Stretton Focus Community Voice of the Strettons September 2004 70p Rich Poor World World 09-04 1 11/8/04, 10:07 am Stretton Focus Community Voice of the Strettons September 2004 70p Rich Poor World World 09-04 2 11/8/04, 10:08 am Stretton Focus Community Voice of the Strettons September 2004 70p Rich Poor World World 09-04 3 11/8/04, 10:10 am STRETTON FOCUS Contents (founded 1967) News Average monthly sales: 1,450 copies. Operation Christmas Child . 7 (About 65% of households in Church Stretton) Steam Powered Website . 11 Medical Centre . 26 Chairman David Jandrell . .724531 Wheelie Bins . 33 Co-Editors Norma Taylor . .723617 Tourism Group . 33 Pat Oxtoby . .723199 Renaissance Centre . 36 Rachael Sankey . .720024 Arts’ Festival . 36 Bill Forsythe . .724100 Dog Show Winners . 39 Computer Production Barrie Raynor . .723928 Salop Musica . 42 Rowland Jackson . .722390 Forthcoming Events Cover Design Paul Miller . .724596 Distribution Jon Cooke . .723205 Mayfair Courses . 6 Advertising Len Bolton . .724579 SCAT Courses . 7 Treasurer John Wainwright . .722823 Long Mynd Hike . 18 Secretary Janet Peak . .722994 Stroke Association . 28 Stretton Choral Soc . 28 email address: [email protected] Regular Features Advertisements. Rates for block and occasional Anglican Voice . 12 advertisements may be obtained (send s.a.e.) from the Catholic Voice . 14 Advertising Manager, Len Bolton, ‘Oakhurst’, Hazler Focus on Faith . 28 Road, Church Stretton, SY6 7AQ, Tel: 01694 724579 to Herbary . 14 whom copy should be sent. Know your Computer . 39 Letters . 39 The Stretton Focus Management Board cannot accept Mayfair Lottery Result . 18 responsibility for any product or service advertised. Now and Then . 17 Acceptance of an advertisement does not imply any form Out and About . 42 of approval or recommendation. Advertisers are required to Quaker Voice . 33 comply with the British Code of Advertising Practice. Recipe . 40 Stretton Football . 9 Submission of articles. Material on 31⁄2˝ disks or CDs, and Thank you . 17 typed or handwritten copy together with good quality glossy Town Council Minutes . 35 colour or monochrome photographs should be handed Trivia Corner 10 . 30 directly to Stretton Focus c/o Wrights, Estate Agent, Trivia Answers . 42 Sandford Avenue by noon on the date below. Material may URC Voice . 11 also be sent by e-mail to [email protected] as an Weather . 30 attachment by the same copy date. What’s On . 3 Disclaimer. Stretton Focus prints a wide range of articles Other Items and letters. The views expressed by signed articles are Coffee (cover article) . 5 those of their authors and not necessarily those of the Attingham Park . 9 Management Board. General Weather . 30 Poem . 39 Copy day is normally the first Monday of the month. Forthe Percy’s Memories . 40 October issue it is Monday 6th September 2004 (12.00 noon). Poorf Reading . 42 The October Stretton Focus will be distributed on Friday 1st Ocober. Outlets. Stretton Focus may be purchased by annual subscription (delivered) or directly from Newsworld (Sandford Avenue), All Stretton Stores, Coop, Longmynd Filling Station (A49) and the Churches. © 2004 Stretton Focus ISSN 1479-7356 The Official Church Stretton web site is at www.churchstretton.co.uk. Stretton Focus is printed by WPG, Welshpool Have you visited it yet? Stretton Focus - 2 - September 2004 September 2004 mag 1 13/8/04, 3:20 pm What’s On in the Strettons • WEDNESDAY If you wish to know the times of regular meetings of SEPTEMBER 15th societies and groups, please consult the list of societies Courses by S.C.A.T. and their contacts in the central ‘yellow pages’. 6.30pm to 8.30pm, Parish Centre, Church Stretton • THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 2nd Enrolment for courses. Further Church Stretton & District Gardening Club details - Page 7 Dorothy Clive Garden, Market Drayton Cost: £8.50 • THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 16th Stretton Choral Society Stretton Choral Society 7.30pm, URC Hall, Church Stretton 7.30pm, URC Hall, Church Stretton First rehearsal. New members welcome. AGM. New members welcome. Further details - Page 28 Further details - Page 28 • FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 17th • SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 4th National Trust - Wildlife at Walcot Saturday Film for Children 7.30pm to 10pm, Pavilion, Carding Mill Valley 10.30am, Hope Bowdler Village Hall Tracking bats with bat detectors. This event will be ‘Cat and Hat’ cancelled if raining heavily. Cost: £1 • TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 7th • SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 18th Church Stretton & District Flower Club Country Dancing 7.30pm, Silvester Horne Institute 8pm, Ticklerton Village Hall. Contact: 01694 722418 Mrs Kate Edwards - ‘I had a dream’ • Much Wenlock Male Voice Choir • WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 8th 8pm, Rushbury Village Hall. Contact: 01694 771597 Flicks in the Sticks 7.30pm, Hope Bowdler Village Hall • TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 21st ‘Freaky Friday’ Contact: 01694 723648 All Stretton Womens Institute 7.30pm, All Stretton Village Hall. • FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 10th Pat Dyer - ‘Home and Hearth’ Little Stretton Village Hall 7.30pm, Games evening - light refreshments, glass of wine. Countrywomen’s Guild Tickets from Keenan’s shop: £3 adults, £1 children. 2.15pm, Parish Centre, Church Stretton Mervyn Williams - ‘The Joy of Travelling’. Taoist Tai Chi Society of Great Britain 10am – 12 noon Parish Centre, Church Stretton • THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 23rd New beginners` class starts with free introductory talk and Church Stretton & District Gardening Club demonstration. For more information please ring 01694 Eastgrove Cottage Garden nr. Worcester & Old Court 724325 or 01743 369787. Nursery and Picton Garden nr. Malvern. Cost: £14.50 Courses by S.C.A.T. • TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 28th 4pm to 6pm, Church Stretton School. Enrolment for Church Stretton & District Gardening Club courses held in the school. Further details - Page7 7pm, Silvester Horne Institute, Church Stretton Talk by Mr & Mrs Pitwood: ‘The Making of a Garden’. • MONDAY SEPTEMBER 13th Cost: £1 for members, £1.50 for non-members. Stretton Scottish Dancers 7.30pm, All Stretton Village Hall Rachael Sankey Classes start again, new members welcome. Contact: Denis & Ann Ashworth, 01694 722325 ‘What’s On’ - Contributions • TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 14th f your society has regular monthly meetings which Church Stretton Womens Institute are open to non-members and you would like to 7.15pm, Silvester Horne Institute publicise them in ‘What`s On’, please let us have Mrs Elizabeth Chapman - ‘Thomas Telford’s work in I your programme for the season and we will feature each Shropshire’. meeting, whenever possible, in the appropriate issue of Focus. All Stretton Village Hall 2pm, Family Walking Treasure Hunt Please make it clear if you do not wish your item to Bangers and mash. appear on the Church Stretton web site. Stretton Focus -3 - September 2004 September 2004 mag 2 13/8/04, 3:20 pm Coffee – a Good Harvest? ‘Mugged: Poverty in your Coffee Cup’ (Oxfam) prices are high, as a means of boosting desperately-needed ‘Coffee the Speculators’ Plaything!’ (Fair Trade export earnings. However, a coffee tree can take about Yearbook) four years before it produces a crop – by which time the ‘Why cheap beans don’t make cheap coffee’ (BBC) stimulation of production or else good growing seasons can result in a glut, flooding the market and world prices hat is it about coffee, which stimulates such collapse. The farmer is the first to suffer. headlines? The reason is simple in that in Wrecent years, coffee has become a grower’s The coffee trade is dominated by a few major international nightmare. 80% of the world’s 25 million coffee farmers companies who control the whole route from the harvest to are smallholders working on less than 3 hectares and so sell the consumer. As coffee farmers are mostly small producers small quantities. they are at the mercy of the market and their voice goes unheard. On the other hand, coffee has long been seen as Surprisingly (at least to me!) coffee is the world’s second a prime candidate for the application of the principles of largest export commodity after oil. In this country alone ‘fair trade’ which ensure a guaranteed price for the beans last year we spent £630M on coffee. It is grown only in the which covers the cost of production, with minimum tropics and within 1000 miles of the Equator, mostly in the standards of working conditions and with a premium added poorer countries. Of all the world’s agricultural products, to encourage community development. The grower then coffee remains the most labour intensive. The reason for typically sells to a local co-operative which makes marketing this is that coffee berries do not ripen uniformly; the same much more practical. Sales of fair traded coffee in the UK branch on the tree may simultaneously display ripe red now account for about 7.5% of sales and that proportion berries, unripe green berries and overripe black berries and continues to grow. Fair trade coffees, both filter and instant, so selective picking is essential to achieve a saleable product. are now widely available in the shops under the labels of Cafédirect, Traidcraft, Co-op, Oxfam, Percol, and others. The developing crisis, In 2003, 2083 tonnes of fair which has so seriously hit trade coffee was purchased in the poor producer, is that this country! Some cafes are the price for their crop has now beginning to sell a fair fallen by almost 50% over trade coffee option. the last few years. Farmers in developing countries now Migual Barrantes, a coffee can only sell coffee beans farmer in Costa Rica who is for much less than the cost a member of a co-operative of production while at the which supplies Traidcraft and same time branded coffee Cafédirect says: sells to us at a hefty profit. At best, the grower gets only ‘If it had not been for the about 10% of the profits.