Volunteering with JTS - week 3

Hello again and welcome to my belated blog update.

I just wanted to say that I am really sorry for jinxing everybody. At the end of the last blog I lamented the lack of snow I had seen… Cue four days of freezing cold weather and snow/sleet. Yay!

This week started in the beautiful countryside of Blair Athol. On Friday night we packed up the car to head up, only to find the battery dead for no discernible reason. We decided to put that firmly in the ‘deal with it later’ category and we crammed into the working – albeit much smaller car. We were staying in a nice cabin owned by some friends on the bank of the River Tilt. During the first night, it was so cold we didn’t take our coats off until we were getting into bed! We cranked up the heating as high as it would go and then huddled around the little gas fire in the living room trying to stay warm. With the heating on, its version of, full blast the whole night, by the next morning it was warm enough to contemplate getting out of bed.

We woke up to see a fresh covering of snow blanketing our surroundings. We had a very enjoyable slow morning eating breakfast next to the fire watching the red squirrels at the feeder just outside the window. Then we rugged up and went for a walk. We followed the river through the woodlands, past some fields and up to a rifle range. The rocks in the river looked like they were dusted in icing sugar. There were some very cute big horses and fluffy looking cows wading through the snow.

We had a very late lunch at a classic pub, sitting in front of the fire drinking mulled cider and eating steak and ale pie. That afternoon, my god sister (is that the appropriate term for your god mother’s daughter? I don’t know but I’m gonna use it anyway) and I made lime marinated chicken schnitzel with panettone and stewed apples for dessert – Yum!

On the way back to Glasgow (kind of – a bit of a detour really) we had a look at the House of Brewer and the Forth Bridges.

Throughout this week, the family have been playing some fun games. One of those was ‘letters/scatagories’. Basically, you come up with an assortment of catagories ie. Animal. Then you get a random letter and have to come up with a word starting with that letter for each category. The hard part comes because you only get a point for your answer if no one else has got the same one. At any point someone can yell “stop the bus,” and everyone has to put their pens down. This game has been a lot of fun, as we slowly make the categories harder and harder (who thought ‘geographical features’ would be a good category!)

The work week started off with a meeting with a new potential buyer. Then it was on to the office. This week I was getting my teeth stuck into a 10 year impact report. This report has been a great way for me to see the good JTS is doing. I have been; looking at case studies from our producers around the world, finding statistics on the tonnes of produce we have imported and the sheer number of farmers that has helped, and seeing how JTS has grown.

I have been focussing this week on Ma’s Kitchen coconut milk. We are the only importers in the UK of Fairtrade, organic and Good Taste Award winning coconut milk. The company is doing some great things in Sri Lanka. They run onsite childcare for the factory workers, provide free school supplies for the factory workers’ and farmers’ children, offer advice and loans for the farmers to get their organic certification, employ differentially abled persons in various positions in the company (such as Lalith who has been an employee for over 20 years and is blind). They use their supply chains to restore economic balance in the war-torn northern parts of Sri Lanka and offer loans and financial advice to both the farmers and factory workers. Ma’s kitchen is also dedicated to being environmentally sustainable. They work on a circular economy where 99% of the by-products from producing the coconut milk is used in other areas of the industry.

Unfortunately, people seem to have clued in to what a great product this coconut milk is, and it is ‘flying off the shelves’. We are super chuffed about the demand, but at this point supply is not quite keeping up. We are out of stock, but some more is on its way.

This week on the days it has not been ‘dreich’, we have had the most amazing sunrises. I’m not sure if they are better than Australian ones. In Adelaide, sunrise is at 6 and I don’t care how beautiful it is I’m not waking up early for it. Quarter past 8 sunrises are a little more reasonable.

I have been contacting our producers to get little birthday videos from them. Howard from Malawi mentioned reading about the ‘Australian girl’ working for JTS. You hear that, my blog’s gone global 😊

On Tuesday I got ready to head to the Scottish specialty food festival. I got as far as central station then found train after train cancelled due to the heavy snow. I was later told unless I had a sudden craving for gin and tartan I didn’t miss all that much.

On Wednesday I finished the last of the letters. Now we just have to frank all 2,000 of them (but that’s going to be Jade’s job).

Throughout the week I have been going to local girl guide and brownie groups. Back in Adelaide I am a scout leader, so I thought I would give them a visit to talk to them a bit about scouting in Australia. It ended up being more like an Australian myth busting session. “In Australia do you really….” “No that’s AMERICA, there is a difference!”

My god sister and I made a Fairtrade white chocolate biscuit bar with cranberries and pistachios on top. It was delicious, if insanely sweet. We have sent off the recipe to be printed, it should be ready for Fairtrade Fortnight; whose theme is fittingly cocoa farmers.

On Friday I spent the day volunteering at the Scottish Fair Trade Forum. It was a great way to experience yet another side of fair trade in this country. The forum acts as a liaison between the government, NGOs, local traders and the general public. Their membership is made up of councils, schools, retailers, traders like JTS, aid groups, universities and faith groups. The forum works to maintain Scotland’s status as a Fair Trade Nation. It aims to integrate Fair Trade principles into all levels of the government and business community. It also raises awareness of fair trade to the public through producer visits. During Fairtrade fortnight, a producer will be travelling to Perth to tell us about her experiences as a female cocoa farmer in the Côté d’Ivoire. There will be other events during the fortnight. You can keep up to date with their events calendar. While I was there I was working to create a Fairtrade Fortnight feature in their newsletter. We are planning to find out the views of a range of our members on the importance of Fairtrade Fortnight. My task was to create a survey and an interesting way to present the findings. I created a MyMap to display the breadth of dispersion of their members. My last act of the day was to post a message on their Facebook and Twitter pages thanking myself for being there… that was definitely a first for me!

Have a great week – stay warm (or cool for my new southern hemisphere readership!). I hope you enjoyed reading.