Setting up a Fairtrade group takes a great deal of commitment and hard work and it is all voluntary. The perfect Fairtrade group would be about 5 dedicated volunteers, one responsible for admin, Information Technology and the local councils, one for schools, one for religious groups and community groups, one for publicity and fundraising, one for local businesses.
This is why so many groups fail because they cannot get the volunteers and the expertise. The latest group to fail is the Cardiff group, and now it is Llanelli. The problem is that the people who make good volunteers are also already volunteering and very busy themselves. To take on another role is just impossible.
Three amazing women came on board to help me from drowning, Sandra Llewelyn, Wendy Harrison and Sarah Jayne Rees. All volunteers themselves, Sandra runs 50+ Carmarthenshire, Sarah runs Bynea Cycling Club, and Wendy takes care of elderly parents. In the end, after all our struggles, we had to admit that we could not hold Fairtrade together.
When I moved to Llanelli — Upper Tumble to be exact — in 2017 I was already a Fairtrade volunteer from other groups in Hampshire. I wanted to join the local Fairtrade group but it was completely fractured. We did not have Fairtrade status.
Apparently, in 2008, they tried to gain Fairtrade status but did not succeed. The problem is that to gain Fairtrade status, you have to do a great deal of work to earn it. You have to keep a diary of everything that you are doing as your evidence. You have to gain council support from the Town, Rural and Community councils. You have to give talks, run a Fairtrade stall, set up a Facebook page and a website, apply for funding, publicise your work and so on. In other words you have to earn your status.
Finally there is Fairtrade Fortnight where you have to put on events, the last week of February and the first week of March, every year. So, as you can see, the commitment is huge. Also when you apply for status, the first time, you have one probationary year. You then have to prove yourself for another year. If at the end of that year, you achieve status, then you become a real group where you only have to apply for status every 2 years.
But you still have to keep your diary and make sure the work continues every year. I realised that we could never make Llanelli a Fairtrade Town as there was not enough Fairtrade. However there are all types of Fairtrade groups. I have been involved with a Fairtrade borough, town, village and, of course, there are Fairtrade cities. Finally, there is a Fairtrade zone which is what I applied for for Llanelli and I achieved that in 2018. I did have support from various local people like David Darkin who had terrific IT skills, loads of contacts and a local businessman running his architect business. I could not have set up our Fairtrade group without him. Whenever I have needed help, David has been there. He has not had time to remain a member of the group but he has NEVER let me down.
In 2018, we achieved Fairtrade status for the first time.
In 2019, we achieved the second probationary status. From then, we achieved it in 2021. The next renewal date is 2023. So if anyone wants to take this over, there is scope for them to do this fairly easily as long as they have a group of 4 or 5 people with them.
We will do a very basic Fairtrade Fortnight this year so we can keep it going for an easy takeover if anyone is interested. So, on the 5th March after Fairtrade Fortnight, Fairtrade Llanelli will close down.
The greatest tragedy for us was that we were one of the high- flying groups in Wales, with a green light, proving to the Welsh government that the funding for Fairtrade Wales was worth every penny.
Wales, after all, was the first Fairtrade country and it means a great deal to the Welsh government as they have massive links with Africa. We had become known nationally and internationally.
Over the past five years, with the help and support of local people, some community development officers, we have staggered on.
During that time, we have done hundreds of stalls in markets, at events all over the area, radio interviews and our last push was for Fairtrade Friendship benches to link them with Mental Health support. We only managed to get two done, one for Pembrey and Burry Port Town Council and one for Llanedi Community Council.
Fairtrade is about supporting farmers and workers in the developing world but we also support local farmers and workers, promoting everything Welsh.
We have given talks to schools and the Business Studies department of Coleg Sir Gar, churches and community groups. We have given out Fairtrade bananas, Fairtrade footballs and rugby balls.
We have dressed up in banana suits. I have written newspaper articles for the Llanelli Standard. We have run the Facebook page kindly set up for us by David Darkin and our website set up free of charge by Robert Walters of Paragon IT specialists, another local business.
Both these men had become our workplace champions. We had given out hundreds of leaflets, flyers, posters, stickers.
The work has been ongoing, and because we did not have a group of 5 all working together the workload was horrendous.
In the end, these dear friends, Sandra, Wendy and Sarah, stepped up to try to help, but with all their other commitments, they could not give the time. We all realised that we could no longer commit ourselves to Fairtrade.
I am 75 years old with mental health problems and I knew that we were right. We had to close down Fairtrade Llanelli.
The one positive thing is that we have Fairtrade status until 2023. So it will be easy for another group of volunteers to take it over. If you do, please contact Sandra Llewelyn on our Facebook page.
With great sorrow, I say goodbye to Fairtrade Llanelli, but as a Fairtrader of long standing, I will continue to write articles about Fairtrade every month for the Llanelli Standard.
