This year we are reshaping our ‘info for action’ activities by putting our popular and visual catering trailer right alongside the campaign space, such that the customers come inside the marquee to get their food and are offered shade from the sun, or respite from the rain, in a comfortable, carpeted action-cafe space, with tea and cake available directly from our kitchen in the marquee.
Not only will festival-goers attend as a result of being ushered in whilst buying their food from Veggies Catering Campaign, but by making the space fun, entertaining and interactive it will attract all kinds of festival-goers. This will be achieved by running discussion workshops, exhibitions, films, talks, cake baking skill-shares, and free food sampling give-aways. All this will be supported by our team of experienced campaigners, and is made possible by those wonderful people at Lush.
170,000 people attend Glastonbury for headliners, left-field bands, workshops, talks, and stalls with many charities taking the opportunity of such a lot of people in one place to raise awareness about various worthy causes. But there’s a gap – that’s Animal Rights, and it’s a problem. Festivalgoers are in an openminded headspace, relaxed and receptive.
Aims:
This project aims at giving Animal Rights a voice to the masses at Glastonbury through a variety of workshops in a dedicated space, benefiting from being annexed to, and sign-posted by, Veggies Catering (an old favourite at Glastonbury since 1987 & 3 times nominated for Glastonbury’s green caterer award). Not only will festivalgoers attend as a result of being ushered in whilst buying their food from Veggies Catering, but by making the space fun, entertaining and interactive it will attract all kinds of festivalgoers.
This will be achieved by running discussion workshops, films, talks, cookery demonstrations, and food sample giveaways.
Long-term, sustained change:
By highlighting this ever-present this educational component of Veggies Campaign Catering, it will entrench a change in thinking about vegan food, about our attitude to animals, and the consequences for the environment. This is the stuff that changes lives and an opportunity not to be missed. Whatever people learn here, they will pass on to friends and family, in casual conversations with co-workers and clients, and to strangers they get talking to over a meal. Enough of those people will repeat that information that awareness grows and grows slowly creating long-term change.
The Badger Action Cafe
The impending badger extermination is harrowingly cruel, farcically unscientific and frighteningly undemocratic. It must be fought on all fronts.
Veggies Catering Campaign is running the Badger Action Cafe at Glastonbury Green Futures Field, to raise awareness of this issue and to raise funds to enable activists to travel to the cull zones to engage in legal, non-violent, direct action to protect the badgers.
We aim to keep the public fully informed of exactly what the government is unleashing in the countryside against totally unambiguous public opinion.
This is a campaign that champions not only a harmless (and already endangered) species’ basic right to existence but also our own human right to be represented by our government, not dictated to by it.
For the tens of thousands of badgers in the final countdown to a brutal massacre, it is now or never!
Activists will be engaging in legal, non-violent, direct action in the countryside where the killings are planned to take place.
Others will be “working the streets” to keep the issue firmly in the public eye.
Veggies Catering Campaign was set up in Autumn 1984 by four friends who were frustrated about the lack of vegetarian fast food available in Nottingham. Their intention was both to provide an ethical fast food stall in the city, and to take the veggie message to a wider audience by participating in demonstrations and gatherings. One of the first things the founders did was to take a giant veggieburger along to a Vegetarian Society protest outside the infamous Royal Smithfield show!
Veggies has grown and evolved a lot over the last [29] years, but the ethical message has remained the same. All food served has been vegan from the start, and as minimally packaged and locally-sourced as possible and practical. Veggies also compiles the national Animal Rights calendar and Contacts Directory, whilst helping run the Nottingham’s Sumac Resource Centre. Veggies has a tightly packed events diary with the co-op providing food in all sorts of situations, like carrying boxes of samosas and cakes on protest marches.
Vegan Housing Co-operative looking for new members
Rose Howey Housing Co-operative is a large house on the edge of a beautiful park near the centre of Liverpool. Its tenants are living together to foster a supportive home which encourages communal living and supports its members to engage with radical social change and ecologically minded living. All communal spaces are vegan and currently with the six adults there are seven children living in the house, including some who are home educated. The vision of the house also includes providing spaces for local community projects (such as The Free University of Liverpool and Migrant Artist Mutual Aid) and for larger national networks.
Single and multi-room units are available for people to join us as tenants or spaces are available for workshops either on a monthly or hourly rate.
Bedrooms from £55 per week.
Workshop spaces (e.g. art studios / office space) from £40 per week or by hourly rate.
As far as possible, new members will be active in creating the vision of Rose Howey, both practically with the necessary restoration and decoration of the house and in creative terms by adding to the energy of the project. However shorter term use of rooms will also be considered.
If you are interested in joining and want to come meet us to see what we’re about or have any questions about our project, get in touch Stacey on stussie@riseup.net, 07858 148538
Veggies Twitter Account includes news of Veggies Events and other activities, and substantial items from like-minded friends.
As we are busy people, and expect that you are too, we do not tweet too often.
We do not intend to document the trivia of our daily lives!
Likewise we tend not to follow others on twitter who tweet too often.
Twitter co-founder, Biz Stone, went vegan in 2001 after visiting Farm Sanctuary.
Biz Stone is also lobbying for vegetarian meals in school lunches. He sent a letter to Rep. George Miller, chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, writing: “Hundreds of thousands of students across the country don’t eat meat, according to a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study. However, these young vegetarians often can’t find healthy, meatless meals in the school cafeteria.”
Biz Stone obviously believes in the power of lunch, because Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters provides free vegan lunches to its employees.
Our friends at CAPS (the Captive Animal Protection Society) have asked us to pass on this opportunity to join their campaigns team:
Campaigns Officer (Full-time)
One of the most exciting and rewarding roles in the CAPS team has become available and we are looking for a dedicated, creative and hard working campaigner to fill the post.
Working with the Director, our supporters, fellow animal protection campaigners and partner organisations, the Campaigns Officer is a pivotal role which covers all areas of our work for captive animals.
Who are we looking for?
The successful Campaigns Officer will be able to demonstrate and give evidence of:
- Experience of working at organisational level within a campaign organisation
- Excellent communication skills, both oral and written, are key requisites
- Experience of writing news releases and campaign materials
- Ability to use database, word processing and e-mail packages
- Enthusiastic and self-motivated and able to work without constant supervision as a member of a small team
- Presentation and public speaking skills and/or experience
- Understanding of, and commitment to, the values of CAPS
- Clear understanding of captive animal issues
- Supporting the general philosophy of animal rights
- Willingness to work beyond normal working hours when required
- Be vegetarian or vegan
Role outline:
- Assisting with researching and writing articles, press releases and campaign materials
- Providing ideas for campaigns and co-ordinating some projects
- Assisting with enquiries from the public, media and others on all areas of our work
- Liaising with local supporters and campaigners
- Giving talks and media interviews when required
- Campaign administration, including dealing with correspondence and filing
- Recruiting and line managing volunteers
- Monitoring the media and responding promptly to new developments
Hours and pay:
The role will be based in our Salford office, Monday to Friday from 9am – 5pm (37.5 hours per week).>
In 1985 Veggies helped establish Nottingham’s Rainbow Centre, later taking on the co-ordination of the running of the space. In 2001 the support generated over the previous decades enabled the purchase of the Sumac Centre, a collectively owned space supporting a wide range of interconnected initiatives, including being the home of Veggies Catering Campaign.
On Satuday 8th December 2012 there is to be a discussion on the future of the Sumac Centre noting, amongst other things, its role as “a meeting place for politically motivated activists, a resource centre and library. Meeting place for vegans and animal rights activists/campaigners and a tool for their propaganda.”
This role hasn’t just happened in isolation.
It is due to Veggies and others being centrally involved in the running of Sumac from 15 years before it even existed. We may feel this role to be carved in stone, and this may well be the case.
However Sumac is simply the sum of its parts so we, as ‘vegans and animal rights activists/campaigners’ must continue to play our part.
If you are free on Saturday 8/12/12 (11am-6pm) please consider supporting the vegan status of the Sumac Centre and its role as a national resource for the animal rights movement.
This Saturday is a Sumac visioning day, a chance for all of you who come to the Sumac Center to bring your excitement, enthusiasm and inspiration in order to help shape the future of the Sumac Centre.
1) Intro
2) Use
- How is the Sumac used?
Meeting place, tat storage, music venue, peoples kitchen, food bank, a base for lots of varied campaigns/alternative cultures, bike project, fundraiser events, information and awareness raising events, film screenings, autonomous DIY infrastructure, ABC letter writing, gardening club.
- Is this the kind of useage we want to continue?
3) Purpose
- What is the current purpose of the Sumac?
A meeting place for politically motivated activists, a resource centre and library. Meeting place for vegans and animal rights activists/campaigners and a tool for their propaganda.
This will include a conversation about whether the sumac is there to engage with the local geographical community or the activist community. It’s a stable part of infrastructure for ‘our movement’.
- Is this the purpose we want to go forward with?
There will be lunch in the middle and we’ll all have a big ole delicous peoples kitchen at the end.
Hope to see you all there.
The Sumac Centre http://www.sumac.org.uk
0845 458 9595
245 Gladstone Street, Forest Fields, Nottingham, NG7 6HX
The Sumac Centre is an independent community and activist resource centre. It is made up of a community cafe, social club, library, exhibition space, veggie catering campaign, filmnights, talks, meeting spaces and the residents. The centre is used by various campaign groups and collectives working towards social change and justice for all. Come and visit us!
You’ll find lots of other useful advice at the VeganFamily site, including info for kids, a full range of family-friendly recipes, shopping sites, books and more, and there’s an Easter section too. To be honest their site is much better than this!
VeggieKids, a project of Viva!, is a one-stop shop for young veggies or vegans — and their parents and carers. For a free download of their recipe booklet, written by children, which includes Chocolate Pudding Cake and a Cashew Mushroom Roast, visit the Veggie Kids website.
For recipes for such delights as Tofu Turkey, a speciality of our Steve, and Christmas Cup Cakes, visit the Vegan Easy website.
Cooking For Vegans offer good advice on how to accommodate vegans and omnivores at the same meal on their Vegan Christmas Dinner site.
They also point out that Christmas recipes are provided by Animal Aid, the Vegan Society and Viva! for starters, main dishes, side dishes, stuffing, gravy and desserts. The Vegetarian Society also have some nice Christmas recipes, not all of them are vegan but they label the ones that are or can be made vegan.
Vegetarian and Vegan France even have a recipe for Christmas Pudding Porridge. They say that this is not as ridiculous as it may seem, as before the 16th century porridge was the original christmas pudding – dried fruit and spices work as well in porridge as in a pudding!
For many more ideas simply add ‘vegan recipe’ to anything you fancy on an internet search, often finding good results on the BBC Food website, which currently includes 1297 vegan recipes!
These events from the the Vegan Outreach Diary provide an excellent opportunity to find dozens, or even 100+ vegan friendly groups and businesses under one room, often with free food samples, talks, films and cookery demonstrations too.
You’ll find lots of Christmas Treats from these vegan stores:
For vegan chocolate, sweets & snacks from a grass-roots vegan campaigner, support Lakeside Ethical Treats
For new and exciting, all-vegan products including a Christmas Plum Pudding, Advent Calendars, Chocolate Apricots and Chocolate Coin Bags visit the Animal Aid Shop
Whilst this roundup aim to encourage (relatively) ethical consumer choices, another option is to ‘Live simply so that all might simply live‘.
Please give the gift of life with a donation to VEGFAM, to “feed the hungry without exploiting animals. VEGFAM helps people overseas by providing funds for self-supporting, sustainable food projects and the provision of safe drinking water.
The supplier of Community Foods vegetable suet has provided the following information about the palm oil used in production of this product:
“Regarding sustainable palm oil we are a member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and our supply chain is validated to BM Trada. The palm oil we buy is “Mass Balance” and as such recognized as sustainable. “
“The palm oil we supply within our product is from the Mass Balance Scheme, which guarantees that for every kg of “non-segregated” palm oil which is sold an equivalent kg of “fully segregated” palm oil is manufactured and sold. This scheme is used to fund the growth in “fully segregated” palm oil plantations, so that supply can fulfill worldwide demand for “fully segregated” palm oil, which is currently not possible.”
The formation of the RSPO has not been without criticism from various sectors, especially the environmental NGOs. The main issues flagged include: The impact of palm oil plantation expansion on the Orang Utan population; Destruction of tropical forest for the new oil palm plantation schemes in South-East Asia; The burning and draining of large tracks of peat swamp forest in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Wikipedea 29Nov12
For a comprehensive Vegan Christmas guide to recipes, vegan fairs, shopping, family friendly advice & more, visit & RT veggies.org.uk/2012/11/vegan-…
“Running a vegan business can be tough as many are run for altruistic reasons, rather than purely to make money. The internet brought with it an opportunity to help vegan businesses by giving them more marketing muscle, and … we set up the Vegan Village website to do this.
“The Vegan Village website went live in September 1997 with contact details for 44 vegan organisations. We sent out monthly newsletters to help establish the Vegan Village concept and encourage people to get involved. In addition to the listings, there was a noticeboard for small ads, a newsdesk for press releases and news stories, and a recipe of the week to encourage people to visit the website regularly. Mini websites were offered at below cost price to help vegan businesses take their first steps on the net.
“The noticeboard processed thousands of free adverts and become one of the most popular vegan pages on the web.
“The Vegan Village was an ever-present in the Google rankings, a recommended site on BBC Search, and remained the quickest, most cost-effective way for new vegan businesses to announce their presence to the marketplace.”
The Vegan Village was archived by UKWAC Web Archive as part of the ‘unfolding recent history of UK events, interests and activities’. The latest snapshop, archived in 2011 continues to be a valuable source of information.
The Vegan Village was ‘run for fun’ by Liz at Digitalis, with grateful thanks to Andy at Imaner. Digitalis continue to offer website design services to vegan and veggie companies and Imaner Consultants continues as an ethical organisation also offering website design services.
“We would like to say a big thank you to everybody who has supported the Vegan Village over the years.”
…meanwhile…
Veggies compiles The Vegan Business Connection (VBC) to encourage mutual support for cruelty-free businesses, i.e. those using no animal ingredients whatsoever and striving to minimise environmental, human and animal rights abuses.
The V.B.C. gives as much importance to the proprietors, as to the goods or services traded. It is to those who run such businesses that we can look for guarantees of their ethical standards, and knowledge of vegan issues.
If you work in a way that is sympathetic to the promotion of veganism, or supply specific vegan goods / services, or wish to recommend someone else, please contact us.
The Vegan Business Connection also forms the Trading Section of the new Veggies Directory. Information is supplied mainly by the businesses themselves, or through recommendations from other sources.
Use them or loose them – support vegan businesses.
The Vegan Outreach Diary lists the increasing number of food-based vegan outreach events, from free food stalls to major vegan festivals.
Event Organisers are urged to check the diary and to submit full event details as soon as a date is set, for details to be added to this nationally coordinated diary. Provisional dates may be submitted too.
The Diary is compiled by Veggies Catering Campaign and updated constantly for use by vegan food campaigners nationwide.
The Vegan Outreach Diary is designed to be reciprocally linked from any other group, website or event with a similar mission, to demonstrate the spirit of mutual support and cooperation that is central to Veggies campaigns.
Nottingham Indymedia, a news site for the East Midlands that anyone can post on.
We hope that you will find our site a useful place to find out about what’s going on in the region and to publish your own news.
What is Nottingham Indymedia?
Nottingham Indymedia is a widely read hub for community and activist news from across the East Midlands. We aim to “give a voice to individuals and communities throughout the region who are marginalised and have no say in the mainstream media.”
The site is open for anyone to publish their news and promote events simply by clicking the Publish button in the top right hand corner of the site.
The more people who post, the better the website becomes and the more
people will read your news.
If you want more information, please reply to this email, check out our help pages or come to our next monthly meeting on Mon 15th Oct, 7.30pm at the Sumac Centre, Gladstone Street, Nottingham.
Double Room, Forest Feilds, Nottingham. Veggie House £65 Per Week
Lovely refurbished house. Short walk to the forest Arboretum NTU tram SUMAC Centre & great local shops. Share with a creative professional female. Available immediately. Rent includes water council tax and broadband.
Contact: Lisa Wilkinson
Email: lisawilkinson_99[at]yahoo.com
Area: Forest Feilds, Nottingham
Entry Date: 20/07/12
Accommodation Wanted
Double Room / House Share (Veggie / Vegan?) 22 – Male
Im a 22 year old male looking for a room to rent/house share. What im looking for is a clean none smoking house that is veggie / vegan friendly. The room would have to be a double room and i can provide my own bed. Ideally would like to be located in the forest fields or Sherwood area in Nottingham city but open to other close locations around Nottingham city. Dont mind living with male or females. Ideally be moving in ASAP! Can view rooms most days!
Contact: Jack Marples
Telephone: 07955592593 07955592593
Email: otis1337(AT)gmail.com
Entry Date: 29/08/12
To seek or offer accommodation, or to see existing offers in all parts of the country visit VegCom UK
Local activists – top trainers – revolution – non-violence – learning from other movements – community – glorious countryside.
Join us in 2012 for more discussions, training and debates on nonviolence, education and the anti-war movement, fuelled by “wonderful (vegan) food from Veggies of Nottingham”
Wednesday 1st to Monday 6th August Ecological Direct Action without Compromise
Workshops, skill sharing and planning action, plus low-impact living without leaders. Meet people, learn skills, take action.
The Earth First! Summer Gathering is the place where people involved in radical ecological direct action – or those who want to be involved – get together for five days of time and space to talk, walk, share skills, learn, play, rant, find out what’s going on, find out what’s next, live outside, strategise, hang out, incite, laugh and conspire.
The 2012 Earth First Summer Gathering will be held on the first weekend of August.
As ever Veggies will be co-ordinating the d-i-y cafe space and holding cake baking workshops.
The UK Animal Rights Gathering is to a great weekend not to be missed, with talks, discussions and workshops on a wide range of issues and activities related to animal rights campaigning, as well as a chance to relax with like-minded people and socialise and network with other campaigners from all over the UK.
The 2012 Animal Rights Summer Gathering on the second weekend of August.
As ever Veggies will be co-ordinating the catering, running a cafe space and holding vegan cookery workshops. More AR Gathering Details…
These three key Gatherings, inspiring and networking for action for humans, animals and the environment, are all to be hosted by hosted by Crabapple Housing Co-op near Shrewsbury.
This year we are reshaping our ‘info for action’ activities by putting our popular and visual catering trailer right alongside the campaign space, such that the customers come inside the marquee to get their food and are offered shade from the sun, or respite from the rain, in a comfortable, carpeted action-cafe space, with tea and cake available directly from our kitchen in the marquee.
On 
You’ll find lots of Christmas Treats from these vegan stores:
The Vegan Outreach Diary lists the increasing number of food-based vegan outreach events, from free food stalls to major vegan festivals.
