_2008/fairtrade_fantastic_facts.aspx

Dydd Gwyl dewi sant hapus / Happy St David’s Day!

Sally ‘Y Ddraig Fairtrade’ Thelwell

Collections Study Centre Administrator

Sally’s Fairtrade Fortnight Facts – No. 4

No.4

In 2001, Garstang in Lancashire declared itself “the world’s first Fairtrade Town”. There are now more than 320 Fairtrade Towns, 4,000 Fairtrade Churches, 37 Fairtrade Synagogues, 60 Fairtrade Universities across the UK.

The University of Manchester is proud to have Fairtrade University Status from the Fairtrade Foundation and has a clearly defined policy on Fairtrade, part of its core commitment to Social Responsibility.

Every year the University of Manchester consumes in excess of:
1,500,000 cups of Fairtrade coffee
300,000 cups of Fairtrade tea
100,000 cups of Fairtrade hot chocolate
1,000,000 Fairtrade sugar sachets
75,000 bananas
75,000 bottles of Fairtrade fruit juice
20,000 Fairtrade choc bars

To find out more, visit the University’s Sustainability micro site – > http://www.sustainability.manchester.ac.uk/campus/food

And if you’d like to hear about where chocolate comes from take a look at this video from my colleague, Curator of Herpetology, Andrew Gray;

You can also check out his fantastic Frogblog here.

Sally ’20,000 Fairtrade choc bars’ Thelwell
Collections Study Centre Administrator

It’s all Fairtrade in tea and cakes

As it is Fairtrade Fortnight Anna Bunney and myself decided to host a fairtrade tea party on Monday in the Museum’s staffroom.

There was a good turn out for tea and cake on a cold February afternoon and fun was had by all. All tea and coffee available was of course fairtrade as were the delcious cakes.

Thanks to everyone who came along and donated and particularly to lovely people who baked or brought cakes. We had a boozey tiffin from Campbell Price, a chocolate orange cake from Ruth Aplin (with alittle input from Luke Lovelock), Persian Sally cake from Babak Bassirian, cardamon bread from Shiree Roberts, coffee and walnut cakes from Rachel Webster, rock cakes from Debbie Doran, biscuits from Jenny Discomb, banana muffins from Anna Bunney and burnt fridge cake from me. Ged Bridges did try and slip in some Mr Kiplings but luckily was caught in time!

Sally Thelwell,
Collections Study Centre Administrator

Sally’s Fairtrade Fortnight Facts – Fact no. 3

At the end of 2007, there were some 632 Fairtrade Certified Producer Organisations, representing over 1.4m farmers and workers, in 58 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

This has in turn helped a further 7.5 million people as communities have benefited indirectly from fairtrade.

 

 

Sources:

http://www.just-food.com/news/fourteen-fairtrade-facts_id101474.aspx  

http://www.fair-trade-hub.com/fair-trade-facts.html

Sally ‘How Green Was my Valley’  Thelwell

Collections Study Centre Administrator

Sally’s Fairtrade Fortnight Facts no. 2!!

Fact no.2:

The first fairtrade banana was sold in the UK in 1994.
Now 1 in 4 bananas sold in the UK are fairtrade.
Source: The Co-operative website

Do you go bananas?

Go Bananas for Fairtrade

You can here! – http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/gobananas/

Sally ‘bananas’ Thelwell
Collections Study Centre Administrator