This AGM was the second for SFUK. It was a healthy and constructive meeting, inspirational and demonstrating that SFUK is getting over its internal political crisis and moving forward to become an influencial player in the food system within the British Isles

My notes from the latest Slow Food AGM

 The board has been elected prior to the AGM because there was the same number of candidates as there was positions to be filled

Tamara Schiopu and Pam Rodway had decided to leave the board to concentrate on other Slow Food projects

1/ Review of the accounts

SFUK is still a very new association whose challenge is to combine the pleasure and political principles of Slow Food International. there is an on going work to finalise the status, memoranda and articles of the association in UK.

One of the role of the board is to protect the Slow Food logo in UK which has a high value commercially. This mission has heavily influenced the overall strategy of the board. There has been a major legal spent linked to the protection of intellectual property and administration costs. The board is now confident that it has a solid system in place to manage infrigments on SF IP in house, which should avoid legal costs. There are currently no legal cases pending linked to the use of the SF logo

£31k are mentioned in the accounts as a potential administration fee from SF international, linked to the Sheepgrove trust donation (maximum estimated amount)

Membership fees are now administered by SFUK, which redistribute a certain % to each convivium

the full details are available on the SFUK website/ http://www.slowfood.org.uk/

 

2/Special resolutions

- clause 17 needs to be amended: wording to be changed because they no longer meet legal requirements

- SFUK texts were amended to reflect changes in the SF Int' status and articles

- The board appointed Sykes & Co, registered auditors and chartered accountants as official auditors for the SFUK accounts. There is currently no requirements for these accounts to be audited

For official miniutes of the AGM, pls refer to the following document:  'AGM08...'

3/ SF International update by Paolo di Groce - Facing the challenges of the future

Paolo used the example of the journey from a potato to a chip to illustrate the principle of food miles: bad for the environment, bad for your health, bad for the purse (by the time, the potato has been transformed in to a chip on your plate, its price is likely to have been multiplied by 10)

To further set the scene, we were reminded that the total expense for food: more than halfed in the States since the 60's

and finally, 800M people suffering from hunger, 1b suffering from over eating...(please don't quote these numbers, I need to check!)

the agriculture and the current food production models are to blame for the current state of the planet

'good, clean and fair' could lead to solutions to the issues mentioned above. The media awareness of the Slow Food movement has tremendously increased over the past few years and we are convinced that Slow Food can MAKE a difference

The Slow Food objectives over the next 4 years are:

- increase the number of members to reach 1 M (currently 70k worldwide, 2k in UK). The more members, the more influence we will have on our  local governments and communities. To achieve this number, there is a need to revise the access to SF membership, i.e. adapt the price depending on the economy of the members' country, giving more freedom to each national board to decide on the management of the membership fees

- increase involvement of the Youth: there is worldwide up to 20M people leaving the countryside and farms each year. There is an urgent need to rebuild the link between people and the land, re-establish the nobility of being a farmer and contributing to feed your own country

- defend local farming and culinary traditions facing extinction due to EU and other local regulations. these regulations also impact on the ability/appeal of starting a new agribusiness

The overall aim is for Slow Food to influence the entire food system around the world. It is crucial that SFUK engage in centrally coordinated projects to creat conditions to be able to make a difference

3/ Peter Gott, rare breed farmer, Sillfield farm, Kendal

Peter gave a speech regarding the constraints related to farming animals and transforming the meat within the current regulatory context

Following rationing during the mid 50's, the agriculture was encouraged to produced more, which led to an increasing number of non indigeneous species being brought into the country, which in turn led to the extinction of British breeds. The mass production also drove the closure of small slaughter houses, which decreased by 70% over the past 20 years. With this decline, came the loss of infrastructure, processes and practices linked to the production and the transformation of meat.

Following a few food scares around the country, extremely stringent regulations meant that recipes and products disappeared along side with the skills required to prepare meat

This is where Slow Food can help and does help small farmers

Peter reminded us about the differences between commercial and rare pig breeding.Commercial breeding means more piglets in less time, delivering a large quantity of meat faster. This short cycle impacts on the organoleptic quality of the meat which needs more flavouring, more salt and additives to keep it longer and to make it tastier. The consumer should be able to trace a piece of meat back to the animal, to increase his/hers awareness of the production cycle of of is on their plates.

25 species of domestic animals have disappeared since the 70's because they did not meet current commercial requirements, not taking into account the carcasse of the animal and the current practice in terms of waste

4/ SFUK Finance strategy - official summary from Slow Food UK doc: 'Summarised strategy...'

- revise the management of the membership fees: price decrease for the family membership, contribution to local convivia remain the same, revised contribution to Slow Food International

- fundraising to cover its own running costs (building, staff, admin)

it was agreed during the meeting that SF int' needs to give more visibility regarding its accounts: admin spent versus projects spent. Paolo emphasized that the current strategy is about having the richer countries subsidising the poorests

5/ Slow Bread campaign - Susan Wynn

This campaign should be led by millers and bakers. Its purpose is to create a community defending traditional milling and bread making practices via events, workshops, interventions in schools etc...

The current project team is conducting a survey to understand current bread eating habits.

Another campaign around bread = Real Bread Campaign is currently promoting similar ideas supported by Andrew Whitley of Bread Matters and Sustain (http://www.realbreadcampaign.org)

6/ Heritage Orchard campaign - Sue Miller

this campaign is looking at heritage orchards, community orchards and schools gardens

one activity of this campaign is Schools Heritage apple piloted in Bedfordshire. The project team has put a proposal together, aiming to launch the campaign in November 08: planting for  better future, followed by a 'Spring awakening' in May 09 and a Harvest event in October 09

 

7/ Snail Mail - Donald Reid

Editorial board includes Matthew Fort and Jeff Andrews

The 'new' Snail Mail has reviewed its content and is currently stidying the following:

- timely issues promoting local events and convivia initiatives

- featuring local produces, telling local stories and traditions

- national food debates

- innovatives ideas, discussions forums

- area guides

- food preparation tips

- books recommendations

- classified ads

The team is keen to use the material being developped within the UK convivia. The next issue should be published next week.

 

8/ SFUK Ark of Taste strategy

there is currently an update on the SF int' website on the future role of Presidia. Financing a new Presidium would have to come from SFUK. It has to be understood that a Presidium is a working project aiming at maintaining, perpetuating a traditional food / transformation process.

there are 2 Presidia being developped for the moment in UK: orchard fruits (1) and sweet yeasted dough (2)

(1): challenge for the leading convivium is to decide which variety defines the best the area

(2): need to find something worth saving: key criteria: fermentation time, quality and source of ingredients

The project group is also working on increasing the visibility of the existing content of the UK Ark. The UK has lost 2 Presidia last year: salted pilchard and an unpasteurised Cheshire cheese.

There is a requirement to monitor the existing produces currently recorded in the Ark, to document each record - text and pictures, to support new nominations and to clearly communicate a point of contact for each item to be able to coordinate activities around it

for further info, see: http://www.slowfoodludlow.org.uk/arkandpresidia.html

9/ Slow Food Youth Movement

Objectives:

- restore pride farming

- retain cultural and agricultural biodiversity eg Yales sustainable food group

- find more young people to be engaged in the movement

 

I strongly believe that our convivium should engage in the above projects and campaigns. I will endaveour to review each item with the committee at the end of the month and propose an action plan for the convivium

Attachment	Size
AGM08 minutes final draft[3].pdf	111.94 KB
CONVIVIUM INVOLVEMENT WITH THE ARK.pdf	52 KB
post-AGM session notes final[2].pdf	113.16 KB
Summarised Strategy_final[1].pdf	703.31 KB