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This Christmas we’re thinking about gifts that give in more ways than one. We all want our loved ones to appreciate the presents we give them this festive season, and of course at Rainbow Turtle our real focus is on how our purchases help those who produce them, but we are also concerned with protecting the world that we live in.

The fair trade movement has for many years been interested in the welfare of our planet. One of the World Fair Trade Organization’s ten principles is ‘Respect for the Environment’ and they encourage their member producers to use sustainably managed raw materials and, where possible, to use renewable energy sources and to ship their goods by sea. The Fairtrade Foundation also has this focus, and provides their producers with guidance on how to lessen their environmental impact.

That’s why this Christmas we’ve designed our window display to reflect all the many ways you can incorporate ethically produced goods into your celebrations. From wreaths made out of recycled saris to angels for the tree that were once glass alcohol bottles to more practical items like eco-friendly firelighters and sustainable bamboo travel mugs – Rainbow Turtle is the place to shop this Christmas. Support us, the producers, and the environment by buying gifts that give.

You can also support Rainbow Turtle this Christmas by voting for us in Paisley First’s Best Dressed Christmas Window competition – although they seem to have forgotten to capture our special Christmas window! We’ve put a lot of effort into our ethical and sustainable festive display so we would really love if you could vote for it even though it isn’t shown on the Paisley First website.

Merry Christmas!

Volunteers, Roisin and Duncan, hosted our first Rainbow Turtle Volunteers’ evening on the 29th September. It started with a delicious meal where everyone brought a dish to share with the group. The meal was a great opportunity to meet new volunteers and get to know others whom I had only met when I was in the shop. What was evident was the number of friendships that had developed between the volunteers during the time that they had worked in our delightful shop.

The second half of the evening was taken up with a discussion about ways that Rainbow Turtle can support the volunteers, how to recruit new ones and how we can boost sales in the shop.

If you’re interested becoming a volunteer for Rainbow Turtle and joining this wonderful group of people, please visit our volunteer page.

1. Navigate to our home page.
2. In the bottom right hand corner of the page, click on the “Follow” symbol:

3. In the box that says “Enter your email address” type your email address and click “Sign me up”
4. A message will be displayed that says, “Thanks. You’ll get an email with a link to confirm your sub. If you don’t get on it please contact us.”
5. Check your email inbox for an email from Rainbow Turtle, entitled “Confirm your subscription for Rainbow Turtle” and open it.
6. In the body of the email, click on the button that says, “Confirm Follow”.
7. You’ll then be taken to a WordPress subscriptions management web page.
8. Find the entry for Rainbow Turtle and click on the Delivery Frequency box. Select the frequency you’d like to receive your updates from us, “Immediate”, “Daily”, or “Weekly”.
9. You can also decide whether you wish to Unfollow Rainbow Turtle.
10. Click the “Save Changes” button.
11. The web page should refresh and say, “Successfully updated your options” at the top.

Please come along to Rainbow Turtle’s Annual General Meeting on Thursday 11th October in the Methodist Central Hall, Paisley, at 7pm.

Following the business part of the meeting our new shop manager, Gemma Elliott, will be speaking about where she sees the Rainbow Turtle shop going in the future. As always we’ll have our selection of fair trade tea and coffee to warm you up.

If you’d like to attend our meeting please go to our Contact Us page and drop us a wee email.

We look forward to seeing you there.