Welcome to our autumn update. We have a new member of our team - Paul Denley who joined in September and has hit the ground running. There's a lot to share so grab a cuppa and let's go.
INTRODUCING THE CHELTENHAM FOOD BOARD
We are so pleased to announce that the Cheltenham Food Board will launch in November 2024. The board aims to set and deliver a food strategy for Cheltenham that makes demonstrable progress towards the Board’s vision for the town. Cheltenham is a vibrant town with various community initiatives to support residents. The Board’s vision is to enhance these initiatives to create a healthier, more sustainable, and equitable food system across the Town.
We have been working hand-in-hand with the Cheltenham Chamber of Commerce and Cheltenham Borough Council to design the board and its aims and will share more with you after our first meeting. If you would like to know more please email us at hello@goodfoodcheltenham.org.
COMMUNITY CONVERSATIONS
Paul has relaunched our community conversations and we are asking as supporters and partners if you can share this amongst your teams, friends, social groups, and customers. Paul is also looking for opportunities to attend any events, conferences, or community sessions you may be hosting to roll out these conversations. If you have any opportunities for Good Food Cheltenham to attend, please email hello@goodfoodcheltenham.org.
In collaboration with Gloucester City Council our joint ‘Good Food- what does it means to you?’ conversation is an opportunity to inform our citizens about what good food is and details about each campaign; consult with communities on the barriers they face to accessing and eating good food and to engage with those people who would like to get involved in developing ideas and solutions for the future.
COMMUNITY IN ACTION
In a bid to address inequality within our food system, we have been piloting and supporting several initiatives including the Fresh Hope Garden Project, Grow with Wiggly and working with the University of Gloucester’s student union. All of these 2024 pilot projects will be continuing into 2025 and will report on their impact in January.
We are also extremely happy to announce we have officially taken over the running of the community fridge at Planted Community Café in Charlton Kings. Launching in November we will be recruiting and managing the volunteers required to manage the fridge as well as run the launch campaign and liaise with Hubbub.
Why a community fridge?
A community fridge is a multi-faceted initiative; It creates social contact, enabling people to come together in a shared space; it also helps to tackle food waste by diverting surplus food away from landfill and onto the dinner tables of local residents. The fridge is open to all, meaning anyone can donate or take food, which often comes from supermarkets, local businesses, households, local producers and gardens.
Keep an eye on our socials and website for more information on its launch and if you are interested in volunteering please email hello@goodfoodcheltenham.org.
LOCAL ECONOMY
We have been exploring ways we can work within our local food economy to ensure local procurement is at the forefront of the retail and hospitality industry and how we can support local producers and food businesses.
We recently attended the Shop Cotswolds network event to speak on ‘Sourcing good ingredients to work with and Environmental concepts to think about'.
As we continue to develop this action plan, we hope this will also form part of the work we are doing as part of the Cheltenham Food Board. We are always looking for opportunities to develop this action plan and will be holding an in-person workshop in 2025 to develop this further.
CAMPAIGNING FOR GOOD FOOD
As a good food movement, we are passionate about connecting and collaborating with what else is going on in Gloucestershire. We will therefore be attending the Sustainable Food Gathering where we will be joining Gloucestershire’s community groups, decision-makers and those on the front line of food and farming to celebrate our collective work and discuss next steps.
If you would like to attend there are tickets still available here.
As always, we would like to personally thank everyone who supports our campaign and our wonderful partners for helping us drive the work we do. You can find out more about them on our home page
Eat well and stay healthy!
Claire
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