We can’t believe it’s already over! Fairtrade Fortnight ran from Monday 23rd February right through until Sunday 8th March 2015. It was chocca-block-full of Fairtrade events, activities and awareness campaigns!
It’s all BANANAS
Here at Social Progress we support Fairtrade by simply providing Fairtrade tea, coffee and sugar at our events and for our visitors/clients when they visit us at HQ. We are also members of the Holme Valley Support group who loaned us their 5ft inflatable banana and a massive inflatable mug to display outside Social Progress and Creative Analysis HQ for the 2 weeks.
Social Progress & Creative Analysis group photo with the giant inflatables
Just in case you don’t know the story already, within 36 hours of tying the inflatables to our yellow Le Tour De Yorkshire bike outside the office, someone ran off with the banana! We used this to our advantage and posted it across our social media and even put up some comedy missing posters in Honley. Within the space of another 48 hours we had; 2 Facebook posts reach at least 1800 people each, many retweets on Twitter, a few puns flying around such as “how appeeling” and “it gave us the slip”. The missing banana was also featured in 3 online newspaper articles as well as 1 printed clip in the Huddersfield Examiner! Although we didn’t get the #MissingBanana back, we did have some very helpful kids from Honley High School alert us that it had been thrown in the river (we assure you that it wasn’t there before – we’re not that silly!)
Helen & Sophie from Holme Valley Fairtrade presenting the new website
Holme Valley Fairtrade Web Launch
After all this excitement, later in the first week of Fairtrade Fortnight we were involved in the web-launch of the brand new Holme Valley Fairtrade group’s website. Hosted at Soul Kitchen, Holmfirth, the event was open to all and had a really good turnout. Local supporters and Fairtrade representatives were amongst the attendees as well as a few local politicians/MPs. We had some of the pupils from Honley High School attend with a teacher who completed the form to be local Fairtrade Supporters and feature on the new website. We even got a group photo taken for the Huddersfield Examiner! Helen Robinson, chairperson for HVFT did the honours of presenting the highly anticipated website: www.holmevalleyfairtrade.com. Well done to Sophie Bebb who worked her socks off sorting the website! It was a great event and we were honoured to be a part of it.
The orange record player and the yellow typewriter are brought out especially for Retro Friday!
Fairtrade #RetroFriday
But the fun didn’t stop there… The following Friday we hosted the first #RetroFriday of the year – a free business networking event for local businessmen and women. It was fab to see so many faces – some familiar and some new. We promoted #FairtradeFortnight alongside Retro Friday and provided free Fairtrade tea and coffee for attendees. Thank you to everyone who came!
fairandfunky’s Fairtrade Conference for Schools
Straight after Retro Friday we ran out the door to get to the fairandfunky Fairtrade Conference for Schools. Because Social Progress was one of the conference sponsors, Janet was given the opportunity to present to some local teachers about the power of social media and how, when used correctly, it can be effective for schools. She used Meltham C.E Primary School as an example, who not only use their social media well but have used it to show their parents/community what they were doing at the Fairtrade Conference for Schools. “Taking small steps to change the world” is the motto for fairandfunky who are pioneers for Fairtrade and put on a variety of events to encourage kids to think Fairtrade from an early age. Their conferences in particular are aimed at bringing the local schools together and encouraging them to be more active about Fairtrade.
Janet presenting to the teachers – Meltham C.E Primary is a great exampl e of how to connect with the community through social media
Phew….
As a general rule we’re not a “shouty” company and we don’t make a habit of plastering Facebook and Twitter with silly updates about lost bananas. But we felt that this time it was a great opportunity to spread awareness of Fairtrade Fortnight and we had a good laugh with it! Thank you to everyone who helped us to spread the word and we hope you enjoyed the past 2 weeks as much as we did!
“Shop local, think global” – Holme Valley Fairtrade
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