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.