On Saturday 5th March 2011, our WDM group ran a Fairtrade market stall on St Albans market, as part of Fairtrade Fortnight.

This year’s theme for Fairtrade Fortnight was “Show Off Your Label“, with a particular emphasis on Fairtrade cotton. 

One of the many ways to show off about Fairtrade this year was to paint, draw or sew a piece of Fairtrade cotton bunting to express what Fairtrade means to you. 

Our WDM group had a session with a local Rainbow pack to decorate the bunting and more bunting was available on the stall for children to paint. Afterwards we sent our bunting to the Fairtrade Foundation who will stitch them all together in an attempt to break the world record for the longest continual piece of bunting!

Hopefully, the media attention this generates will help tell more people about how Fairtrade cotton protects the livelihoods of cotton farmers in West Africa and India.

Click here for Martin’s photos of the event.

Tuesday 12th October 2010, 8pm,  Farmer’s Boy, 134 London Road

Green Drinks is a forum for people concerned with the environment, climate change and peak oil to gather and share their thoughts.  In St Albans, it takes places on the second Tuesday each month, at the Farmer’s Boy in London Road.

On Tuesday 12^th October Transition St Albans used the Green Drinks to showcase some of the ways in which we can all develop the skills of growing our own food and making our own drinks.

Given the food theme of the event, we thought that a WDM table with action cards for our campaign against speculation on food would not be out of place. Gillian ran the stand.

Wednesday, 6th October 2010, St Stephen’s Church Hall, noon – 3pm

This year WDM celebrates its 40th anniversary. 

Our St Albans & District group organised a delicious buffet lunch, complete with a 40th birthday cake, and we invited present members and friends to come and meet the founder-members of our local group. We also invited a representative of the current national movement.

In 1968, the Rev John Reardon, minister of Trinity Congregational Church (now URC), together with Prof Geoff Dimbleby, founded the St Albans World Poverty Action Group. John was also involved (from 1966 onwards) at a national level in all the meetings, including a national sign-in on world poverty organised by Christian Aid, which led to the founding of WDM in1970.

We were honoured and delighted to have John as a speaker at our anniversary celebration. It was inspiring to hear his account of how WDM began.

After John’s talk, Maggie Pankhurst, current Chair of Council, spoke about what WDM is doing now, and what its role and priorities should be for the future.

The talks were followed by discussion – and cutting the cake!

Thanks to everyone for a very enjoyable and informative event.

Jamie

Click here for pictures

Oxfam Herts Hike, Saturday 25th September 2010

A great day out in the beautiful Hertfordshire countryside and Oxfam St Albans’ annual main fundraising event. 

This year Oxfam are raising money for an Oxfam project that helps farmers in Bolivia adapt their methods to cope with climate change. You can see an interesting set of pictures on this here.

New for this year is that all walks will start in Sandridge and pass through the new Heartwood Forest. The choice of distances this year is: 3½, 8, 11, 14 and even 20 miles – so something to suit all tastes and abilities. Walkers collect sponsorship or make a donation to Oxfam.

More details on www.oxfamstalbans.org or phone 01727 837 229 / 869 775

Our St Albans WDM group will man the last checkpoint. Because all walkers pass via this checkpoint, it will give us a good opportunity to make some publicity for WDM.

Our group ran a stall at the Earthworks Summer Fair on Sunday September 5th from 11:00-16:00.

Click on the images below to see a bigger version.

St Albans Festival of Life, Sunday 4th July 2010, market place in St Albans, 12pm – 4pm

The Festival of Life is a celebration of the arts, sports, environment, health and the community. 

The event was hosted by St Albans City and District Council and took place on Sunday in the week following the St Albans Festival fortnight.

Previously, the Festival of Life had been a great success, with many local voluntary organisations taking part and attracting well over 15,000 people, making it a good opportunity to promote a group’s activities to a wider audience. 

This year we had a stall too!  

And, to give our stall an interactive focus, to generate interest and provide a fun day out for visitors, we decided to make the World Cup our theme for the day, inspired by the WDM www.whoshouldicheerfor.com campaign and website.

The event was successful. Our activities were well received and gave us an opportunity to talk to members of the public about WDM. The flag quiz was particularly popular and the prize draw of a Fairtrade football was won by a 12 year old girl. Many people also signed our food speculation action cards on the day.

Some more pictures here

At the end of April, the week of the bank’s AGM, WDM had a Week of Action against the Royal Bank of Scotland’s involvement in financing tar sands projects in Canada.

Extracting oil from tar sands is threatening the health, livelihoods and human rights of marginalised indigenous communities by poisoning the environment. More information here.

The St Albans and District WDM group took part in the campaign by handing out leaflets outside the St Alban’s branch of RBS on Saturday April 24th.

‘Sugar Secrets’, Thursday 27th May 2010, Old Town Hall in St Albans, 7pm – 9pm

This evening event will give you an understanding on why Fairtrade is so important to small producers around the world whose voice is sometimes never heard.

Read more »

Today, WDM St Albans received access to this area for groups.

We can’t wait to tell you all what we are doing, but please, bear with us while we familiarise ourselves with how this works.

More content will follow soon.

Thanks