United Reformed Church in Cheltenham

Commitment for Life

Our focus for the next 12 months is Palestine

Traidcraft

Footsteps Charity Café

The Local charity The Rendezvous Society is now offering a unique experience in Cheltenham – a Wi-Fi café where customers can enjoy quality fair trade coffee and organic snacks in a friendly atmosphere, with all proceeds going to the work of the charity.

The Footsteps café is located at 16 Portland St and ensures that it is an ideal place to relax with friends, settle down with a good book and a cappuccino, or bring your lap top to use the free Wi-Fi. Customers mentioning this article will be offered their first drink at half price, as well as a loyalty card for further discounts.

The Charity benefited from a Community Pride grant from Cheltenham Borough Council, contributing to the cost of refitting its fair trade shop using reclaimed wood, and buying new equipment including a coffee machine for the café. Fair trade gifts, cards and food products are still available to buy, and there is a limited offer of a free low energy light bulb with every purchase. For Fair Trade fortnight, 22^nd February – 7^th March, there will be a sale with 10% off everything and other special offers.

The charity is hoping that by offering quality snacks and drinks and a warm welcome, it will appeal to a wide range of customers – students and visitors to Cheltenham as well as regulars, young and old, and provide an alternative to the pub culture or multi-national coffee outlets. In doing so, customers may also be interested to learn about the educational work of the charity – encouraging inter-cultural

understanding and sustainable living.

Check out the website www.global-footsteps.org for more details.

Item forwarded via Carole Pennington for Tradecraft

Urgent Appeal from Christian Aid

Christian Aid put out an urgent appeal for donations at the end of 2009 because their receipts over the last year have been about 10% down, probably as a result of the credit crunch and general economic downturn. The main points of the appeal are:

We feel it is our duty to let you know that Christian Aid's income has been seriously affected by the recession. We do not currently have enough funds to support all the people we’d planned to in 2010. Unless circumstances change, on 19 February Christian Aid will be making some difficult decisions: who to stop helping.

We know you are committed to standing with the world’s poorest people. Your support is essential. In these exceptional circumstances we would like to give you the opportunity to help save vital projects including education work, health projects and providing long-term solutions to hunger. The harsh reality is, without extra funds, next year we won’t be able to continue some projects that are relying on our help. And people who are currently benefiting from those projects will suffer as a result.

The Christian Aid website has more details - http://www.christianaid.org.uk/appeals/urgent/ - In a video message online, Daleep Mukarji, Christian Aid's director, says "With your prayers and support I hope we can keep our commitment to poor and marginalised people - thank you" Donations can be made directly to Christian Aid, through their web-site, by phone or through the church. This appeal is for immediate donations - of course, Christian Aid will continue to need regular donations throughout the year - and so our continued long-term support through the Commitment for Life programme throughout the year is also important.

Andrew Veal

URCiC Emergency Fund

We are seeking donations to the URC in C Emergency Fund so we can make a large collective donation to the DEC Haiti Emergency Appeal. As always, you can give directly to Christian Aid or DEC or use the URC in C Emergency Fund. The Emergency Fund, managed by the Church Council, was set up so the church could respond to Emergency Appeals and donations can be made at any time so that funds are available for donations when there is a disaster.