Tag: rainbow turtle

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Click & Collect/Delivery Starts Next Week!

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As you might know, Rainbow Turtle is almost entirely run by our lovely volunteers. Many of our volunteers are still vulnerable to coronavirus, and so we’ve decided that we aren’t quite ready to reopen fully yet. Instead, we’ll be taking orders here for click & collect and delivery starting next week! The deadline each week will be Sunday midnight, and orders will be collected/delivered on Wednesdays. We’ll be in touch to arrange a collection slot or payment for deliveries. We hope that this will be a good stepping stone to reopening, and that lots of you will be willing to support us in this way, and get access to great Fair Trade products again!

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Renewed Website

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Have you noticed anything different about our website recently? Maybe that there aren’t adverts anymore? Thanks to the hard work of our director, Colum Scriven, and his friend Alan, we’ve finally got our dot-org-dot-uk web address back! It had been feared lost to hackers some time ago, and we had been using a temporary address ever since, but we’re now back in business. So if anyone asks you where to go for information on Rainbow Turtle (especially as our shop is sadly closed until further notice) then direct them to www.rainbowturtle.org.uk for the most up to date info! If you’re subscribed to our newsletter, which collates these blogs once a month, you’ll still receive this as normal. If you aren’t yet subscribed to our blog you can join here.

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More Fair Trade Learning At Home

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We’re back to school after the Easter holidays this week, although of course “school” is a lot different now. So if you’re a parent or carer looking for some interesting ways to get Fair Trade into your kids’ education, here are some more ideas. You can read our first post on this subject here.

Fashion Revolution week 2020 begins today, and is a week to reflect on the Rana Plaza disaster in 2013, as well as look at the problems, both human and environmental, within the clothing industry today. Fashion Revolution have lots of fun activities for young learners, which can be found here.

If your children are looking for ways to explore their creativity, Divine Chocolate and Christian Aid have the competition for you. They’re asking young people aged 7 and over to write poems on the theme of Where does the chocolate journey begin? There are tasty prizes and the completion closing date isn’t until 5th June so you’ve still got plenty of time to get started. You can find out more here.

For younger learners, the Fairtrade Foundation have produced some home learning activities on the theme of Pablo the Super-Banana, a super fun character! They also want everyone to share their home learning with the hashtag #FairtradeTogether on social media. We’d love to be tagged in any posts too so that we can see the amazing work everyone is doing!

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New Shop Front

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Since it could be a while until you get to see it in person, we thought that we’d have a virtual reveal of our newly updated Rainbow Turtle shop front!

This work was completed just before the current government restrictions came into effect by the lovely Gerry and his workers, and we were so pleased and grateful to receive grants from Renfrewshire Council to pay for this work to get Rainbow Turtle looking sharp again.

We hope to see you all in the shop again very soon!

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Happy Easter

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Happy Easter from all of us at Rainbow Turtle. It was a very strange one this year, but we hope you all managed to celebrate it with family or friends in some way. Easter weekend would usually be a really busy weekend in the shop, with everyone rushing in to buy the last of our Fair Trade eggs and cards, but sadly this year the Rainbow Turtle shop remains closed. We did manage to sell lots of our eggs before we shut up shop, and the few that we do have left will be donated to good causes in the local area. As one of our wise volunteers said to me recently: Easter is a moveable feast and we’ll celebrate it properly when we can.

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Rainbows as Hope

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At Rainbow Turtle, we’ve always seen our name and logo as forming part of our message of hope for the world around us:

And so it has been very uplifting to see rainbows become a symbol of solidarity, of being alone together, during the coronavirus outbreak. People all over the country are displaying them in their windows, as the BBC has reported, and it’s become a fun game for children (and adults!) to spot as many as they can while getting their daily exercise.

Our shop manager and education officer, Gemma, who is self-isolating at home in Glasgow, has spotted lots in her area and added her own (very non-artistic!) rainbow to her living room window with a friendly face, which has been drawing lots of attention and waves from the local children.

We can get through this together and we’ll see you all back in our rainbow-filled shop very soon. Keep safe!

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Sugar Producers’ Visit

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Today we were lucky enough to have a visit from Malawian sugar producers, Nduzani and Aubrey, organised by the Scottish Fair Trade Forum, in conjunction with ourselves and the Renfrewshire Fair Trade Steering Group.

First, Nduzani and Aubrey visited Bargarran Primary School in Erskine to speak to pupils from Bargarran, St John Bosco and Rashielea about all of the work that goes into growing sugar cane and how the support of the Fairtrade Foundation helps them to grow their business and support their communities. All three schools had lots and lots of questions for the sugar producers, covering everything from housing, climate change and the weather in Malawi to how to defend your crops from snakes and elephants!

After our visit to Bargarran, Nduzani and Aubrey were then whisked over to the Rainbow Turtle shop to have a look at (and a taste of!) our selection of Divine chocolate, which their sugar cane is used to make. It was a very enjoyable and very informative day!

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Rainbow Turtle Ceilidh

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Whirling Dervishes. Some people were moving so fast that they were a blur!

Saturday night’s ceilidh, to mark Fairtrade Fortnight and the closing of the Roots Festival, was a huge success. About 80 people of all ages came along to the event at The Wynd Centre in Paisley to listen to the fantastic music by renowned ceilidh band, Haud Yer Lugs.

The ceilidh was such a success that it managed to raise over £700 for Rainbow Turtle. Thanks to Roisin for the photos. Note that people were moving so quickly around the dance floor that they were just a blur!

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Volunteers’ Tasting Event

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As part of our efforts to work more closely with Paisley-based fair trade organisation, JTS, we recently hosted a tasting event for Rainbow Turtle volunteers in our Paisley shop. JTS import and distribute fair trade products from around the world, many of which are on sale in our shop on Gauze Street.

Tracy Mitchell from JTS brought a selection of Eswatini jams and chutneys and Ukuva sauces. She talked about the difference that we make to the lives of the producers when we buy their products. We learned of the difficulties that these small producers have in making and distributing their foods, often from land locked countries. We heard how JTS has to overcome complex logistical problems from international banking systems, transport issues and UK health and safety regulations. More importantly we were able to taste these delicious foods lightly spread on oat cakes and gluten free crackers.

My favourite definitely has to be the Ukuva Peri Peri Sauce mixed in with cottage cheese (or for those on a dairy free diet mixed in with an oat cream cheese) on an oat cake. Mmm… mmm… Also available was Ukuva’s Chermoula Sauce which is currently JTS‘ flavour of the month and profiled in one of our latest blogs.