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Celebrating 30 years of the Trust! Behind the Balmore Trust Our first newsletter put it like this: ‘If one were to try to formulate the basic philosophy behind the Balmore Trust, one could say that it is based on the belief that there is a huge resource of goodwill and generosity which can be tapped if you can provide effective means for people to contribute to the kinds of projects they want to support. As the work grows, so we feel confident that we shall continue to make new friends to tackle the tasks involved.’ 30 years ago, a small shop in an eighteenth century building in Balmore, on the north of Glasgow, opened its doors. A group of friends had spent an exciting 4 months, planning, buying, shop fitting and making crafts to be ready for the day. When the day came, the sun shone. The shop – the Balmore Coach House – was stocked with crafts from Coll, Kirkintilloch, Camphill, Bangladesh and South America. It had a few tables for coffees and cakes and a chance to talk. The aim was to raise money for projects at home and abroad. All the profits would be distributed by the Balmore Trust, a new charity set up for this purpose. Action at home and abroad The hope was that the Coach House would provide a meeting place for those in the area who wanted to do something about the huge divide between the haves and have-nots at home and abroad. No one quite knew what that ‘something’ would be, how things would work out; whether they would work at all. Gerrit Singghi, an Indonesian student at Glasgow University, spoke the next day at Baldernock Kirk: ‘Do not think that you will be the ones who give most to the poor. You will receive far more than you can ever give.’ Continued on next page Newsletter, Autumn 2010 Far left – Some of the founder members of the Trust; John Riches, Audrey Anderson, Nena Ritches, Ros Jarvis, Odet Beavoisin, Jan Brown and Silumko Tsotsi. Above – Over the years the tearoom and shop have attracted vistors from far and wide, promoting the benefits of Fair Trade and raising funds for projects at home and abroad.

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Page 1: Celebrating 30 years of the Trust!04ece26b646ef40c1c28-183f8ca9191b6f09c54019d1f826a82b.r75.c… · Celebrating 30 years of the Trust! Behind the Balmore Trust Our first newsletter

Celebrating 30 years of the Trust!

Behind the Balmore TrustOur first newsletter put it like this: ‘If one were to try to formulate the basic philosophy behind the Balmore Trust, one could say that it is based on the belief that there is a huge resource of goodwill and generosity which can be tapped if you can provide effective means for people to contribute to the kinds of projects they want to support.

As the work grows, so we feel confident that we shall continue to make new friends to tackle the tasks involved.’

30 years ago, a small shop in an eighteenth century building in Balmore, on the north of Glasgow, opened its doors. A group of friends had spent an exciting 4 months, planning, buying, shop fitting and making crafts to be ready for the day. When the day came, the sun shone. The shop – the Balmore Coach House – was stocked with crafts from Coll, Kirkintilloch, Camphill, Bangladesh and South America. It had a few tables for coffees and cakes and a chance to talk. The aim was to raise money for projects at home and abroad. All the profits would be distributed by the Balmore Trust, a new charity set up for this purpose.

Action at home and abroadThe hope was that the Coach House would provide a meeting place for those in the area who wanted to do something about the huge divide between the haves and have-nots at home and abroad. No one quite knew what that ‘something’ would be, how things would work out; whether they would work at all.

Gerrit Singghi, an Indonesian student at Glasgow University, spoke the next day at Baldernock Kirk: ‘Do not think that you will be the ones who give most to the poor. You will receive far more than you can ever give.’

Continued on next page

Newsletter, Autumn 2010

Far left – Some of the founder members of the Trust; John Riches, Audrey Anderson, Nena Ritches, Ros Jarvis, Odet Beavoisin, Jan Brown and Silumko Tsotsi.

Above – Over the years the tearoom and shop have attracted vistors from far and wide, promoting the benefits of Fair Trade and raising funds for projects at home and abroad.

Page 2: Celebrating 30 years of the Trust!04ece26b646ef40c1c28-183f8ca9191b6f09c54019d1f826a82b.r75.c… · Celebrating 30 years of the Trust! Behind the Balmore Trust Our first newsletter

The Balmore Trust timeline – 1980 till 2010

1980 – Shop opened by Mamie Magnusson

on May 17th. Jan Brown ‘appointed’

first manager; Odet Beauvoisin as resident

spinner.

Continued from previous page

Looking back over 30 years, it is certain that none of us could have foreseen what a rich network of friendships, across the city, across the world, would grow up around this small shop in a garden in Balmore.

This is the story of some of those friendships, of the work of the many hundreds (thousands) of people who as customers, volunteers, managers, supervisors, workers in Balmore, Easterhouse, Ruchhill, Possil, Inverclyde, Lesotho, South Africa, the Thai desert, Kolkota, Kerala, the Chin Hills of Burma, Swaziland, Malawi have been drawn together around this place.

If you’re moved by this story, come and join us and help write the next chapter.

Today the Coach House is still at the heart of The Balmore

Trust. The tearoom is a popular meeting place for those who enjoy

Fairtrade tea and coffee with our homebaking!

The shop offers a huge range of unique crafts, clothes and foods

from around the world.

1981 – First grants include Calton Youth Club, West Belfast Family Aid Centre,

Scott Hospital, Lesotho. Visits from Jan and Guy Daynes, Umzimkulu Welfare

Trust (Transkei), Bangladeshi craft workers and Alec Dickson, founder of

CVS and VSO.

1982 – Silumko from Mdantsane, South Africa

working with John Bell and Graham Maule in Ruchhill. Trust agrees to give 1/3 of profits to home projects;

2/3 to overseas.

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The Balmore Coach House – how it all began

‘Why don’t we start up the Coach House again?’ It all had its beginnings in a winter of discussions, during which a group of friends in Baldernock had become increasingly depressed about the huge gulf between rich and poor across the world and in our own society.

The following summer John and Nena Riches had made a second trip with their family to St. Lucy’s Hospital in the Transkei [WHERE] and had come back even more convinced that they had to do something to address the problems – but what?

Getting startedThe first thought was that we might run this eighteenth century stone building as an Oxfam shop, but

Oxfam, probably rightly, thought that it was unlikely to attract many people to buy second-hand clothes. So we began to plan a craft and coffee shop, imagining initially that we would supply most of the crafts ourselves.

After three months we had a constitution, enough money to fund our opening stock, goods on sale or return from Oxfam Trading, a selection of Scottish crafts, books, cards, Camphill toys and engraved glass and a wonderful range of Mairi Hedderwick’s stationery from Malin Press, which had sadly just gone into liquidation. So low were our overheads that by the end of the first month we had paid off all our stock and were in profit.

Development yearsOver the years the shop has gone through various major changes. For a start, we have only gradually been able to use all the building.

In the mid eighties, we strengthened the upstairs floor, which had probably not been intended to take the numbers of people who might be found there on a busy week-end before Christmas, and slapped through the upstairs wall to allow a fire-escape exit.

There were regular changes of shelving until we finally felt we were making maximum use of the space. More importantly, in the early days the stock was bought principally with the aim of raising money for

1983 – Number of volunteers reaches 100. Coach House stages exhibition of quilts

by the Zamani Soweto Sisters in Glasgow’s Moir Hall. Centrepeace, a peace centre and fair trade shop co-owned by Iona

Community, Christian Aid and the Balmore Trust opens in the Briggait.

1984 – Annual grants reach £20 000. Angela Gomes, craftworker from

Bangladesh visits Coach House: ‘Buy my women’s crafts: that’s what gives

them their dignity!’ Embroidered and appliquéd crafts imported from

refugees in Thailand.

1985 – Visits by Ellen Kuzwayo, the ‘Mother of Soweto’ to show film about clearances in South Africa (attended by SA consul!); and Dr

Samir Chaudhuri of Child in Need Institute, Calcutta. Support for

Strathkelvin Women’s Aid.

Whether supporting artists and clinics in Namibia or schools in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, providing a market for weavers from Lesotho, quilters from Soweto or taking part in the recycling of tools that enable crafts people to start their own business, the Balmore Trust’s international connections have gone from strength to strength.

Right – John and Nena Riches with the work of Nambian artists Kosta Shipenga and Ndasuunju Shikogeni. Far right – John buying crafts for the Coach House in northern Namibia.

Below, left – Books from Balmore in the School library at Bisho, Eastern Cape, South Africa. Far right – Students at the school founded in Newcastle, Natal, by Jan Daynes.

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our projects. Within a few years, we realised that we could also use the shop to support producers in Africa and Asia and Latin America. This in turn increased the pressure to import in order to find the really interesting gifts and crafts. ‘An Aladdin’s Cave’, was the common comment.

A world of choiceFurther changes came with the development of the specialist Fair Trade (FT) importers. Traidcraft opened just before us and OneVillage and Global Village were there too early. Then it was some time before groups like Shared Earth and then more recently a whole plethora of FT importers emerged.

More important was the emergence of the Fairtrade mark and the sudden bourgeoning of FT food. In the 90s we decided to order everything on the GreenCity list (our local wholefoods cooperative) and we filled one wall of the shop downstairs with some £1500 of food. Now FT food accounts often for some 50% of our sales. Some of this is, most desirably, available in supermarkets, but people come for the much wider selection which we have.

Not only do we have the full range of Eswatini jams, marmalades and sauces (some 27 varieties) but we also have many speciality teas and coffees, nuts, cereals, butters, spreads and honeys. And we are just about to go out to Malawi to develop a new range of pulses.

Branching outAnother change was the introduction of clothes. Here the great breakthrough was buying from Bishopton. This is a small village outside Bristol which twinned with a village in South India and developed an excellent range of dresses, jackets, trousers, shirts and blouses, all in organic cotton.

Tried and testedSome things remain the same. The homemade soups, jams, marmalades and home baking which a faithful band of volunteers have produced year after year continue to attract people to the shop who know quality when they find it. For many years, Andrew Gilchrist, a local farmer brought in extra large fresh farm eggs. Now we have free range eggs from Ayrshire which are a firm favourite.

Getting the details rightOver all this presides Sue Bond, together with Jackie and Linda Marshall who supervise the action at the week-end. It’s hard if you’ve not been involved to realise how much work, how much detail, how much imagination and creativity goes into running a successful craft shop like the Coach House.

Sue’s been involved for over twenty years and fully in charge for over 15. That’s an extraordinary record and the success of the shop and the loyalty of the volunteers speaks volumes for her skill, patience and warmth.

The bigger team… And then there are the volunteers. Of every kind. There are the shop assistants who man the tills and work the coffee tables; the bakers, soup-makers, jam makers,

gardeners, cleaners, office workers, maintenance men without whom

the shop would not function and would certainly

not make the contribution to the Trust that it has.

1986 – First £100,000 raised. Support for J’Connie’s piggery project in Uganda; Church House in Bridgeton; ‘The Place’ in Possilpark.

Visit by Bp. James Kauluma from Namibia to highlight predicament of the war in that

country. Now importing crafts from 10 different countries in Africa and Asia.

1987 – Touring exhibition of Namibia crafts, featuring lino cuts by (now) world famous artist

John Muafangejo. Visits from Joya Potia from Kumudini Trust in Bangladesh, Vazeru Kandeta,

Namibia, and Fr. Ruminski, Tanzania, with wonderful carvings. Support for Royston Youth

Venture; St. Mark’s College, Transvaal.

1988 – Coach House Annexe Clinic opens in Uganda. Support for White

Dove Centre, Robroyston. Tools for Self-Reliance (TFSR) branch started with Rob

Bond. Wholesaling of imported crafts starts with Taylor McNeill. Imports from Ukhukhanya in Kenya. £175,000 raised.

Why not join us?We always need more volunteers and we look forward to hearing from you! Just come into the shop and sign up.

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BurmaOur association with Burma goes back to 1988 when Gin Khan Khual arrived in Glasgow to study theology for a year. For a while after his return, we heard

little. Then in 1994 we got a letter saying that he was about to start a school with 50 students and 10 teachers, with a total budget of £5500 for

the first year. Between the Balmore Trust, the BitMac Trust and another donor we were able to raise the money and

the school has gone from strength to strength. Their work was recognised by the British Embassy with a

maximum grant of US$10 000. In the last years, they have moved the school from the plains regions

to the hill area along the Indian/Bangladeshi border, and built a new building to house 250 students. The school has been recognised by the Burmese Government which means more support for teachers. It runs its own school farm, teaching animal and plant husbandry and work to restore the local forests which have been seriously depleted. It’s a triumph of ingenuity and persistence over adversity; and a

beacon of hope for people in Burma.

This is only one of the many projects which the Sophia Mission Institute runs in Burma. They run

training programmes for young women who have returned from ‘domestic service’ in India; piggery

projects for widows; primary health care programmes in the villages; bursary schemes for young girls, who rarely

go to secondary school, because families will only have enough money for their boys. Currently, they are working on a pig manure

scheme: pig manure is stored in a concrete bin and the methane it produces is tapped for cooking. The manure, once relieved of its methane can be used for fertiliser; previously it would have burnt plants.

Child in Need Institute, KolkotaRun by one of India’s most dynamic development workers, Dr. Samir Chaudhury, CINI works principally with mothers and babies/children. Dr. Chaudhury is a paediatrician who knows the importance of good nutrition in the earliest years of a child’s development. He also knows that what you teach a mother, stays with her and is passed on to her daughters. So CINI’s programmes for supporting mothers through pregnancy until their child

1989 – £45,000 raised in a year. Jan Brown leaves for Ardfern. Sue Bond joins management team. Visit by Sr.

Mary-John Mananzan, political activist in Manila. Containers sent to Namibian

refugee school in Congo and to CH Annexe Clinic, Uganda.

1990 – Balmore Trust brings a capella singing group Black Umfolosi

from Zimbabwe to Mayfest. 2 containers sent to Odibo in northern Namibia to re-open clinic closed by the war. TFSR has sent 12 toolkits to

Africa and Nicaragua.

1991 – Support for minibus for FARE in

Easterhouse; exhibition of John Muafangejo’s

linocuts in Theatre Royal Glasgow as part of Sechaba Festival.

Overseas projects supported by the Trust

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Volunteers working for Tools for Self Reliance take donated tools, refurbish them and make up toolkits for African crafts people.

Top: Jan Daynes (founder) with staff and students at the Daynes Education Trust, Natal, South Africa.

Above: The clinic at Odibo in Namibia, which the Balmore Trust helped establish with 2 container loads of medical supplies

is two are one of the keystones of their work. They have developed a low-cost supplementary food – Nutrimix – which mothers are taught to prepare themselves and they take a long-term, holistic approach to street children, whom they either return to their families or establish in long-term hostels. Since Dr. Chaudhury’s first visit in 1985, we have been firm supporters.

Wells for IndiaThis UK based development agency was founded by Nicholas and Mary Grey who work with a number of Ghandhian organisations in Rajasthan, principally in the Thar desert. Their principal work is water conservation and harvesting. By ensuring that the water from the monsoons does not all run off and away, but is caught by a series of plugs, check-dams and anicuts (larger dams), and held up by trees strategically planted, they are able to make dramatic improvements to local agriculture. Water is stored in large ponds, which need to be cleaned out, and in underground tanks and in water butts. Sadly, when the rains are poor, they will also need to bring in water from outside to sustain the local communities. While the core of the work is with water harvesting, much of what is done involves community development work. Villages need to take decisions and act together to achieve the changes they want. Many villages have formed women’s self-help groups which have proved extremely effective in managing the required changes.

HiLDA Trust, Kerala, IndiaHiLDA has been working amongst the poorest and most marginalised people of Wayanad in Kerala since 1987 to promote self-reliance through people-centred initiatives, community participation in the development process and the empowerment of disadvantaged rural and tribal people. It has established a large number of impressive programmes, including micro-credit and community business, sexual health and HIV/AIDS education, water harvesting and sanitation, organic agriculture, legal advice, leadership development and youth work. Lukose Jakob, its founder, visited the Coach House in 1997.

Amajuba/Daynes Education TrustFor many years we supported the education work which a wonderful couple, Jan and Guy Daynes, undertook in the Transkei and KwaZulu/Natal. Guy Daynes was the medical superintendent at the St. Lucy’s Hospital in the Transkei where Nena Riches worked in the seventies. Jan his wife, a trained social worker, was tireless in supporting young African students through their studies in college and university, for many a very new and strange experience. Jan would think about all the practical things, the clothes, the books, the things they needed to equip their rooms as well as helping them to build up computing and word processing skills before they went off to study.

1992 – Warehouse in Airds Lane opens to promote fair trade sales for Centrepeace

and for Just Trading Balmore’s (JTB) wholesale sales. Geoffrey Burns joins

the Trust.

1993 – Support for Science Technology development Forum, shipping journals to universities and hospitals overseas. JTB’s catalogue with 200 items, illustrated by

Odet.. Coach House Cookbook published. Visit from Peter Anderson, headteacher, St.

Mark’s school, Jane Furse, South Africa.

1994 – TFSR workshop reports 5890 tools sent out. JTB

purchases top £17000. David Hayter visits Coach House Annexe Clinic in Uganda.

Support for Royston Youth Action. Centrepeace closes.

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They gave students loans, not grants, which they expected them to pay back once they got into paid employment and they had a remarkably good success rate with this, which meant, of course, lots more students being able to study. Sadly, Jan and Guy are both no longer with us and after a few years the Trust is now winding up. We salute two remarkable characters who gave their all for the flourishing of Africans and who inspired all with their immense enjoyment of life and their deep faith and compassion.

St. Andrew’s Clinics for Children (STACC)Based in Glasgow University, STACC is concerned with supporting and developing health care for children in Africa. It underpins free health care for children in Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Uganda, Zanzibar, Kenya and Ghana. They have a strong focus on combatting malaria and worm infestation. Regular oral doses of ‘deworming’ medicine, offered to children at primary school, is a most cost effective public health measure for a low-income country (where there is incidence of worm-infestation).

Saidiana Women Group, Eldoret, KenyaSince its beginnings during a visit by its founder, Fridah Wafula, to Ina in 1998, Saidiana (Swahili: ‘help one another’) concentrates on farming self-sufficiency, micro-entrepreneurship, HIV/AIDS awareness and care, and primary health care.

Home projects supported by the Trust East Dunbartonshire Women’s AidWe have had a long relationship with EDWA reaching back into its early days in the 1980s. They provide valuable support and refuge for abused women and children in our local area and we have been delighted to see them become firmly established with relatively secure core funding. There is always a need for running costs and funds to cover occasional costs. Women and children arrive with nothing, and any kindness they receive from a stranger means a great deal.

Family Action in Rogerfield and Easterhouse (FARE)FARE is one of the great success stories of community work in Glasgow over the last 20 years. It started at a public meeting in 1989 and now has 9 full and part-time staff work and for many years worked from a tenement block, which became available after some drugs-related deaths made it ‘hard-to-let’.

FARE runs youth clubs, sports activities, holidays for over a 100 children, a café, parent and toddlers’ groups and support for some vulnerable families and youngsters. It is working hard to reduce tension between local gangs, running alternative Olympics for them at the Kevin Hall.

The great majority of FARE’s staff, sessional workers, committee and volunteers are local residents. Bob Holman, one of its stalwarts, was a Director of the Balmore Trust until last year. We are very pleased that on his retirement, his place has been taken by Iain Monteague,the new chairman of FARE.

The Lilias Graham TrustWhen Lilias Graham, a member of the Gorbals Group, was left a large country house in Stirlingshire at Braendam, she decided that it could be put to excellent use providing respite holidays for pressed families from Glasgow.

For many years this was supported by the Glasgow-Braendam Link, based in the Gorbals, which provided continuing support throughout the year. Currently the Lilias Graham Trust is providing short-term residential care for families who are in danger of having their children taken into residential care.

1995 – Shop extended downstairs. Office and

toilet in portacabin. Support for Braendam

Family House. Sue Bond becomes full-time

manager.

1996 – Support for Reality at Work (outdoor holidays for young

people); collecting books for schools in Eastern Cape, South

Africa. Visit from Minister of Education, Eastern Cape. Bob

Holman joins the Trust.

1997 – Visit from Lukose Jacob, working with tribal people in the north of Kerala; funds raised for

new school in Kaleymo, Chin State, Burma, run by former Glasgow University student. Support for

Inverclyde Youth for Christ and holiday scheme in Ruchhill. Visit by Moderator of Church of Scotland,

Rt. Rev. John McIndoe.

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1998 – Continued support for Rufiji Leprosy Trust,

Tanzania; Eagle Trust project on bullying in schools. Coach

House becomes member of British Association of Fair

Trade Shops (BAFTS).

1999 – Support for women’s training projects in Burma; for East Glasgow Youth Theatre. Visits from

Gin Khan Khual and his wife Man from Burma and from

Sally Magnusson.

2000 – Balmore Trust’s grants top £500,000. Support for Wells for India (Thar desert) and

Glasgow City Mission. Sheena MacGregor and Jackie Marshall join as week-end supervisors. Visit by Archbishop Winston Ndungane from

Cape Town: housing scheme with Scottish Episcopal Church in Cape Flats.

Importing, the Coach House and Just Trading ScotlandRight from the start it seemed natural to import as much as we could to sell in the Coach House. Our involvement with projects in Southern Africa made it natural to bring in crafts from Soweto and Lesotho, KwaZulu and Namibia and this soon spread to other parts of the world. Most of this was just for sale in the Coach House or at exhibitions which we put on for the purpose.

In the eighties there was far less available in the way of fairly traded crafts and we rapidly built up a reputation for having a wide range of ethnic and unusual crafts.

By the end of the decade we were importing goods from nearly twenty different countries: wonderful Makonde carvings from Tanzania, intricate appliqué Thai cushion covers, John Muafangejo linocuts and woven wall hangings, soap-stone carvings. So it was a short step to start up a wholesale catalogue, move into a warehouse in Airds Lane in Glasgow, presided over by Taylor McNeill just behind Centrepeace (a shop run jointly by Christian Aid, The Iona Community and The Coach House) and start passing things on to other fair trade shops, of which there was a growing number.

For a variety of reasons this proved not to be a timely move. There were probably not enough such shops to make it worth our while and we were all getting busy with

other commitments. So in the early nineties as we took stock, we decided we had to concentrate our efforts on the Coach House and left Airds Lane.

Jam – from Swaziland to TwecharIt thus came as something of a surprise when we received a letter from a small jam making factory in Swaziland in 2002 asking us if we would begin to import their products, as Oxfam had just stopped all importing, which included their jams!

Six years later and we had already had to move to a small warehouse in Twechar, had a remarkable year with sales of over £100k and were beginning to realise we either had to develop this side of the business or give it up again.

Just Trading Scotland – a new companyEvents moved quickly once we had decided that there was room for development. Rainbow Turtle, the Fair Trade shop in Paisley, had just been offered a warehouse by Renfrewshire Council and invited us to move in with them.

With Imani Development in Oban we received a grant from the Scottish Government to import 8 new products from Malawi.

And we were off! A new company was formed in early 2009 – Just Trading Scotland, with a growing number of staff on a part-time and full time basis.

Liz Cotton of Rainbow Turtle and Tom Griffiths, a retired airline pilot joined John Riches as directors and the first container of premium Malawi kilombero rice arrived (just!) in time for Fairtrade Fortnight.

Finding our marketThe big question now was how to sell the produce we had acquired. John had spent time in the north of Malawi talking to rice farmers and asking them how they spend the cash which they got from the sale of rice. One of the big things alongside housing, clothing, farm inputs and implements was education.

A farmer has to sell 90 kg of rice to be able to afford to send one child to secondary school for one year. Liz promptly suggested that we challenge groups, schools, churches and others, to sell 90kg. And the idea has taken off. In Fairtrade Fortnight 2010 we sold seventy five 90 kg challenges and we are now well into our third container of rice.

For Harvest 2010 we asked churches to sell 90 kg rice as part of their celebrations. At the time of writing we have sold nearly 7 tons!

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2001 – Support for Humura Child Care, Uganda

supporting rural families caring for AIDS orphans and Glasgow Children’s Holiday

scheme and Night Train Youth Club, Port Glasgow

2002 – Support for Hope Africa, Cape Town; mohair weavings from Elelloang Basali Weavers, Lesotho; Get Wet 2002, Maryhill (holiday scheme). Exhibition

of Namibian Art in the Tramway, Glasgow to accompany performance

by University of Namibia choir.

2003 – Visit from Fridah Wafula from Saidiana Women’s Group, Kenya; first imports of jams, sauces and marmalades from Eswatini Swazi Kitchen,

Manzini. Support for Boys’ Brigade, Glasgow Battalion.

Future developmentPlenty more challenges lie ahead for the Just Trading Scotland team.

As well as rice, we have brought in macadamia nuts, pan-roasted peanuts, peanut butter and yellow lentils.

In addition we are importing pottery mugs, jugs, tea-pots and tiles from Dedza pottery.

We are now looking at ways of adding maximum value in-country, getting all the processing, bagging and labelling done in Malawi. This will both help restrict costs and boost economic growth.

For more information about Just Trading Scotland, contact:

DETAILS DETAILS

Just Trading Scotland also has it’s own newsletter, available from: DETAILS DETAILS

Top left: Rice in the warehouse in Malawi. Liz Cotton of Rainbow Turtle loading a container with rice destined to be sold by schools, churches and other groups on our ‘90kg Challenge’.

John Riches and Tom Griffiths, along with Andrew Parker from Imani, called in at Mua Mission on their trip through Malawi in September. Set in a beautiful forest, by the edge of a river, where the local people do their washing, it houses a centre for study of local indigenous religions and also one of the most remarkable collections of wood carving in Africa (examples are shown above). There can’t be anything better than this surely. While Andrew and Tom helped Fr. Claude Boucher, the French Canadian artist-priest, whjo runs the mission, edit his newsletter for the last three years, John had a great time selecting pieces to show at the celebration for 5 years of the cooperation agreement between the governments of Scotland and Malawi. That’s on 3rd November. Thereafter some, at least will be on show in the Coach House.

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2004 – Jarvises visit CINI in Kolkota and HiLDA in Kerala; new water supply to Sophia Mission school, now relocated to Zampi village in

the Chin Hills. Support for Glasgow/Braendam Link. East Dunbartonshire

Women’s Aid celebrates 20 years.

2005 – 25th birthday celebrations in Pollok House with Magnus Magnusson, Bob

Holman and Gin Khan Khual. £700,000 disbursed to date. TFSR has 8 volunteers.

Launch of Balmore Trust web-site. Support for MADD Arts, Possil and Kottayam Social

Service Society, Kerala.

2006 – Primary school in Burma has been rebuilt. Grant received

from British Embassy in Rangoon. John Muafangejo lino cuts sold to

National Art Gallery of Namibia; funds to be used for support of

artists in Namibia.

Branching out - our international connectionsOver the years we have had a steady stream of visitors to the Coach House, who have brought us into contact with some remarkable organisations and given inspiration to all those involved.

We were introduced in the early eighties to Dr. Samir Chaudhuri by Margie Stephen from Croftamie, a dietician who greatly admired his work with mothers and babies in Kolkota. The link has remained strong – Geoffrey and Ros Jarvis visited CINI some years ago, and we have welcomed Samir back a number of times.

Bishop James Kauluma came to Glasgow to promote a book published by Oxfam about the war in Namibia. Bishop Kauluma was the leader of the Namibian Council of Churches and played a role there similar to Desmond Tutu in South Africa.

After his visit, the Trust developed long-term relations with Namibia, sent containers to Odibo to make possible the re-opening of a clinic closed during the war, and promoted the work of the great Namibian artist John Muafangejo.

Two priests from the Anglican Diocese of Namibia subsequently came to study in Glasgow,one of whom, Shihala Hamupembe became Bishop of Namibia in succession to Bishop Kauluma.

Above: Ellen Kuzwayo, the ‘Mother of Soweto’ visited Balmore twice in the eighties, once to promote a film about her grandmother and the forced removals of Black South Africans from their land, and once to promote her own autobiography.

Ellen was a leading figure in the Zamani Soweto Sisters, a great community worker and had played the shebeen queen in the film of Alan Paton’s Cry the Beloved Country.

Above: Bishop James Kauluma of Namibia with John Riches.

Left: J’Connie Inyhensico, pictured here with Jan Brown, was a Ugandan schoolteacher who studied in Stirling. He and his wife set up a clinic in Uganda – one of the major projects supported by the Trust in the early days.

Above: John Riches, Andrew and Margie Stephen and Nena Riches with Dr Samir Chaudhuri of the Child in Need Institute, Calcutta.

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2007 – Warehouse rented in Twechar as sales increase for

Eswatini. Sales of gift packs to Oxfam. East Dunbartonshire

becomes Fair Trade Zone. New secondary school opened in

Zampi village, Burma.

2008 – Warehouse moves to Paisley at the invitation of Rainbow Turtle. Grant received

from Scottish Government for project, led by Imani Development in Oban, to import 8 new Malawian products. John Riches visits

Malawi and places order for first container of kilombero rice.

2009 – New company, Just Trading Scotland set up to handle imports. First

container of rice sold. Grants to African Youth D.A.P., Liberia and Lilias

Graham Trust.

2010 – Sales of rice in Fairtrade Fortnight top

60 tonnes. £850,000 plus disbursed by Balmore Trust

to date. 30th birthday celebrated in FARE’s new building in Easterhouse.

Above: Hilary Benn, then Minister of International Development, came to the Coach House while campaigning in the area. The visit was remarkable for a telephone conversation that he conducted with the Foreign Minister of the Sudan, urging him to take action to curb the violence in Dafur.

Above: Books and bibles for the Robert Institute in Calabar arriving after an 18 month journey.

Above: Weavers at Teyateyaneng in Lesotho sing and dance as they carry rugs bound for the Coach House from their workshop.

Above: Sewing Sisters – Rennie Zulu and Leah Moshia came to Balmore bringing 24 wonderful quilts from Soweto which we exhibited and (mostly) sold in the Moir Hall.

This remarkable group of women came together to form a community network after the Soweto Rising in which many children were killed.

Right: Kayec Band in Windhoek, Namibia. Our friends from Black Umfolosi, Zimbabwe, ran a training course for these young musicians.

Volunteers load books and medical equipment for the school and hospital at Mantsonyane, Lesotho.

Trust volunteers present a ‘big cheque’ for £1,000 to support Wells for the Sudan.

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Our volunteers

On the Trust’s 25th birthday celebrations at Pollok House, broadcaster and writer Magnus Magnuson said of the Trust’s origins: “…John Riches had a social conscience; he had seen things for himself in distressingly deprived areas of South Africa. In the wider community of Balmore, other social consciences were stirring. Step forward four stalwart Balmore ladies – Ros Jarvis, Audrey Anderson, Jan Brown and (of course) Dr Nena Riches; they were thinking of starting an Oxfam shop. And suddenly everything started to gel. Meeting followed meeting. John Riches offered the use of the Coach House rent-free. The Coach House Trading Company was set up, at the same time as the Balmore Trust Ltd was registered as a charity in order to received the shop’s profits free of tax. And on the 17th of May, 1980, The Coach House opened for business.

And what a business it was! It positively flew into the air like a rocket, fuelled by single-minded determination and care for others. In the first six months a turnover of £20,000 was realised. It was an astonishing lift-off. Every Saturday there was a home-baking stall, and Ros Jarvis remembers baking 250 gingerbreads for it, while Audrey Anderson proved herself the Balmore Queen of Scones.”

The Balmore Trust and The Coach House – a Who’s Who

The Coach HouseDirectors: John and Nena Riches

Manager: Sue Bond

Week-end supervisers: Jackie and Linda Marshall

Accountant: Roger Hudson

Web-master: Willie MacEwan

Tools For Self RelianceThe boys: Sandy, Laurie, Peter Waterston, Perry Cooper Harrison, Murdo, Archie, Stewart

The Balmore Trust Directors: Geoffrey Burns, (Acting Chair), Ros Jarvis, (Secretary), John Eldridge, Iain Monteague, John Riches, Nena Riches.

Just Trading ScotlandDirectors: Liz Cotton, Tom Griffiths, John Riches.

Warehouse Team: Liam McLachlan, Pauline Rees, Kelly Morgan, Martin Hamilton.

Accountant: Chris Lush

Consultants: Tracy Mitchell, Ben Miller, Alice Thomas.

The Balmore Trust is a Registered Charity in Scotland – Registration number SC 008930Drawing of the Coach House by Geoffrey Jarvis. Other drawings by Mona Dickson. Photographs courtesy of Ros Jarvis and John Riches.

Audrey AndersonWe are taking this opportunity to highlight the contribution of our volunteers. Typical of this group is Audrey Anderson. Audrey, who is from Milngavie but lived for many years in Barnellan was one of the original group who planned and worked for the opening of the Coach House in 1980.

For years, every Saturday unless she was away, she would come in with a jeely pan full of the most deliciously fluffy scones. And she still keeps up a remarkable flow of baking, jams and marmalade. Then there are the vegetables and the fruit which can turn up downstairs any time in season. And it’s Audrey who keeps the drive looking bright and tidy and who grows the herbs which you can find outside.

Above – Audrey Anderson, a Trust volunteer for 30 years, in a rare moment of relaxation in the tearoom at the Coach House with Some One and Ros Jarvis. Ros has also been involved in Trust since it was founded.