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| National Vegetarian Week in Durham
On the Monday of NVW I went to Durham Library where, proudly wearing my NVW t-shirt, I manned a stall offering a variety of different vegetarian foods to tempt both library users and other passers-by. There was an eye-catching, colourful and delicious array of goodies: Sosmix sausage rolls; Quorn slices; couscous, rice and pasta salads; flat breads and pitta breads; cheese dips, hummus and cashew nut dip; spouted seeds; crispy oat biscuits and seaweed flakes to name but a few. The aim was to introduce people to a wide range of veggie foods that they hadn’t tried before and it proved extremely successful and popular. It was organised by Anita Thompson, a vegetarian of long-standing and information officer at Durham Library. Thanks go to her for coming up with a great idea to start NVW. On the Wednesday I donned my NVW t-shirt again and went to Howden le Wear Community centre, Durham, where I ran a “Vegetarian hands on health” course. This was to introduce people to healthy options that are easy and tasty, and involves everyone having a go at cooking something, then sitting down to enjoy a meal together at the end of the session. The group of six ladies attending was extremely positive and enthusiastic, and set about making the food with gusto. We produced: French Onion Soup; garlic bread; mushroom stroganoff; Quorn curry; fresh fruit flan. They were delighted with the food produced and proceeded to eat every scrap, pleasantly surprised by how easy it had been to prepare and how delicious it all was. One young woman was so impressed with the session (and my t-shirt) that I gave her my spare one, which she immediately donned and said she would wear in college to show her friends. From Rachel Markham |
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"We know that as a global foodservice company, Compass Group have an enormous influence on what our 20 million customers worldwide choose to eat and drink. In today’s lifestyles vegetarian dishes are becoming the preferred choice of many of our customers. The new consumer is looking for a lighter more nutritionally balanced diet with a reduction in their weekly meat consumption. We take these responsibilities very seriously and believe that we have the commitment & capabilities to make a difference to the lives of our people and to society in general, which is why we work with organisations such as the Vegetarian Society. The key to our NVW activities this year, was to give our customers a great choice of vegetarian foods – not just during vegetarian week, but every day in our restaurants and café’s! It's was also a fantastic opportunity to raise customer awareness of the Compass Group philosophy on health, nutrition & wellbeing, and to participate in this hugely publicised National campaign from the Vegetarian society". From Andy Wilson, Compass Group. & From Compass Group Catering Managers "My customers loved the display we put together, and we ran a free prize draw for a vegetarian 'Meal for Two' in the week leading up to National Veggie Week which proved a great success". "Customers really liked the information booklets & posters, but said that they would like to have some vegetarian recipes. So we printed off the vegetarian recipes that we had on the menu for that week plus others from 'recipe for success' and gave them out to customers throughout the week"! |
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Louth Vegetarian Group at their stall on Louth Market
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"Just to let you know that the event for national vegetarian week that we had at our library here in Southend on Sea went really well. We had a week long display of cookery books and a drop in /taster session on the 24th. We had a lot of interest and I have enclosed some pictures for you. We had food donated from various veggie/vegan companies and our local Waitrose donated loads of their own brand vegetarian food which went down really well. The manager of our local Lush store came along as well and gave out goodie bags and did demonstrations. My manager said that we normally get just over 3,000 people through the door each week and that week it was over 4,000! The cookery books were very popular too and we had to keep topping up the display every day. Looking forward to next year." From Dawn French, Southend on Sea Library.
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"Please see my website page when I highlighted how going veggie can be good for the environment. I have to say that out of 60 Members of the Welsh Assembly I think there are only two or three of us who are vegetarian. When I raised this issue in the Chamber I did get heckled by a few members." From Lorraine Barrett AM, Cardiff South & Penarth, National Assembly for Wales |
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"NVW kicked off with our annual information stall at the Leighton Buzzard May Day Fayre where we were blessed with dry & warm weather for a change. The ‘Meat-free made easy’ recipe booklets had not arrived in time for this event but we distributed a lot of the NVW fliers and other leaflets on the environment theme. On 10 May we ran a street stall at Newport Pagnell outside Somerfield to distribute the Meat-free made easy booklets and the NVW fliers. The weather was kind if not hot and the public response was generally very positive so much so that by 1pm we had run out of stock we had brought along. Our annual NVW booking of the Community Desk in thecentre:MK was on 15 May where we have the opportunity for a large spread of information, making use of the Information Sheets for those people without access to the website. Given the rules of conduct here, the response was as usual more sedate. On 20 May we ran an information stall in Bletchley outside the entrance to the old Co-op store where we had the opportunity to spread our posters around. The response here was again positive as we have found at other times, distributing our remaining Meat-free made easy recipe booklets. Even some non-vegetarians were keen to obtain a copy and other information. Our monthly meal at Veggie World restaurant on 21 May coincided with NVW and we had a turnout of 15. An emergency supply of the recipe booklets arrived in time to allow us to run our planned information stall on 22 May outside Waitrose in Central Milton Keynes. The response here was generally sedate until later in the afternoon when the interest picked up, the last of the emergency ration of recipe booklets ran out at which point we turned to the packs of recipe cards From Peter Simpson, Milton Keynes Vegetarians, Vegans and Animal Rights. |
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"For vegetarian week I made my family, friends and boyfriend give up meat for the whole week, because of this I have converted 4 peoples diets and they all really love veggie food now!" From Rhiannon Weaver. |
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Vegan food and cake stall at the Hope Pastures Open Day, Leeds.
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