Update No.3 - July 2009

The campaign continues ... Newsletter No 3 07/07/09

The campaign to raise funds for the Trees
for Life project continues. Since the first
Newsletter was put together the campaign
has raised more than £1,900.

Thanks to publicity in Tribune, Red
Pepper and PSC magazines, the full page
article in Co-operative News, and the national mailing to all Co-operative Party Councils cheques have been arriving from as far afield as Kent, Cardigan and Glasgow.

During March copies of the flyers were taken to most of Nottingham's mosques, to St Peter's Church, and to the Congregational Federation who sent them out in their national mailing. Publicity was also taken to the Palestinian Day School in Bakersfield, to Nottingham's Refugee Forum, and the Co-op Fair Trade stall at the LGBT Rainbow Heritage exhibition in Waterstone's bookshop.

In April flyers were sent to all 12 constituency
Labour Parties to which the Greater
Nottingham Co-operative Party is affiliated
and to a number of local trade union
branches. All Labour MPs in our region have
been asked to donate to the campaign in
May. Publicity was also in evidence at the
Bassetlaw branch Co-op Party stall in
Retford's Market Place and at the Nottingham
branch's stall at the May Day event in
Nottingham's Brewhouse Yard on Saturday
2nd May, and at the Co-operative Group
regional AGM in Kettering in May.

Organising publicity takes time, and extra help is needed to make sure the campaign maintains momentum through the year. If you can spare some time to distribute flyers, write a letter to a newspaper, post flyers to people and groups you know, please let us know:
Trees for Life 0115 978 2705


To download this update as a pdf newsletter, please click here.

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Update No.2 - April 2009

The campaign to raise funds for the Trees for Life project continues. Since the first Newsletter was put together the campaign has raised more than £1,200. Thanks to publicity in Tribune and Red Pepper magazines, and the full page article in Co-operative News, cheques have been arriving from as far afield as Kent, Cardigan and Glasgow.

During March copies of the flyers were taken to most of Nottingham's mosques, to St Peter's Church, and to the Congregational Federation who sent them out in their national mailing. Publicity was also taken to the Palestinian Day School in Bakersfield, to Nottingham's Refugee Forum, and to the Co-op Fair Trade stall at the LGBT Rainbow Heritage exhibition in Waterstone's bookshop.

In April flyers were sent to all 12 constituency Labour Parties to which the Greater Nottingham Co-operative Party is affiliated, and all Labour
MPs in our region will be asked to donateto the campaign in May.

Publicity will also be in evidence at the Bassetlaw branch Co-op Party stall in Retford's Market Place and at the Nottingham
branch's stall at the May Day event in Nottingham's Brewhouse Yard on Saturday 2nd May.

Organising publicity takes time, and extra help is needed to make sure the campaign maintains momentum through the year. If you can spare some time to distribute flyers, write a letter to a newspaper, post flyers to
people and groups you know, please let us know:

Trees for Life 0115 978 2705

To download this update in PDF format, then please click HERE

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Trees for Life was launched in 2006, a joint project from the Olive Co-operative Ltd in Manchester and Zaytoun, a community interest company and member of Co-operatives UK, in London.

In the first six months the campaign had raised £20,000 to plant more than 5,000 olive tree saplings in Palestine to replace some of the estimated half million that had been destroyed by Israeli tanks and bulldozers in constructing the illegal settlements, separation wall and roads in the occupied territories of Palestine.

The Greater Nottingham Co-operative Party has
adopted the Trees for life campaign for 2009 and urges all members and supporters of the Party to contribute to the campaign. Launched at the Annual General Meeting on the 14th February, by the purchase of the first ten olive trees by John Heppell MP for East Nottingham (photo shows John signing the cheque for Leonie Nimmo of Olive Co-operative Ltd), the Party's campaign had raised more than £700 in the first three weeks.



A fundraising evening event at the Sumac Centre, Forest Fields, raised £135 (photo shows Richard McCance of the Peoples Kitchen presenting a certificate for 34 olive trees to Ben from the Sumac Centre) and a similar amount for the Gaza
Emergency Appeal.

Labour Students at the University
of Nottingham raised more than
£30 at a joint event in the Portland Building with the Party and the Co-operative Group during Fair Trade Fortnight.

Olive oil from Palestine imported by Zaytoun is now Fair Trade certified (see the news article
"Co-op launches ethical olive oil" at www.thenews.coop)


The new banner stand with the Zaytoun ('olive tree') logo made another appearance in Fair Trade Fortnight at the Crocus Cafe, Lenton.

Crocus was an early recipient of a Co-operative Group community dividend award, provides high quality vegetarian meals and sells Fair Trade products.

Despite inhospitable weather the Trees
for Life materials were well received by cafe users and passers by.


The Nottingham Evening Post and the
free Recorder provided welcome
publicity which has resulted in telephone calls to the dedicated Trees for Life number (0115 978 2705) and  several donations from members of
the public.

The Co-operative News has offered a full page for an article, and this was expected to appear in the March 5th edition.

Donating to Trees for Life

Donations can be made by cheque to 'Olive Co-operative Ltd' and sent to Trees for Life,
2 Devonshire Promenade,
Lenton,
Nottingham
NG7 2DS

or by BACS transfer from your bank
account to:

08-92-99 a/c 65136016 ref 'T4L GN'.

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Speakers:
An illustrated talk on the campaign is available for your organisation, lasting 20 minutes, or 40 minutes including the documentary 'My Dear
Olive Tree'. For more details contact Chris at gncooppartysec@aol.com or phone 0115 978 2705.

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For more information on Olive Co-operative Ltd see www.olivecoop.com. For Zaytoun see www.zaytoun.org.

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Download this page as a newsletter in pdf format here: LINK