While they’d been cycling 60 hilly miles, we’d been having fun with CIRCUS ERUPTION getting everyone juggling and unicycling (well; trying to!) and ONE PEOPLE PRODUCTIONS leading film making workshops, getting footage for a film we’re planning to show in Fairtrade Fortnight.
Children with cameras and crazy first-time unicyclists zig-zagged across the hall… but we all got out alive!
We didn’t get as many people coming as we would have if it wasn’t Halloween, but the stalls did well as peoples’ attention turned to Christmas, with DRAGON’S GARDEN’s fair trade hats and gloves and OXFAM’s fair trade crackers and cards all selling well.
Organising an event on Halloween was bad timing for us, but on the other hand the date was good because Henry Olonga was in town that day. Speaking at Ammanford Evangelical Church (One of the most active local Fairtrade churches) in the morning, he stayed on to attend our event. Test cricketer, social justice campaigner, singer, painter, photographer and writer. He could juggle too! But even he couldn’t unicycle! (He probably could really, but didn’t want to make us feel too jealous!!)
The riders arrived 10 minutes before the caretaker was due to lock up, so they didn’t even get a cup of tea until we all got to my house!
They did get a well deserved reception from the loyal legion who’d stayed on though, including town mayor Ray Spencer who was determined to stay until she’d congratulated and thanked them.
At our house we enjoyed re-living the ride and the event, with frequent interruptions from trick and treaters who were fed Co-Op chocolate eye balls and Traidcraft Geo Bars!
The good thing about the Hay riders arriving later than planned was that they got to meet Toby and John from the Fairtrade Foundation who were staying over, ready to get up early to ride the next leg.
The next morning was chaos. Four kids to get to school. Four adults to get to a bike ride. And all by half past 8! But we did it… and had a lovely breakfast made by my lovely daughter Rosa. (I should cover myself at this point by stating that my other 3 daughters are lovely too! But it was Rosa cooking the muffins, teacakes and veggie bacon butties, so she was everyone’s favourite that morning!)
We thought we had a challenge to get to the i-SMOOTH community café by 8.30, but Mike was up before 6am to ride the 26 miles from his home just to get to the start of the ride!
Also there to ride were Ian and Phil from Carmarthenshire Council, and Alan Cram, fairtrade supporter and all round nice guy, and friend of Ammanford Fairtrade Town Group pioneers Annette and Dewi. Among those coming to support were MP Jonathan Edwards, AM Rhodri Glyn Thomas and Town Councillor Jane Potter, showing the widespread political support we’re lucky to have in Ammanford for Fairtrade.
After posing for a bit of a bizarre photo which makes us look like we’re trying to communicate some kind of semaphore message (“Buy Fairtrade”, I presume!) (See attached photo), the riders rode off, and me and Clare jumped in the car to follow. Supposedly a support car, we actually just seemed to be on a bit of a café crawl, meeting up with the riders at each stop. At least Clare was working hard, driving and filming. I was just being chauffered and being fed cake. I felt relieved when I got a call from the Evening Post as we were driving into Cardiff so I could at least say I’d done some media work on the way!
First stop, after a lovely autumn ride along golden leaved lanes out of Ammanford, was at Bikeability at Dunvant Rugby Club. The organisation was set up to enable people of all abilities to enjoy the pleasures of cycling on specially designed bikes, including hand cycles, trikes, go karts, quad cycles, tandems and wheelchair transporters.
David, Colin and Rob joined up with the ride here, but first tried out the Bikeability bikes, which resulted in Rob falling off a bike before he’d even started the ride!
This was meant to be a rest stop for the cyclists, but they couldn’t resist trying out the various bikes on offer. Clare filmed (Sorry, Rob – She did catch you falling off!). I ate cake.
Then on down the cycle way to the beautiful Swansea Bay. A week before, me and Clare were at her sister’s wedding at the Registry Office which the cycle path goes by, enjoying the lovely clear blue skies. To have it so nice for the bike ride as well as the wedding photos seemed too much to ask, but despite the laws of probability and the reputation of Swansea weather, there really were two consecutive nice dry Mondays in Swansea at the end of October and start of November!
We met up with the riders again for more tea and cake and more photo opportunities at the Environment Centre in Swansea, base of many good things, including Swansea Fairtrade Forum.
Phil and Ian dropped off here to get back to Ammanford by train and Alan dropped off to go on a trip to visit family in England which he’d delayed to join in the ride. Joining in here was Brian, to complete the full list of magnificent riders!
It would have been nice to have stopped in one of Swansea’s fairtrade cafes for lunch, but it seemed psychologically important to at least be in Port Talbot before lunch. So we decided to opt for lunch at TESCO in Port Talbot; not for its culinary reputation, but so we could complain about the lack of fairtrade drinks in the café.
I’d used up my supply of Fairtrade Foundation cards saying “Dear Store Manager, Please Stock More Fairtrade Products” at the school event on Sunday, so instead we filled in a customer feedback form and sent a free text to 80072 : “We are part of the 500 mile Fairtrade Bike Ride. Stopped at your Port Talbot store for lunch BUT no Fairtrade drinks in café .” (You can do it too in your local TESCO!)
What a glorious contrast the next stop was : The Living Café in Cowbridge. A dream of a Fairtrade café! Lots of cafes now have the basics of fairtrade tea and coffee. But this café goes much further, with a mouth-watering selection of fairtrade cakes and snacks. Looking back now, I can’t believe all I chose was one of those really thin Cadbury’s bars! Maybe I just felt like I deserved less as the cyclists’ mileages went up! John definitely deserved his two pieces of carrot cake!
Sadly it seems that The Living Café is on a site that WAITROSE want to build on, so they may be pushed out. WAITROSE really had better make sure they’ve got better fairtrade cafes than TESCO if they’re going to force out one as good as The Living Café! (The fight’s not over yet, so hopefully The Living Café will stay alive… but just incase : Go visit now! And tell them if they do get knocked down by WAITROSE they’ve got to open up somewhere else quick!)
It was while we were in The Living Café that John got a call from someone working with sugar producers in Belize. “Tell them about the bike ride” he told him, and the fairtrade link from campaigners to producers and raw product to sales was all perfectly illustrated in one long distance call.
Inspired by that call and that cake in that cafe, on they rode to the lovely welcome at Cardiff’s Millennium Centre.
(At this point I need to mention David Naylor and David Judd who worked out routes, mileages and timings for us; timings which proved correct almost to the minute!)
As Cardiff’s Welcome Event continued, the riders got the pats on the back they deserved… and posed for lots more photos. Clare carried on filming. And I had a fairtrade chocolate brownie!
(For more details of the welcome, and the whole 500 miles of the full ride, go to thefairtradefoundation.blogspot.com)
Phil Broadhurst
Ammanford Fairtrade Group
http://www.ammanfordfairtrade.blogspot.com/
P.S. The next day Environment Minister Jane Davidson, who was at the Millennium Centre, talked about the ride at a Walking and Cycling conference she attended. The legacy of the ride continues!
No comments:
Post a Comment