Highlights from The Vegan Society for Winter 2009
(Originally published in The Vegan Spring 2010 edition, which is available for purchase or subscription from our online shop. You can also read selected feature articles from back-issues.)
CABI Global Summit on Food Security
Our Chief Executive, Nigel Winter, attended the CABI global summit on food security in London on 20 October (http://www.cabi.org/). About 200 people from around the world attended and there were useful presentations by Professor Bob Watson, Chief Scientific Advisor to Defra and Professor John Beddington, Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government.
Windsor Castle goes Vegan
Vegan Society Chair of Council, George Rodger, wrote to The Duke of Edinburgh in November to thank him for laying on a vegan banquet for the “the Celebration of Faiths and the Environment” lunch which he hosted at Windsor Castle in November. Many VIPs attended including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the Grand Mufti of Egypt and Archbishop Valentine Mokiwa, President of the All Africa Conference of Churches. The lunch was organised by the secular Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC) and The UN Development Programme.
http://www.arcworld.org/downloads/ARC-Windsor-press-release-food1.pdf
Vegan Society Website
Our new website (http://www.vegansociety.com/) is going from strength to strength and since its launch we have received very many more enquiries than previously. We are gradually putting new material onto the site including feature articles from back issues of The Vegan magazine.
Why Vegan Leaflet
We have got our Why Vegan leaflet redesigned. We are keeping the original design for students and young people but the new design is more suitable for giving out more generally. For free copies please contact info@vegansociety.com
Prostate Matters
Roger Bacon who edits Prostate Matters (the newsletter of the Prostate Support Federation) asked for Dr Philip Bickley’s prostate cancer article which appeared in the Winter Vegan magazine so that he could reproduce it in his newsletter. He will give us full credit and include our website. It appeared in January’s Prostate Matters.
Education
Rob Jackson, our Education Officer, presented a seminar to a group of teachers at the Design and Technology show at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC). Rob has been using online social networking sites to stimulate interest in The Vegan Society and our activities:
http://www.facebook.com/thevegansociety and http://www.myspace.com/thevegansociety and http://twitter.com/thevegansociety If you have marketing experience or have worked with or in schools please contact Rob to offer assistance in raising awareness of our services: youth@vegansociety.com
Vegan Advocacy
Information Officer, Verity Hunt-Sheppard presented the joint Vegan Prisoner Support Group / Vegan Society awards at a prison service training centre in Rugby. Vegan Society Group contact Nitin Mehta continues to press the Department of Health regarding animal ingredients in medicines.
Trademark
The Vegan Society has applied for trademark registration in India, which may take until December 2010 to be granted but should lead to some great new products and revenue. The trademark has recently been registered in Australia and Canada, helping to brand veganism on a global scale.
Published Academic Work
Vegan Society Trustees Dr Matthew Cole and Dr Karen Morgan got an article and interview about their academic work on veganism published in the German magazine: Tierbefreiung. The article’s title is: Understanding the exploitation of nonhuman animals: why isn’t there more opposition? The article refers to the following paper written by Vegan Society Trustee Dr Matthew Cole and Vegan Society member Dr Kate Stewart which appeared in a USA peer reviewed journal and looks at how children are encouraged to care about fictional animals, while their attention is diverted from the real animals used to produce food:
Stewart, K. & Cole, M. The conceptual separation of food and animals in childhood. Food, Culture and Society 2009; 12(4): 457-476.
Vegan Society Vegan Pledge
Our Vegan Pledge offers new vegans or those curious about veganism the opportunity to receive the support of a mentor. Pledges can last for a week, two weeks or a month. About 200 people from the UK and overseas took the Vegan Pledge in 2009 and we have received back almost seventy post-pledge questionnaires and the good news is that most people who returned their post-pledge questionnaire plan to stay vegan. If you are interested in becoming a mentor please contact info@vegansociety.com
Boots
The Boots website contains some inaccurate and potentially damaging information about vegan diets. We are talking to Boots and hope to get this changed in the near future.