Shelley Community Association runs the village hall, promotes networking between different village groups, residents and public bodies and supports the village in numerous ways including a village magazine and web site, arranging for the Post Office to operate from the village hall, establishing a village green and organising a host of community events.

Congratulating Shelley Community Association, the Prime Minister said:

“Shelley Community Association has given its residents something very special – the chance to become more involved in their village, strengthen their community and improve life for them and their fellow villagers. With its numerous clubs and social events, this strong, active community, is an excellent example of the Big Society.
“Congratulations to all those involved in the Association for making Shelley the thriving village that it is.”
Ann Priestman from Shelley Community Association said:

“Our visitors call us ‘The Friendly village’ – that’ll do for us! We have total inclusion, and this is a stimulating and invigorating environment where talents as well as issues surface and are utilised to enhance the well-being of everyone in this village. In fact in this village you need an hourly diary! How many other 80 year olds complain of being double booked most days! And they are often the volunteers!
“You will never have been in a village which is so co-operative in such a personal way, across generations, groups, public services, and out to our businesses. It is astounding how beneficial that personal network is.
“We are delighted to win this award – we all knew we were the Big Society in practice – and for the Prime Minister to appreciate us in this way recognises the dynamism of our volunteers in every capacity and their commitment to improve the lives and environment of themselves and their neighbours, work which is not done for achievement but for satisfaction. We are very satisfied!”
Shelley Community Association:

Shelley Community Association is the umbrella organisation for a number of groups in Shelley village, including an Over 60s group, an environmental group, sports, art and drama clubs and much more.

The Association also runs its own events including a biennial Garden Festival, concerts, plays, dances and a New Years Day Welly Walk.

Shelley won Yorkshire and Northern Village of the Year in 2004.

The not-for-profit organisation supports families in communities across Birmingham. It works with more than 100 students every year and in its first twelve months has supported more than 150 families and 300 children.

Congratulating The Sweet Project, the Prime Minister said:

“The Sweet Project has made a real difference to people’s lives in Birmingham, delivering a tremendous support service to families while at the same time giving social work students the opportunity to enhance their skills.
“The Project’s valuable contribution to helping families in need of extra support is an excellent example of the Big Society in action. So I am very pleased to be awarding everyone involved, this Big Society Award.
“My wholehearted congratulations to everyone involved in the scheme, for their hard work and for making The Sweet Project such an inspiring success.”

Jayne Hulbert, Project Director of The Sweet Project said:

“Everyone involved in The Sweet Project has put in enormous amounts of hard work and it’s fantastic this is being recognised with a Big Society Award.
“Our project is unique and forms the basis of an empowering and enabling ethos not only for service delivery but for the very people we serve. Our students learn, train and deliver a highly professional service to children, young people, families and adults. I am proud of the contribution they and the staff who support them have made and pleased that the Prime Minister has recognised it with this award.”

The Sweet Project

The Sweet Project (Social Work Education, Experience and Training) was launched by Jayne Hulbert in March 2010. It works with disadvantaged children, young people, adults and families in south Birmingham, providing them with social work support.

Jayne Hulbert is a qualified senior social worker with 34 years experience in children and family case work. She set up The Sweet Project as a sustainable social enterprise that trains social work students to become better social workers by giving them real cases to work on – delivering early intervention support. Students are given a high level of support from a team of qualified social workers.

The Project is currently funded by contracts with six universities for student placements, two UnLtd awards, contracts from schools to deliver intervention services in the community, Be Birmingham Successful Neighbourhood fund, Community Chest funds and an Access to Volunteering fund. In its first 12 months of trading the project has employed 9 people and trained 79 student social workers. The Project has also recently launched an adult division so that it can extend its support services to include vulnerable adults who do not have children.

Bletchley Park and the codebreakers, the place and people whose work shortened WW2 by two years potentially saving 22 million lives, 11 million people a year were dying during WW2.

Bletchley Park, the birthplace of Colossus, the world’s first programmable computer, invented to mechanise the codebreaking. Bletchley Park, the place that housed loads of codebreaking machines that at the end of the war were cut up into pieces smaller than a human fist…..and buried on the direct orders of Churchill himself, a regular visitor in those times.

I could go on….

You know that place right? Of course you do

Well, they have amongst many, thousands, perhaps millions of artefacts, thousands of paper decrypts. The decrypts of messages sent by the Germans, some possibly from Hitler himself, during the war.

Bletchley Park need help to catalogue and create a proper archive of these decrypts. They also have many other needs which, if you are interested in history, im sure you will want to help with.

If you can help in any way or have any questions please get in touch with me @Dr_Black or @Bletchleypark.

Written by Dr Sue Black

HRH: “In Mark Price I believe BITC has a truly worthy successor”

Please welcome… the new chairman, Mark Price.

Mark Price (Waitrose): “I feel privileged to be the new chairman … it is a testament (to Sir Stuart Rose) to have HRH Prince of Wales and the Prime Minister here today”.

Mark Price talks about Waitrose’s commitment to letting staff develop their skills and interests, and to do the right thing… and achieving a true sense of well being

Mark Price: “wellbeing and happiness is not measured by economic wellbeing alone but by quality of life…. (To the PM): I welcome your support for businesses”.

Mark Price: “partnership must be our watch word”

Mark quotes an African proverb: “if you want to travel fast, travel alone, if you want to travel far, travel together.”

I am looking forward to continuing the journey… with BITC.

We heard lots of impassioned conversations going on around the room and would love you to continue to share your thoughts and opinions with the community. Please do tag any content you create on your own blogs etc with the event hashtag: #1pound40 so we can aggregate and share everyone’s opinions and keep the conversation flowing.

Remember you can see more from the day over on Reuters blog http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate-uk/2009/11/11/live-blog-1pound40-conference/

Thank you again for making this event possible, we hope see you for the next installment soon.

How do you measure the impact of supporting fair trade producers? It’s a qualitative & quantitative process but how do we get everyone’s views?

We could build relationships with producers directly but you need to fully understand the relationships within that and how they work together.

Rather than just using the data Comic Relief collects themselves they will try and share it with chains (e.g. Sainsbury’s) so they fully understand it.

Comic Relief’s Fair Trade Focus on Africa, committed £5m over 5 years to support fair trade producers in Africa to building the capacity and accountability of the African fair trade network.

What are the key factors for ensuring that women workers and producers benefit equitably from trade?

What change has been made? (how can we prove the impact)

HOW has that change been made? (improving the impact).

How can all the key players share that data?

Joan Karanja, from COFTA, speaks about the role of producers; the importance of including them in standards development

COFTA is a network of fair trade producer organisations in Africa, working to eliminate poverty, by strengthening African membership in fair trade. COFTA is a grassroots network working with all levels of fair trade. It is a forum for collaboration and networking with over 100 members in 24 African countries touching 250,000+ beneficiaries. Currently there is no data / stats – this is something they are trying to measure.

Joan explains some of the issues encountered by producer organisations in Africa. Some cannot pay the fee to be accredited fair trade when they may well be practicing fair trade (the fee is $2000 – seems high).

Common producer challenges:

Collaboration and cooperation; business planning and production efficiency; product quality and product innovation; market understanding – e.g. there are no seasons in Africa so if selling to the West it’s important to know the seasonal market; gaining direct market access; access to finance is difficult as it is seen as an informal sector (so banks don’t lend); local infrastructure – important to understand all the nuances; and communication is essential.

COFTA programs focus on:

• Network development
• Membership development
• Advocacy and lobbying
• Market access (improving south to south trade not just access to Northern markets).

‘The overall idea of fair trade is to change the market’ (Joan Karanja), for example scaling up production through clustering (Swaziland, SWIFT) and Common Coordination (COFTA networks).

Fair trade is against child labour: the question is raised, ‘what is the solution when the head of a household is 17 and needs to earn a living?’

Joan suggests the solution is spending morning at school and the afternoon at work; we must remember the idea is to protect the young.

In providing direct market access for exporting in to Europe, COFTA provides linkages but currently is unable to supervise this any further.

80% trade is non food handicrafts. Issues surrounding coffee production and food are very different to craft – is it often forgotten? Do we need a fair trade mark for craft? Standardisation?

If we think producers should be involved in defining ‘fair trade standards’ – how to organise local producers (by broadcasting? Use of Technology?). A discussion for the open space session…

TWIN only works with small holder farms, building democratic systems. They believe in a better equitable distribution of risks and rewards; a different kind of relationship (networks of alternative trades). Part of their role is being an intermediary between buyer and seller, strengthening governance of farming organisations; enabling basic business management with a focus on quality. TWIN works to influence trade, with practical support on how to do this.

The development of brands such as Cafe Direct, Divine chocolate, Agrofair, Liberation, has helped change UK attitudes to food sourcing policies and to underpin the Fairtrade market in the UK.

Case studies presented by Ian:

Divine & Kuapa Kokoo: Participation in Divine has improved confidence in farmers after their trading suffered; it is now recognised as one of the best coffees.

Ian spoke about their partnership with Southern African Nuts. Integrated supply chains were developed; 2005 saw the first sales through the fair-trade market (the co-op), and supermarket partnerships in 2006; liberations established in 2007 (42% farmer owned); aflatoxin testing was brought in (2008), and mechanised processing in 2008/9.

Established fair trade supply chains have since been used to feed in to nutritional supplements (tested in Darfour, with significant improvement measured).

The fair trade premium is not hugely different to mainstream.

There have been various studies to show that fair trade in the region has captured more than just monetary value.

Ian talks about the international nut producer cooperative.

‘Liberation’ works by bringing the producers together to explore issues with the whole value chain. By understanding the complex distribution chain producers can be empowered to contribute to decision making about the strategic direction of their businesses.

By promoting democratic structures at community levels, greater governance issues can be brought down to the grassroots. As shareholders, famers have a direct link to the West; and a more democratic process has helped the farmers get involved in all aspects.

At the AGM for the international nut producer cooperative (where 5 candidates are elected to represent farmers) debates are held with farmers from Brazil, Bolivia, Malawi, Mozambique. All are engaged and addressing problems, brainstorming, everybody contributing together. Fairly. This is ‘democracy in action’. It is solidarity; people coming together from different environments as equals.

Sales yield premiums which is important but there are other benefits, such as the importance of social empowerment. Increasing the self esteem of farmers can impact many other areas.

Trade is not enough; Ian talks about the other aspects TWIN gets involved in. The quality of the product must be good enough; businesses must be run effectively; risks must be managed. Enhancing income, access to expertise and ability to influence all need to be considered.

To create long term sustainable impact, long term real commitment is required. This involves investment in capacity, collective action/network, transparency and trust, participation in decision making, connecting further up the chain (ownership) results in sustainability, increased confidence /accountability, enhanced capacity and influence.

The TWIN model is a bottom up approach, using farmer organisation partnerships. But are they really taking control themselves?

How can producers have more of a voice in fair trade?

We discussed the concept of ‘fairness’ in fair. Who decides what is fair? Farmers need to be involved in the strategy of determining what is fair. Imposing democracy v fair trade.

What is the real impact of co-operatives? (needs more research).

What about the mainstream? In terms of Twin’s work with Africa and South America, competing in a global market will have a significant impact particularly with competition from China. Ian believes the time to invest is now – though he acknowledges the risks.