Halloween Planning Meeting This Tuesday

Dear Friends,

Thanks for being a part of our list and thanks for joining our movement to raise awareness of Fair Trade and build demand for Fair Trade products here in the Bay Area. We do this through fun educational events like our Fair Trade Reverse-Trick-or-Treat Giveaway that we are planning right at this very minute. And it’s not too late to get involved!

Come hear what progress we’ve made towards settling on some basic details for the event and find out more how we can make it even bigger and better with your help. So far it’s looking like we may be recruiting volunteers and area school children to hand out Fair Trade Certified chocolate to Trick-or-Treaters on a busy Halloween street in Noe Valley.

We would like to expand this action to include approaching houses on that block about converting the event to all Fair Trade Certified chocolate or area businesses to join in by handing out Fair Trade Chocolate too. But we can’t do this without your help! Come share your energy, ideas and creativity.

Bay Area Fair Trade Coalition
Halloween Planning Meeting
Tuesday, September 15th, 6:30-8pm
Global Exchange, 2017 Mission St. Suite 200
San Francisco, CA
Across from the 16th Street BART

Please RSVP on Facebook and invite friends:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=263464020150&ref=mf

For notes from the last meeting please read on below. Then Add us on Facebook and Twitter to stay in the loop!

http://www.facebook.com/bayareafairtrade
http://www.twitter.com/bafairtrade

See you Tuesday!

Jamie

Shop for a Cause at the 21st annualTen Thousand Villages “International Gift Faire”

This fair trade sale features unique handicrafts, gifts and household items from Ten Thousand Villages, the oldest & largest Fair Trade organization in the world. Last year the Faire, held in San Jose, reached a total combined profit of over $1 million for artisans in developing countries. It has become the largest two-day sale of Ten Thousands Villages in the U.S.

Ten Thousand Villages supports the work of 50-60,000 artisans across Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East who would otherwise be unemployed or underemployed. With the income they earn, these artisans, are able to provide basic necessities like food, education, health care and housing for their families. This year’s sale in San Jose is especially critical to the artisans’ welfare, due to the decreased economy in the U.S. and Canada resulting in fewer orders for their handicrafts. Many of the items produced by the artisans are “eco-friendly”, being made from re-cycled materials such as newspapers, glass, aluminum cans, and other re-cycled metals.

Just a few of the many items you can expect to find at the “International Gift Faire”:
Children’s toys
Children’s clothing
Ethnic musical instruments
Linens
Handmade papers & Stationery
Holiday decorations
Pottery / Garden décor
House wares / Home décor
Chocolate, Coffee & Tea

Please help support fair trade around the world and “Shop for a Cause”!

Sale dates: Friday, October 9th, 9am to 8pm
Saturday, October 10th, 10am to 4pm

Location: Lincoln Glen Fellowship Hall
2700 Booksin
San Jose, CA 95125

For more information about the “International Gift Faire” or Ten Thousand Villages, visit the following websites:

www.tenthousandvillages.com
www.internationalgiftfaire.com

Fair Trade San Fransico Minutes

We weren't actually at the Golden Gate Bridge, but I hate not having a picture.

In attendance at the meeting were:

Zarah Patriana, Global Exchange
Jamie Guzzi, TransFair USA
Mick Smith, Catholic Relief Services
Maripaz Garcia, De la Paz Coffee Company
Kevin Danaher, Global Exchange

We began the meeting with a brief update of the campaign as it was taking shape in the East Bay with Fair Trade Month Kick-Off events at the Den in Oakland and a Fair Trade Certified wine event in Berkeley at the Hub.

After that we entered into a brainstorm and discussion about possible events for Fair Trade Month in San Francisco. Jamie started off the meeting by proposing that we focus on a family friendly event for Halloween, thereby giving us more time to organize. Everyone agreed and we set about brainstorming.

Halloween is on a Saturday night, so we decided hosting an event on Halloween might be challenging in terms of securing a venue. Kevin suggested that we might partner with the Temple night club which has an established relationship with Global Exchange and would offer the space free Sunday through Thursday. Temple is at 540 Howard St. and they host regular sustainability events hosted by Mike Zukerman in the vein of green drinks.

Jamie suggested a Fair Trade Chocolate giveaway or reverse trick or treat action possibly focusing on a street where families congregate with small children in Noe Valley. Jamie also offered to look into the possibility of securing donations from Alter Eco and Divine.

Mick will be speaking at 5-14 catholic high schools over the coming months and offered to outreach the kids to participate in any event we might plan as well as send an outreach email to the Catholic Archdiocese master list of school principals and ministers. He also expressed an interest in approaching pier 39 about a possible Halloween event.

We all agreed that any Halloween event should focus on kids educating other kids, so the participation of the highschool students and any other students in our network would be crucial to our success. Jamie proposed that we consider approaching whatever neighborhood or parent organization coordinates the trick or treat street in Noe Valley and ask them to help convert the event. Jamie also proposed a series of canvass days to knock on the doors of the houses individually to offer them chocolate and secure their support.

Kevin broached the idea of incorporating an online social networking element and we all agreed that any call to action should include resources for folks to sign a statement of support online and also order FTC chocolate for their house.

The conversation then turned to long term outreach ideas and we revisited the idea of hosting a green drinks type event at the Temple. We also thought it might be interesting to invite local fair trade certified licensees to participate in a regular series of cuppings and also copromote events that the local companies are already hosting like demos and tastings through a BAFTC event calendar.

Jamie inquired if the group had an interest in jointly managing the online resources like the blog, facebook and twitter and everyone agreed that it might be useful to set up all the participating organizations as administrators so we could all add content as we wish. Mick thought this would be useful for CRS and the Archdiocese as they have big fair trade and development focused events coming up soon.

Maripaz suggested that events like their regular tablings at farmers markets might be a good place to outreach for supporters and promote events. We all talked about other fun events like partnerships with the Bike Coalition and Movie Night in the Park as other future ideas.

We all agreed that a regular meeting time might be useful to encourage turnout and committed to 1st and 3rd Tuesdays at Global Exchange for future meetings as a first step. The converstaion then returned to next steps for our Halloween event.

We agreed to target the trick or treat street in Noe Valley that is famous for decorating the entire block for kids. Zarah suggested that Jocelyn from the GX store might know more about the event and how to get in touch with the organizers.

We agreed that we would have to print out the GX reverse trick or treat cards from a PDF as GX might be out of the cards by then. Zarah suggested we reach out to ESLI teachers about participating (Eslisf.org)

We then set about assigning roles and tasks. Maripaz agreed to be the Retail Outreach Coordinator in partnership with Jocelyn from the Global Exchange store who expressed previous interest. Mick agreed to be our Faith Outreach Coordinator and to work with Jamie on a further strategy for reaching out to schools and churches.

Zarah committed to helping with Social Media Outreach and managing the facebook and twitter and Ruby agreed to help coordinate with the Global Exchange Fair Trade Team on the event and help with media.

Before we left, Mick gave a quick update on upcoming events from CRS and the Archdiocese. They have an upcoming Fair Trade conference in Oakland this fall and a .7% conference on UN development goals in San Francisco in the Spring.

Next Steps:

Zarah will research the Trick or Treat street and a possible partnership for sales and tabling with the GX store in Noe Valley.

Jamie will check on donations. Ruby will check in with the GX Fair Trade campaign and hear if the other GX interns want to participate.

Mick will follow up with Jamie about outreaching the schools and crafting a message about the campaign.

Maripaz will begin talks with their accounts about how we might best support retailers and report back to the group with some ideas.

Kevin would put some feelers out with Temple about hosting events.

Fair Trade Berkeley Minutes

Fair Trade Berkeley Minutes Courtesy of Lauren Van Ham

In attendance at the meeting were:
Adam Wray, Swoonbeams, Organic and Fair Trade Confections
Libby Wenger, Fair Trade Berkeley
Katrina Soelter, UC Berkeley
Lauren Van Ham, Fair Trade Berkeley
Dagny Tucker, Fair Trade Berkeley
Miguel Zamora, TransFair USA
Jamie Guzzi, TransFair USA
Billy Linstead Goldsmith, Fair Trade Towns USA
Katie Barrow, TransFair USA

Thanks for attending the Fair Trade Berkeley meeting last Friday and if it was your first one, WELCOME to the Steering Committee.

Here’s a quick re-cap of what was covered, along with who’s doing what before our next meeting. We’ll meet again on Friday, September 11th, 4pm, once again at the Transfair office. It is likely the meetings will move to Berkeley after this.

Fair Trade Town Re-cap: The meeting was about an hour in length and we reviewed the 5 necessities to make a town a Fair Trade Town: 1) Steering Committee, 2) Retailers involvement (FT products on the shelves, being sold), 3) Community Support (schools, faith communities, govt. offices, etc.), 4) Press, 5) Legislation.

BAFTC: We also heard a quick review of how these ideas were approached earlier in the month at the Bay Area Fair Trade Coalition (BAFTC) meeting in SF.

Important and FUN Dates: We learned from the Transfair staff about a few events (Fair Trade Month is October) that will the BAFTC leverage its efforts. As event details are confirmed at Transfair, the Berkeley steering committee will solidify specifics.

Three events for your calendars:

Sept. 29th – Fair Trade Month Kick-off celebration (a “mixer”) at the Fox Den (cool venue) in Oakland , all BAFTC invited and a great place to invite prospective steering committee members and other interested folks.

Oct. 6th – Fair Trade wine tasting. Venue likely to be in Berkeley , possibly at The Hub on Cal campus. Slightly more high-brow. Again a “mixer.” Invite steering committee prospects. Berkeley steering committee members will want to present info on making Berkeley a FTT.

Halloween-ish – Fair Trade chocolate trick-or-treating event in Berkeley ( Solano Ave. vendors? Ghourmet Ghetto? MLK, Jr. Park?) Some event that is family-friendly. Plans and details to be determind.

Tasks before Next Meeting: From there, we got to work assigning aspects of the above to those present and not present (we didn’t want anyone to feel left out!). Please review this list. If you catch any errors or wish to be added/removed from any particular areas, please let me hear from you. And on that note, I’m happy to run point as the steering committee chair (sending out minutes and coordinating as helpful) so long as it makes sense. If a better “flow” evolves, that’s great, too.

Task 1 & 2 for Everyone: Familiarize and Invite!

1) Review the FTT Tool-kit, now available online. It will provide some tools you can use right now, as well as help us determine what tools we’d like to create for our efforts, unique to Berkeley. We’ll discuss this at our next meeting.

2) As you approach your tasks/territory (below), consider which contacts should be invited to join the Steering Committee (ask them to our meeting on the 11th!), and who would be right to approach for co-sponsorship or co-support in accomplishing the five steps to becoming a FTT.

Task 3 for Individuals: Tackle all 5 steps to becoming a FTT

1) Steering Committee – Lauren will run point for now. Please email me with contact info for new folks to be added to the Steering Committee communications. Also, if I can provide further details as to the meeting or something missing in this message, feel free to call. I’d like to hear from you.

2) Retailers involvement – Miguel will invite Ken Davids (the Coffee Review) to our next meeting, along with other coffee experts or Retail leads in the Berkeley area. Miguel will also research/provide more detailed information on the retail side of things in Berkeley (augmenting the Where to Buy list, determining businesses to approach about adding more FT products, looking into per capita numbers – Berkeley residents/FT products available, etc.) MO, feel free to chime in, here, I know you did some Berkeley-specific research this Summer. Libby, will you please look into contacts within the Better Business Bureau, Buy LLocal Berkeley and the Chamber of Commerce?

3) Community Support -

Schools – Johanna and Katrina are covering CAL . Katrina, Welcome! It sounds like you might have a bit more time this semester than Johanna to give to this effort. Both of you, however, have GREAT contacts, so I’ll leave it to the 2 of you to divide and conquer as you wish…and then inform the rest of us around the best ways to help you.

Faith communities – Lauren and David are covering faith communities.

Govt. offices – Lauren will pursue her lead to speak with the Dir. or Sustainability and assess who should be invited to the next meeting.

Others – Lauren will put Dagny in communication with the Berkeley Parents Network.

4.) Press – Katie is running point here.

Social Networking - Katie and Katrina will put a good deal of Press energy into leveraging Facebook, Twitter and Yelp. All of us will be asked to participate in this effort, so if you have an affinity for blogging, Tweeting, FB friend-making, or Yelping, Berekely FTT will offer you lots of opportunities to share your stories! To get started, be sure you join our Facebook page.

Copy – Dagny and Mo have both offered to write copy for Talking Points and Berkeley-specific brochures and the like. This will be an agenda item at our next meeting, so please review the Tool-kit and bring your ideas for what pieces need to be developed to address our Berkeley audience.

5) Legislation - Jamie is researching what happened with the Berkeley FTT efforts in 2002 (an attempt that was not resolved) and provide an update at our next meeting to determine next steps.

Thanks, everyone, this is going to be really fun. And isn’t it HIGH time Berkeley became known as a FTT? Here, here!!!

Bay Area Fair Trade Coalition Meeting Tonight

Global Exchange is located across from the 16th St. BART

After our successful meeting last month where we resolved to split into three groups to pursue campaigns in Oakland, Berkeley and San Francisco, we have already seen some movement with campaign kick-off events planned for Oakland and Berkeley this October.

Now is the time to get together with the San Francisco team and determine roles and responsibilities for growing the campaign moving forward and decide upon a Fair Trade Month event for our Fair City.

San Francisco may be America’s 7th Fair Trade Town, but our movement is only as vibrant as you make it, so we hope you will turn out tonight and help take this campaign to the next level!

Fair Trade San Francisco Meeting
Tuesday, September 1st, 6:30pm-8:00pm
Global Exchange, 2017 Mission St. Second Floor
San Francisco, CA
Across from the 16th St. BART
RSVP and invite friends on Facebook!

For more information read on below. Then go to our new Facebook and Twitter pages and add us to stay in touch and get invited to our next events!

http://www.facebook.com/bayareafairtrade
http://twitter.com/bafairtrade