Spring 2012 Highlights

Making History

In fulfilment of our ‘Animal Ethics’ theme, we have launched a great new video clip called Making History where we point out how the social movement evolved: two hundred years ago human slavery was abolished in the USA.  One hundred years ago women were given the right to vote in many countries including the UK and the USA.  Fifty years ago the civil rights movement won their battle in America.  But despite this progress for human justice, non-human ‘farmed’ animals are still used and abused.  We call on viewers that if they believe all animals seek life and freedom, they should have the strength of to follow their convictions, and try veganism.  We ask non-vegans to sign up at www.veganpledge.com for free vegan mentoring so that they too can be part of Making History.

Check out the Making History video clip here:  www.vegansociety.com

Vegan for the Animals booklet

Our great new Vegan for the Animals booklet is available to download here:

http://www.vegansociety.com/resources/downloads.aspx or contact The Vegan Society for free copies. 

Eggs and Dairy leaflet

Our new Eggs and Dairy leaflet is available to download here:  http://www.vegansociety.com/resources/downloads.aspx or contact The Vegan Society for free copies. 

Website

Our new ‘cakes’ page is the second most visited page on our website and receives around 20,000 visits per month.  It seems that people like vegan cake!

Marathon des Sables

On 6 April to 16 April Fiona Oakes raised money for The Vegan Society, as well as her sanctuary and her team, by entering the Marathon des Sables (154 miles across the Sahara in temperatures of up to 50 degrees C° see page xxxx).  We publicised this widely including getting a three-page photo feature on Fiona’s run into Top Sante magazine.

Mumsnet

We ran a Feeding Your Vegan Infant - with confidence competition on Mumsnet to emphasise that well planned vegan diets can be suitable for babies and children. 

New World Vegan Day and World Vegan Month Logos

We have two new logos which can be used by The Vegan Society and affiliated groups. 

Vegan GP Featured in The British Medical Journal

Vegan Society Nutrition and Health Spokesperson Philip Bickley made a rapid response to a British Medical Journal (BMJ) article:  The Greening of Medicine which was published on line:  http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.d8360?tab=responses#

The article was later published in the print version of the BMJ.  BMJ 2012;344:e869 http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/bmj.e869

Radio Interviews

Our PR/Media Officer Amanda Baker was interviewed by BBC WM (West Midlands radio) about healthy vegan diets, trigged by questions around the health of lapsed vegans & lab-grown meat.

Our PR/Media Officer Amanda Baker was interviewed by talkSport radio for their weekly roundup on Sunday 26 Feb 2012, about healthy vegan nutrition, and practical tips on vegan living.

On Tuesday 13 March our Head of Communications and Public Affairs, Rosamund Raha, was interviewed on the Adrian Goldburg show BBC Radio West Midlands about the Red Meat and Mortality report that came out that day.  A butcher also appeared on the show to put the other side of the argument.   

Food Ethics Council's major 'Beyond Business As Usual' online survey

We commented on the Food Ethics Council's major 'Beyond Business As Usual' online survey:

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/847826/Beyond-Business-As-Usual

Vegan Pavilion

The Vegan Society Business Development team had a Vegan Pavilion featuring our trademarked companies at the Natural & Organic Products Europe trade show on 1-2 April at London’s Olympia.  There will be a full write-up in the Autumn magazine.

Media Statements

We commented on Daily Mail online on the EU plan to research insects as food:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2093813/Four-legs-good-legs-better-EU-offers-3-million-Euros-research-using-insects-foods-burgers.html  (highly rated out of 90 comments, with 50 ‘rate ups’).

We commented on Huffington Post UK online on research on dairy milk in adult human diets:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/social/treaclemine?action=comments

We commented on The Independent online, responding to Michael Mansfield on abolition of meat:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/michael-mansfield--abolishing-meat-is-an-ethical-issue-that-requires-everyones-attention-6294225.html (top rated by readers out of 417 comments, with 30 ‘likes’).

We posted on The Guardian Word of Mouth blog about vegan recipes from non-vegan celebrity chefs:        http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2012/jan/24/vegetarian-cookbooks-pick-crop (highly rated out of 176 comments, with 24 ‘recommends’).

We secured the publication of two vegan recipes on the Climate Week Cuisine website.

Fry's Range Now Available from Giant Catering Supplier

Fry's entire range of vegan products are now available from 3663 - the biggest food service supplier in the UK.  The Fry's range includes tons of fantastic products including Chicken Style Strips & Vegetarian Polony.  If you have contact with any schools, hotels, colleges, universities, hospitals, cafés, leisure centres etc you can ask the catering manager if they are supplied by 3663 and, if so, request that they order Fry's products to add to their range. www.frysdistribution.co.uk