Stall at the Market Spectacular

On Saturday 14th of August we have got a stall at the market spectacular in Darlington, come along and have a look at the next stage of the Food Chain Campaign - look out for the cows, pigs and chickens! New members are always welcome to join.

Darlington Community Carnival

Darlington Friends of the Earth have got a stall at this years community carnival on Saturday 26th June in Stanhope Park. There is a chance for new members to join the group on the day.

Litter Pick

On Saturday 12th June we took part in a litter pick on land just outside Bondgate Methodist church in the town centre. The morning went well and 10 people joined in, 5 adults and 5 children. We collected 5 bags of rubbish over the course of an hour and after our hard work we were kindly invited into the church for a well deserved cuppa! We hope to join in with other organised litter picks in the future.

Greenfair

The Green fair on Sunday in South park was a great success for our group, We got over 100 postcards signed for the next stage of the Food Chain campaign and there was also a lot of interest in the allotment. We also got some new members on board.

Darlington Green Fair

Darlington Friends of the Earth are taking part in this years Green Fair in South Park, Darlington. This is held on Sunday 18th of April between 12pm -4pm.

The Age of Stupid Screening

We are going to be holding the Darlington premier of the film 'The Age of Stupid' on the 1st of December. The screening will be for specially invited guests. There will be an opportunity to have discussion afterwards.
More Details will follow once everything is confirmed.

Thank you

We received this email from Richard Hines from Friends of the Earth.

Dear Food Chain Campaigner,
On behalf of all the food team I’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who got involved with last month’s Food Chain Fortnight. We’ve now exceeded our target number of signatures for Early Day Motion 845 – we’re up to 257 – so you can all give yourselves a big pat on the back for a successful 6 months of campaigning.

On the subject of Early Day Motion 845, it will close on Wednesday 18th November – so if you’ve still got any signed postcards please send them to the Luton address on the back of the card as soon as possible. We’ll make sure that any sent on to MPs after the 18th will have an appropriate cover letter with them, but it would be best to get them out before then.

But back to the Food Chain Fortnight. We’ve set up a gallery of Food Chain Fortnight photos, featuring piñata, postcards and much more. Take a look at http://www.foe.co.uk/community/news/food_chain_fortnight_21705.html. And please remember to send us any more photos your own group has taken.

We’re also after local press coverage from the fortnight, and feedback forms. We need to hear what worked and what didn’t to help make sure that the plans for 2010 work for you. The feedback form is available here:
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/action_guides/food_fortnight_evaluation.doc

So what’s next for the Food Chain Campaign? This year has been a brilliant start, and we’ve gone from almost zero knowledge of the issue in Westminster to having a herd of supportive MPs behind us. But we’ve still got a long way to go before our solutions become law. We’re going to have to build support for actual legislation to fix the food chain – from both MPs and the political candidates waiting in the wings. We also want to do much more to get key community figures – particularly farmers – on board. And we’re putting lots of thought into how we could show people how they fit into the food chain themselves, and what that means for them and their families.

It’s going to be a very exciting 2010 for the Food Chain Campaign!

I’ll be in touch again soon with more campaign updates.

Best wishes

Richard

Richard Hines
Food Team - Friends of the Earth