Launch at the Farmers Market
[From left; Jeremy Roebuck, SH, Jean Squires, SH, Iain Gray, MSP, Paul MacLennan, ELC Environment Convenor, Sheena Richardson, Provost, Polly Sommerville, SH, and Abbie Marland, SH]
Whoever ordered the weather for the launch of the Haddington Bag did well; the day was bright and calm. Elisa and Polly did a fantastic job preparing and manning the stall, which attracted a lot of interest from people visiting the farmer’s market. Iain Gray, MSP, Councillor Paul Maclennan and Sheena Richardson, Provost, very kindly made time to come and support us at the launch. Many bags were sold, and more importainly, we had the chance to talk to people stopping at the stall about the plastic bag issue.
The stall had a display on the damage plastic bags can do to marine life, and the impact of their manufacture. Some furry marine life was pressed into action to help; a squid, a couple of turtles and a seal. Not quite as cute as the alpaca’s further up the market, but they made their point! There was also a free draw with the prize of a mini-hamper of fairly traded organic goods.
Polly talking an indecisive customer into buying a bag...
Thanks to the hard work of our group we have managed to get some fantastic, ethical shopping bags just in time for Christmas, so we have decided to officially launch the ‘Hadd Bag’ and our Plastic Bag Free Campaign on Saturday 20th December at the
Haddington Farmer’s Market on Court Street between 9am and 1pm.
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On Friday morning I received 1700 Fair Trade organic cotton bags sporting a delightful Haddington skyline design from ethical bag suppliers
Bags2Keep. My husband and I spent several hours on Friday night counting out the bags which had been ordered by participating retailers, and the next morning I made a mad dash in the rain to deliver them. I have to say the retailers were all pretty excited when I arrived, and by the time I’d done my rounds I could see some of them already hanging up behind their counters.
So, ladies and gentlemen…I present The Haddington Bag (and the promo poster!)…
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The Sustainable Haddington community group will be joined by Iain Gray MSP, Provost Sheena Richardson and Council environment spokesman Cllr Paul McLennan at the Farmers’ Market on December 20th for the launch of the “Haddington Bag”.
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Today I was in North Berwick with my Husband, daughter and mother-in-law and as we sat on the wall eating our ice cream and watching the Gannets dive bombing the water for fish we noticed horror of horror…a Tesco plastic bag blowing across the beach and into the water!
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Yesterday I went out onto the streets of Haddington for the second time to speak to the retailers. I have to admit to being nervous, especially after my first experience which consisted mostly of comments like “Too busy, sorry” and “What do you expect us to do with the 5000 bags I have in my stock room?”. I decided to focus on the shops who had already expressed some interest in the campaign and the chain stores.
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Today at around 10.30am we found out that our application for £3750 from the East Lothian Council Community Wellbeing Partnership was approved! A HUGE thank you goes to ELC’s Tom Shearer for his support, and for presenting our application before the Cabinet so quickly, and to Councillor Paul McLennan for speaking up in our favour.
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It’s an unfortunate fact that a project like this can’t really happen without some funding, but luckily for us there are lovely people out there who are ready and willing to help, and that’s where East Lothian Council’s Department of Community Services come in.
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Today I decided to tackle (not literally) some of Haddington’s shoppers to find out about their bag habits. A sunny Friday afternoon seemed like a perfect day for a wee chat but only half the people I approached agreed to stop and take the survey. I understand people are busy and I myself have dismissed people with clipboards without even stopping to find out what they want to know, but it was a bit of a bashing to my ego!
Anyway the results, however small, were very positive and it gave me a good feeling about embarking on this project. We will carry on with the survey until we get a more significant number of results. Then we will start to talk to the retailers and will hopefully be able to give them the good news that Haddington’s shoppers are ready to back our campaign all the way!
Haddington Bag launch 4 comments
