Fairtrade & Traidcraft

 

'Fairtrade' Status for our Churches, Circuit & District

Through Traidcraft, churches in the circuit actively support a way of trading which gives producers a fair return for their products.  For example, as shown in the graph, conventional pricing of bananas codemns growers to live below subsistence level.  See also Congleton's Food and Drink Festival above.

At the time of writing, almost all of the churches of Dane and Trent Methodist Circuit have committed to support actively a way of trading which gives producers a fair return for their products.  Specifically, each of these churches commits to

  • using Fairtrade tea & coffee for refreshments during church activities,
  • encouraging people using their church to respect the church's Fairtrade status by using Fairtrade products on the premises too,
  • encouraging people visiting their church to use Fairtrade products for their personal needs,
  • lending their support to local Fairtrade events and activities.   

A group has been formed, with the support of Churches Together in Congleton and Congleton Town Council, to promote fair trade in Congleton and the surrounding area.  Having achieved Fairtrade status for the town, that status has been put on display on the town's boundary signs.  We are now working with the Cheshire East Council to achieve Fairtrade status for the borough.

Chester & Stoke-on-Trent Methodist District have also satisfied the conditions for achieving Fairtrade Status. The District will now be encouraging all Church Councils either to agree that their churches will become Fairtrade churches, or that they will renew their Fairtrade status, which also involves a considerable amount of work.

'Fairtrade Town' logo

Chester & Stoke-on-Trent Methodist District also run a Fairtrade cafe and shop in Hanley, Stoke on Trent, which sells a wide range of goods from Traidcraft and other sources.

 

Fairtrade Celebration in Congleton Town Hall

Fairtrade bunting

The celebration was hugely successful.  A major focus of the day was to decorate and display bunting decorated with messages and images showing why we should support Fairtrade.  Congleton produced roughly 200 metres of the bunting, which criss-crossed the town Hall and filled the stage.  This was a significant contribution to the national attempt to set a new world record for a continous length of bunting.  The target was to create a length of greater than two miles, from bunting collected from all round the country.  Subsequently, 14,281 pennants, stretching 3,427 metres (2.129 miles) were brought together from around the country and stitched together, thus beating the record.

Many of our area's schools and youth groups have marked Fairtrade Fortnight with projects and assemblies to increase awareness of Fairtrade. Trinity's Footsteps Group displayed a super set of flowers in pots carefully crafted using Fairtrade pasta. Havannah School brought a selection of artwork and musical instruments from each year group using pasta and rice - it's amazing how good a pasta skeleton can look. Marton School also put together a fantastic and colourful display of artwork - including an array of rainsticks and shakers with an accompaniment of African music.

Did you know that every day in the UK, people consume 9.3 million cups of Fairtrade tea, 6.4 million cups of Fairtrade coffee, 530,000 cups of Fairtrade drinking chocolate, 2.3 million Fairtrade chocolate bars, 3.1 million Fairtrade bananas and a fantastic range of other Fairtrade products?



Congleton Food and Drink Festival

People from Congleton churches, predominantly from our Circuit churches, ran a Fairtrade stall on the main street of the town, as part of the hugely successful Food & Drink Festival 2011.  On a gloriously warm, sunny day, the event attracted many thousands of visitors, even more than the previous year.  From our Fairtrade stall we encouraged people to sample a number of  Fairtrade products.  In addition to the kinds of packaged food and drink product normally seen, people were able to buy Fairtrade bananas sourced from the Co-op.  Fairtrade stickers were 'planted' on hundreds of visitors and the supply of leaflets was exhausted long before the end of the day.

Traidcraft Logo
 
At the World Mission Forum, Philip Warren, a non-executive director, talked about Traidcraft.  He emphasised the importance of the Christian identity of the organisation, which is something we can easily overlook.  He stressed Traidcraft's role in developing new Fairtrade projects.  A recent one was to develop a co-operative amongst rubber producers, which took a phenomenal amount of negotiation to cut through both Cambodian and Fairtrade politics. Traidcraft are asking us to buy Traidcraft branded products to enable them to continue their pioneering work. Historically we have encouraged people to buy Fairtrade in supermarkets in preference to Traidcraft. He made us think that‘s wrong: we should be putting Traidcraft first.

 

'Chatterbox' Coffee Shop, Trinity Methodist Church

Come and treat yourself to a good cup of coffee or tea and teacake, and at the same time see the full range of  Traidcraftt  products. The coffee shop is open from 10.00am  until 12.00 noon every weekday, at  Westwood House, Trinity Church.  

Sales last year reached more than £7,000.  Please continue to support this cause which offers a fair wage to Third World producers.

 

Events Supported by Methodist Churches in Congleton

     

Congleton's churches were actively involved in organising and running Congleton's main Fairtrade event of the year, the Fairtrade Celebration in the Town Hall, which also featured the town mayor, MP and town crier. 

We have also been involved in the Cheshire Show, Charities Fair and the Congleton Food & Drink Festival, where we offered samples and products for sale, and distributed promotional leaflets.  We also have introduced Traidcraft stalls at a number of schools in Congleton and the surrounding area.

Church people led a 'Deep Thinking' Day at Eaton bank High School, where in two, 45 minute slots for around 60 students they gave a presentation on Fairtrade.

Our people have run special events in schools, including curriculum sessions at primary schools.  There, they have organised activities like letting the children divide a banana into sections to show their guesses as to what percentage of a product's price goes where.