Food Campaign Update - June 2017

Richard and Liddy reported back on the Sheffield Food Festival event in the Winter Gardens. We put a number of the FoE food booklets on display.

Food Campaign - May 2017

There is an opportunity to contribute to a Sheffield Food Festival event in the Winter Gardens on the late May Bank Holiday weekend.

ACTION:

1. John to contact Gareth Rogers to express interest in 2 hour slot for discussion/workshop 4-6pm on 29 May (Bank Holiday Monday).  Other members to also provide leaflets and materials to use for the event.

Food Campaign Update - February 2017

John has been in contact with Bev from SCA and will be meeting her very soon and would be keen to continue the flexitarian food campaign. We were planning to review the food campaign but this has been postponed until the next meeting as John wasn't able to attend this meeting.

We need to review the food campaign and what might be the most productive future activities to maximise impact, potentially to get campaign to a bigger audience and work with other groups. There is the potential to write a 500-600 word article for a weekly Sheffield Telegraph feature.

ACTIONS:

1. All to review the food campaign next meeting. 
2. Shaun to consider drafting an article for the telegraph about energy storage to address concerns people have about "intermittent" renewables. There is scope for people to write about other issues including food.

Food Update - January 2017

John will contact the Sheffield Climate Alliance with a view to collaboration on food issues. Aaron mentioned that the Our Fair City Campaign will be promoting a food project.

Food campaign - December 2016

John is liaising with other food campaign contacts; including the SCA Food Group although Bev is currently away.

Future Events - December 2016

There are likely to be opportunities to organise “Festival of Debate” events again next year; ideas include films and also other events e.g. a meal in collaboration with the Real Junk Food Project as part of the Food Campaign or an Air Pollution event.

There are a couple of opportunities to use other local events to hand out leaflets and promote the Food Campaign: the Sheffield Food festival 27-29 May and a celebrity chef (Gino d’Acampo) at City Hall on 2 May.

Food Campaign Update - November 2016

The screening of Cowspiracy as part of Festival of Debate was felt to have been successful although only 25+ in audience, possibly due to bad weather and previous showings of the same film. Post-film discussion and venue worked very well. Festival of Debate likely to continue to run annually (Spring only) and they are very happy for us to propose events (films, debates, workshops?). Agreed to discuss/brainstorm ideas and topics (food campaign; air pollution; fracking) at the next meeting.

Global Justice event on Saturday 26 November from 1 to 4 pm at Quaker Meeting House – including showing of film “Dirt” at 1:15pm. We have been invited to do a stall but we do not currently have anyone free to run it, so members are encourage to go along and support.

http://groups.globaljustice.org.uk/sheffield/2016/11/04/food-sovereignty-film-discussion/

John and Richard will liaise with Sheffield Climate Alliance who now have an active food campaign group meeting regularly.

Cowspiracy - Free Film Screening

The global food system is broken. It’s harming our planet and our health, and something needs to change. Sheffield Friends of the Earth and Festival of Debate are inviting you to watch this ground-breaking documentary about the impact animal agriculture has on climate change and the environment. Click here to find out more about our food campaign.

The film will be screened for free (donations are always welcome) on Thursday 17 November 2016 upstairs at Regather, 57-59 Club Garden Road, Sheffield, S11 8BU, For directions see Google Map.

Doors open at 6.30 pm with the film starting at 7.00 pm and finishing at 8.30 pm. A discussion will take place from 8.30 pm to 9.00 pm. The bar will be open for drinks until 10.00 pm.

Please book your free seat via this link as spaces are limited. People without tickets will not be allowed in.

*** UPDATE ***
This event is now fully booked. If you can't make it please let us know so we can use your ticket for someone else. Just email info@regather.net. If you haven't booked yet then keep checking the ticket site in case people drop out.


The Real Junk Food Project will be providing food in the downstairs cafe before the film starts and can be made to take upstairs to eat during the screening. The food menu will vary as they use surplus food from local businesses, supermarkets, catering events, local households, food banks, farms and wholesalers. There is normally vegan, vegetarian, meat and gluten free options. TRJFP also operate a pay as you feel policy.

If you can display any posters then please download them from our downloads section.

Regather has its own brewery on site, specialising in craft ale and suitable for vegans. The beer will be available for sale to drink during the film. Other drinks will be available.

Food Campaign Update - September 2016

John has arranged to meet people from the university of Sheffield to discuss their sustainability documents

John spoke to the Sheffield Climate Alliance  food meeting but no one can attend the next SCA meeting.

Global Justice Sheffield is hosting a food event on Saturday 26 Nov - Francois is to run a stall there about our food campaign

Shaun will contact Festival of Debate to see if we can hand out flyers for our Cowspiracy film at Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's event at Hallam University in October.

Shaun has also contacted MPs to invite them to the Cowspiracy film and provided them with an information book about the campaign. So far only Nick Clegg has responded and he has declined the invitation.

Cowspiracy - Free Film Screening

The global food system is broken. It’s harming our planet and our health, and something needs to change. Sheffield Friends of the Earth and Festival of Debate are inviting you to watch this ground-breaking documentary about the impact animal agriculture has on climate change and the environment. Click here to find out more about our food campaign.

The film will be screened for free (donations are always welcome) on Thursday 17 November 2016 upstairs at Regather, 57-59 Club Garden Road, Sheffield, S11 8BU, For directions see Google Map.

Doors open at 6.30 pm with the film starting at 7.00 pm and finishing at 8.30 pm. A discussion will take place from 8.30 pm to 9.00 pm. The bar will be open for drinks until 10.00 pm.

Please book your free seat via this link as spaces are limited.

The Real Junk Food Project will be providing food in the downstairs cafe before the film starts and can be made to take upstairs to eat during the screening. The food menu will vary as they use surplus food from local businesses, supermarkets, catering events, local households, food banks, farms and wholesalers. There is normally vegan, vegetarian, meat and gluten free options. TRJFP also operate a pay as you feel policy.

Regather has its own brewery on site, specialising in craft ale and suitable for vegans. The beer will be available for sale to drink during the film. Other drinks will be available.

Food Campaign Update - August 2016

Beverly and Louise from Sheffield Climate Alliance attended our meeting to see how we can work together on food issues. They have already created a drop box for storing information and they have meetings with the editor of The Star to see if they can get food issues into the paper. We were given their latest leaflet about the link between food and climate change.

We are working with Festival of Debate and Regather to host a film screening of Cowspiracy. It will be screened on Thursday 17 November with doors opening at 6.30pm. The film will start at 7pm followed by a discussion at 8.30pm. At 9pm the event will formally finish but we have agreed to keep the bar open for a bit longer if people want to chat and drink for longer.

We believe the Real Junk Food project will be open downstairs for food before the film starts.

Shaun went through a list of activities we might want to undertake to raise publicity for the film screening which is part of our flexitarian food campaign. A separate email will be sent out to active members with activities already completed and action points.

Food Campaign Update - July 2016

We have looked once more at the aims, objectives, our vision and strategy to help move our flexitarian food campaign forward. Our main aim is to raise awareness which will keep it simple and easily to attain our goals. We need to be opportunistic to get the message across whenever we can.

We have now got loads of booklets from national Friends of the Earth which we can hand out to the public. Click here for the electronic copy of the book.

Francois is to do the next food blog and he will send it as a letter to the Star (again to raise awareness and to reach a wider audience).

Food waste was mentioned and what we can do on an individual basis. We can also look at the use by/sell by dates and how so much food is wasted due to lack of understanding of these dates. Maybe this could be a future blog post and an article to the newspapers. We now have a great recipe book which is ongoing and we could also include recipes for using leftovers.

The question was asked about how sustainable alternatives are like Quorn. Is anyone up to doing some research into this?

Food Campaign Update - June 2016

The food campaign appears to be stalling at the moment as the meetings have not been taking place for various reasons. It was suggested that we have online/email talks but this did not come to anything.

John has already written an article for our food blog and Beatrice is to write the next one about her experiences during Meat Free May. Shaun suggested that we should write the next one as a letter or an article for The Star and use this as part of the blog to reach a wider audience as only a few people will read our blog posts.

There is a new food leaflet entitled “16 things you need to know about food” which has recently been published by Friends of the Earth. Click here to view the booklet on-line. Shaun has ordered 100 copies for our stalls together with a few other food leaflets. These are on the way and should be delivered before our next stall.

To reach a wider audience with the campaign, Shaun paid less than £10 for several Facebook adverts, but we are not sure how successful these have been. We targeted three audiences from foodies to students and people liking slimming/dieting groups. The group of people interested in food showed very little interest. Only one student liked our post but didn't actually open the booklet. The best response to our adverts were from people interesting in dieting.  At the next meeting we need to consider who else we can target and whether it is sensible to use Facebook for advertisements. John will also promote our food messages on Twitter.

We reviewed the Sheffield Climate Alliance food leaflet, but we thought that it lacked facts and was very focused on industrialised food production and food waste without any flexitarian issues. It was mentioned that Sheffield University is reexamining its pledge on sustainability and Sheffield Hallam University is holding a food waste conference for business (this has since been cancelled).

Food Campaign - May 2016

Sheffield Friends of the Earth Food Campaign
The food campaign is now live so we should be getting more information from the national food group with lots more resources that we can give out. We also need to finalise our recipe book so that can go out too. If anyone has any time to help with this please let us know. Maybe we could split it up so that the burden does not fall just to one person?

Meat Free May
It is Meat Free May so we had a discussion on how people were getting on with this. The answer? Not too good. But it is highlighting some of the difficulties around this. The flexitarian approach seems to be working much better. Ideas suggested

• Sunday dinner then using the left overs for the rest of the week.
• Eating more fish.
• Just buying less meat.
• John has done one blog and it is suggested that one of us submits a blog each month. Beatrice said she could do the next one of her experiences of Meat Free May. 

Vegan Events
The Sheffield Vegan Approach is an event taking place on Saturday 4th June at Sheffield Quaker Meeting House, 10 St James Street.

Free Intro to Vegan Workshop 10am-12pm
Have you been thinking about going vegan? Try it for a month with lots of help, support and free resources. Arrive at 10am for a free introduction to veganism workshop where we run through our 10 easy steps to going vegan. Limited spaces available. You will also receive:

• Free vegan food samples
• Free recipe booklets
• Free online resources
• Free access to online coaching

Free Vegan Food Fair 12pm - 4pm
All welcome! Come and sample an amazing selection of sweet and savoury vegan dishes. There will also be a selection of vegan campaign and business stalls to browse along with talks from the experts and free films. See link here for more details.

Food Campaign

International Day of Peasant Struggle
On Saturday 16th April, Global Justice Sheffield joined forces with a number of other groups to hold a stall on Fargate. The groups involved were, Sheffield Friends of the Earth, War On Want, Grow Sheffield, Regather, Sheffield Climate Alliance, Village Aid, and The Food Assembly.

The purpose of the stall was to highlight the International Day of Peasant Struggle (which falls on 17th April). The aims are for small-scale farmers to have control of their own livelihoods through fair access to land and water, and for all of us to have affordable healthy food in line with our culture.

Having spent time on the stall, Francois suggested that we have a draw like giving away seeds which are very popular with children.

Beatrice was on Sheffield Live radio with Oliver and Jenny to promote this event.

Blog
We are going to organise a blog to promote the Food Campaign. John is to make a start on this and send it round for others to comment on before it goes live. Someone could contribute each month to give some variety.

Students
If you have any ideas to promote the campaign with students then please let us know.

Meeting
The next meeting for the Food Group is to be confirmed shortly.

Food Campaign Update - March 2015

Hayley, John and Sean are the members of the sub group. The aims and objectives have been drafted which is basically to reduce amount of meat in our diets and focus on students. The campaign will be delivered through a cookbook, on-line activity, and social media. The group will explore the local community kitchens and look at the Council's school dinners policy and their food policy and Strategy. Sheffield Hallam University has expressed interest in working with us on this.

Timeline: 

1. Get the recipes sorted; 
2. Global Justice stall; 
3. Festival of Debate (which will take place in the autumn) 
4. Sheffield Food Festival 28 -30 May.
5. Shaun to set up a blog which links with our home page. John and the food group to provide the content for the blog for a launch before April 16th.

Food Campaign Update - February 2016

The current food campaign is to produce a flexitarian recipe book and to influence the University of Sheffield to provide more flexitarian options. Richard mentioned that Sheffield Climate Alliance are interested in the food campaign’s links with climate change.

Sean’s church group has already produced a flexitarian recipe book with around 70 recipes. We agreed to discuss this with Trisha at the next meeting to see if we can re-use recipes to save time and resources.

Shaun suggested spending a small sum of money to get more people liking our Facebook page. We have a small membership base at the moment (66) but some of our posts have gone viral with over 4,500 people reading them. The aim is to have a “Flexitarian Friday” post every week for a year where Shaun schedules a link to a recipe. We agreed to ask Trisha if she could provide 52 links to good flexitarian recipes with very brief comments for each recipe.

It was great to see Emma at our general meeting. She has done lots of work with food issues and has links with SHU Students’ Union.

Trisha wasn’t able to attend our general meeting, but she did make it to the Cowspiracy film screening. If anyone would like to watch it at home, the link is here

Actions:

1. Shaun to contact Trisha about the Facebook recipe campaign and look at ways of boosting our Facebook group with an advert. 
2. Shaun to pass on Sean’s details so Trisha can look at his recipe book.

Climate Rising Update - February 2016

Richard couldn't make it to the Climate Rising event in London, but new member, Emma, had been and was able to give us an update.

One half of the day consisted of talks with guest speakers such as Caroline Lucus and Naomi Klein (via Skype). The other half of the day was dedicated to workshops to learn new skills. Emma told us about Bristol Friends of the Earth’s work on flexitarian issues. Their main focus was trying to encourage large organisations like schools and museums to offer more vegetarian and vegan choices. They were also looking at ways to better promote less meat diets.

January's Food Campaign Meeting

Sheffield Friends of the Earth's next food campaign is on Thursday 14 January 6.30pm downstairs in the Red Deer pub, 18 Pitt Street, Sheffield. S1 4DD. Contact John on johnwilson614@hotmail.com for more details.

Food Campaign Update - December 2015

The food campaign group is focusing their attention on creating a flexitarian cook book which will provide recipes for eating less meat. It is going at a great pace and the group is aiming to provide 100 recipes. The launch of the food campaign is not until February, but it would be useful if people could try out the recipes to make sure that we have not made any mistakes so far.

The group is also working with People and Planet and the University of Sheffield to look at their sustainability document which needs updating. Our focus for the food campaign is on students and healthier eating for them.

At the moment, it is just Sheffield and Bristol Friend of the Earth groups who are involved in flexitarian food campaigning. Once the pilot projects finish we hope it will be rolled out to other groups in our network.

Bristol's local Friends of the Earth group is looking at ways to encourage restaurants to put more vegetarian options of their menus.

The next meeting is on Thursday 14th January at 6:30pm in the Red Deer pub.