Category: Education

Education, Shop

BrickLive Animal Paradise

Elise Kelly

Here’s looking at you! FREE FUN!

Turtles and tortoises are endangered animals. Until 15 August 2021, there is one for you to find in Paisley ( – let us know whether it is a tortoise or a turtle?) There are 15 animals in total.

One of the species, wanders about Paisley. Rainbow Turtle has just hosted the wandering, endangered visitor – Ginger the Giraffe. He is the only animal not made of bricks and goes out on tour as part of https://paisleyfirst.com/ BrickLive Animal Paradise trail: the local trail showcasing endangered animals of the world, represented in bricks, and placed all around the centre of Paisley.

You can pick up a leaflet in our Rainbow Turtle shop – and other outlets in town. FIND all of the animals, enter the PRIZE DRAW and you may WIN! FUN for all of the family and FREE.

Ginger is not so easy to find because he moves around every few days. Now you see him, now you don’t… To find him, look for the clues online @Paisleyfirst, or in the Piazza Shopping Centre, Paisley Centre, or at the Paisley First office on the corner of County Square and Gilmour street.

There are serious messages amongst this fun. By identifying the endangered species, we can start out on our road of learning to be protectors, rather than predators and do our bit to help to save these hugely important animals. By taking the trail, we find our own local treasures: our local businesses, helping you to Live Life Local and to Love Paisley – they also need preserving from the threat of becoming endangered.

Let us help everyone and everything.

On the theme of turtles: Rainbow Turtle shop, located at 7 Gauze Street, Paisley, PA1 1EP, has push along turtles, turtle puzzles, turtle bags, nodding head turtles (large and small), turtle notebooks, turtle incense holders and a huge variety of other toys, gifts, and goodies galore…

To find the turtle made of bricks (or is it a tortoise?), pick up a leaflet and embark on the BrickLive Animal Paradise trail!

Education, Shop

JOIN IN! Become a FRIEND of RAINBOW TURTLE and SUPPORT SCOTLAND

Elise Kelly

Rainbow Turtle is a charity that supports Fair Trade, and ethical, sustainable living. It is a beacon for Paisley, a Fair Trade town, for Renfrewshire, a Fair Trade council and for all of Scotland, a Fair Trade nation. JOIN IN, become a supporter and WIN for inclusive economic growth, fair wages and better working and living conditions!

Fair Trade works to transform trade, to achieve justice, equity and sustainability for people and the planet. It matters! You can help us to spread the word from as little as £12 / year for membership of Rainbow Turtle.

Every new membership helps us to spread the word that trade can be fair and ethical. We use the money to educate the public via our shop, visits to organisations, schools and churches, stalls, and through direct work with producers and wholesalers.

You can Gift Aid your membership.

You are very welcome to get in touch / visit us TODAY and EVERY DAY!

  • Phone our shop/office on 0141 887 1881.
  • Visit our shop at 7 Gauze Street, Paisley, PA1 1EP.
  • You can keep up to date by subscribing to our monthly newsletter. Clicking on the link will take you to an online form. Please note that when you complete it you will be sent a confirmation email. If you haven’t received the email within 5 minutes check your spam or junk mail folder.
  • Or you can email us using our contact form: https://www.rainbowturtle.org.uk/contact-us/

Tell your friends, family and colleagues – they are all WELCOME

Education, Seasonal, Shop

TRAIDCRAFT WEEK – Photography Competition

Elise Kelly

This week is Traidcraft Week – a celebration of everything Fair Trade – here with a competition to win a £50 Traidcraft voucher or a Traidcraft hamper. The theme: AL FRESCO

All you have to do is submit photographs of your favourite outdoor spaces, such as parks, beaches, canals, forests or even your own back gardens, to: marketing@traidcraft.co.uk

Closing date is 27 June 2021 – so HURRY!

Why hurry? – because you want to win that Fair Trade hamper. The food is fabulous and fair. Or you may win £50 to spend in Traidcraft. How lucky is that? Their products are wonderful and by shopping there you are also helping developing countries.

Traidcraft has been on the go for over 40 years, pioneering fair trade.

The organisation was founded in 1979 by radical, church-based individuals importing goods directly from artisans and growers and distributing them directly to shoppers in the UK, cutting out the middlemen. The team collaborated with the growers and artisans throughout the process: they were all partners – working together to show trade could be different, and could be fair. They still do – only on a bigger scale. In 1992, Traidcraft co-founded the Fairtrade Foundation, and helped establish the standards that underpin today’s well-recognised Fairtrade Mark.

Time to get clicking…

Education

EDUCATION OFFICER – Job

Elise Kelly
Educate, Inform, Campaign

Rainbow Turtle is seeking to recruit an experienced and enthusiastic Education Officer

https://goodmoves.com/vacancy/a4s3z00000xnZteAAE/Education-Officer

Commitment: Part time 14 hours per week. Some additional hours may be available depending on funding

Salary: £18,000 pro rata

Location: Paisley. Homeworking available with negotiation

Annual Leave: 20 days pro rata + public holidays

Rainbow Turtle is seeking to recruit an education officer to fill a current part time vacancy. The successful candidate will provide workshops, talks and conferences to schools, community and church groups about fair trade. They will be a self-motivated person who can share their passion about fair trade with their audiences.

Requirements to apply for the post: a current CV with the names of two referees, accompanied by a personal statement demonstrating how you would meet the skills and qualities essential for this post.

For more information and to request a job description, contact: info@rainbowturtle.org.uk.

Closing date: Wednesday 30th June

Education, Podcasts, Seasonal

Liz Cotton interview part 1 of 2

rainbowturtle2002

Welcome to our very first interview in our new podcast series, Rainbow Turtle Rebooted. To mark the beginning of Fair Trade Fortnight 2021 we’re bringing you the first part of a two part interview with founder and former director, Liz Cotton.

Liz has had an interesting and successful life which culminated for us in the creation of Rainbow Turtle, the fair trade shop and charity in Paisley, Scotland. Sit back and enjoy the first half of her interview with Colum Scriven where she talks about her early influences and what led her to open our fair trade shop in Gauze Street…

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast please subscribe to it with your favourite podcast provider and then rate us with five stars! (If you can’t find this episode with your provider, please be patient. The day we went live with this episode our podcast host suffered a hack attack!)

Education

Campaigns & Organisations Course

rainbowturtle2002

With lots more time being spent at home, many of us have turned to online learning as a way to not only fill time and entertain us, but also broaden our horizons when the world can feel so small. Our Education Officer, Gemma, has been trying out some Fair Trade focused courses, previously recommending the Who Made My Clothes? course on our blog.

This month, Gemma has been learning from a more general course, hosted by the Open University on their free platform Open Learn. The course, Campaigns and Organisations, covers how to effectively manage a campaign as part of a charity or voluntary organisation – something that many Rainbow Turtle supporters may find interesting in the run up to Fairtrade Fortnight! It’s a short course – said to take around 2 hours of online study – that gives lots of useful information in a straightforward way.

It begins with a short case study about a parent teacher association which is campaigning for the lowering of the speed limit on roads within the vicinity of its school and uses their example to emphasise the importance of focusing efforts on one issue at a time and knowing who the issue will benefit and who to target to get it done.

Particularly interesting is a recorded interview between Terry O’Sullivan, Senior Lecturer in Management at the Open University Business School, and Chris Stalker, Head of Campaigning Effectiveness at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. They discuss many important factors to consider when campaigning, with the most salient advice being to be absolutely clear from the beginning about what you are trying to achieve. They also cover how to decide who to target with your campaign (e.g. political figures or the general public), how to manage problems (such as focusing too much on either fundraising or campaigning activities), how to approach the media, how to use technology in your campaign, and how to assess your impact as you progress. Most interesting for Rainbow Turtle was their advice on how to “punch above your weight” in campaigning as a small organisation by considering carefully how to use your finite resources of time and money.

The Open University pack in a great deal of useful information into this very short – and free! – course and it will be a huge help to many campaigners, particularly if they are just starting out.

Education

Fair Trade Ideas Online

rainbowturtle2002

With lockdown continuing across Scotland, and Rainbow Turtle staying closed for the time being, you might be looking for somewhere to get your fix of Fair Trade fun and information…

5 Ways to Choose the World You Want in 2021

The Fairtrade Foundation have compiled a list of five ways to celebrate and learn about Fairtrade and look ahead to a better 2021 while we’re all stuck at home. Their suggestions include their upcoming Choose the World You Want festival, a look at how Fairtrade is aiding in the empowerment of female workers, and more! Click here for more information.

Development, Enterprise and Trade Webinar

Martin Rhodes, the Chief Executive of the Scottish Fair Trade Forum, is chairing a webinar on 28th January, looking at sustainable development and sharing learning from the Malawi CROPS project. This is a great opportunity for those interested in Fair Trade and sustainability to hear about this directly from those who work on it around the world.

Making Veganuary Extra Good – Vegan and Fair Trade

Just Trading Scotland are celebrating Veganuary over on their blog, with loads of ideas for recipes that are both vegan and Fair Trade. We sell a large range of JTS’s products in the Rainbow Turtle shop, so you may already have some of them in your cupboards, ready to be turned into a delicious vegan meal!

Let us know over on social media if any of these ideas inspire you!