Jack MacRoary's Fairtrade Adventure
Episode Eight
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: March 7th – Getting into the staff room tea and coffee.
Swearwords: None.
Description: March 7th – Getting into the staff room tea and coffee.
In the run up to the Fairtrade Fashion show, Melissa did get a lot of other girls organised. In fact she got Miss Direction to organise a special shopping trip to Glasgow. Luckily Brian and I didn’t have to go on that one. A couple of boys did go – and the White twins Jessica and Jeremy went. They go everywhere together. You’d think they were Siamese twins but they’re not, they’re from DrumTumshie the same as the rest of us.
Anyway, they all went off to find clothes for the fashion show and Brian and I stayed behind. One shopping trip a year was more than enough for me. I asked Brian if he fancied Melissa, because I thought she fancied him. He said, ‘I don’t know.’
I said, ‘Well, Jimmy Wong said that you were going out with her, and you never told me and I thought you’d tell me something like that.’
And Brian shook his head and said, ‘Women, what can you do?’
Which didn’t really answer my question. So I dropped it. There were more important and interesting things for us to talk about, after all.
But Melissa did seem to be spending a lot of time with Brian and me all the same. When she came back from the shopping trip she said we should try hard to get Fairtrade into the staff room. Remember, we drank Fairtrade coffee with sugar at the café in Aberdeen, well she said we should get it into the staff room because the staff all drink loads of tea and coffee there all the time. I’m amazed they have the time to teach, they all spend so much time drinking it.
We brought it up at the weekly committee meeting. Mr Smith said that the teachers needed the caffeine buzz in order to teach ‘reprobates’ such as us. I didn’t know what a reprobate was, nor did Brian but he said, ‘We’re not cold-blooded, actually, Mr Smith.’
And Mr Smith was about to explain that a reprobate isn’t the same as a reptile when Miss Direction suggested maybe we were getting off the point and asked Mr Smith to ‘talk to procurement’ and see if we could get the school policy changed.
He was taken a bit aback by that. A direct request to influence the policy of the school. And if you think about it, something of a challenge to his Free Market ethos. But because Miss Direction asked him, he really had to do it.
I like Miss Direction. I think she’s really clever. If I was going to have a girlfriend I’d like her to be like Miss Direction. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t fancy Miss Direction, or even have a crush on her. But you can’t help looking around and thinking what kind of girl or woman you’d like to end up with. And so I’m just saying. If I could find a girl who is a bit like Miss Direction and a bit like Heather, I’d be happy.
So at the next meeting Mr Smith reported back that ‘in theory’ the school could change to Fairtrade but that they wanted to make sure it would ‘be the right choice’ before they committed. I thought that was really stupid, I mean, how could it not be the right choice?
But with Mr Smith everything is about terms and conditions and you have to read the small print and so basically what we had to agree to do was to ‘run a pilot’ scheme. This meant that we had to buy Fairtrade tea and coffee and biscuits and sugar and monitor their consumption in the staff room. Usually the staff pay a certain amount each term for their tea and coffee and the school has a ‘budget’ as well but that’s not just for the staff room, that’s for all the ‘consumables’ around the kitchen as well. Because Mr Smith said that it would be hard to change school policy across the board, Miss Direction said that the staff room was the first place to crack.
Usually after half terms the teachers come back and put £10 each into a kitty for the staff room catering and that has to last them for tea and coffee and sugar and biscuits for the duration. The school provides milk each day. They don’t have to do that, but they do it to keep the workers happy – and to stop loads of teachers buying their own milk which then goes rancid because they all forget whose milk is whose and no one wants to start a staff room incident by throwing out someone else’s milk.
Miss Direction said that she would get the teachers to put in their money before half term and when they came back we would have replaced all their tea and coffee and sugar and biscuits and cakes with Fairtrade ones. And we would do an experiment where we would monitor how much they consumed and how much it cost and do a ‘satisfaction’ survey where they could see a) if they were getting value for money and b) if they enjoyed ‘the products’ better or not.
I told mum and dad about this and dad said, ‘Every day’s a school day with Miss Direction, isn’t it?’ And mum said that she thought it was a great idea and how about we went Fairtrade at home, too. So she went out and bought Fairtrade coffee and teabags and sugar and some biscuits and cakes as well. And she said that the coffee and tea didn’t really cost any more – and dad didn’t even notice the difference. But the biscuits and cakes were a bit different and sometimes cost a bit more. But we don’t eat biscuits that much at home, anyway, not now that John has moved out. I prefer crisps.
Miss Direction gathered in the money from the teachers before the end of the half term and we all sat down with her and the online stores – Traidcraft and Ethical Superstore were the ones we looked at – and we selected all the products we thought people would like. Miss Direction was keen on GeoBars (well, she is a geography teacher) and I liked the look of some of the ginger biscuits (even though it was for the staff, not for us) and we managed to spend the whole budget quite easily. And when we came back from half term we had a huge parcel awaiting us which was all the goodies.
Brian was quite jealous and asked whether we should set up a school tuck shop with Fairtrade things. And Miss Direction said it was a good idea, but we had to go one step at a time because there are all sorts of rules about what can be sold in school tuck shops (which is why DrumTumshie Academy doesn’t have one at the moment) to do with sugar content etc. And Brian said we should set up a ‘coffee bar’ like the staff room have. And Melissa said she thought that was a great idea. I said I didn’t really like coffee or tea to drink, but Melissa pointed out that what with all the healthy eating and sugar tax and all that stuff, fizzy drinks were really bad for you and so maybe if we had a healthy alternative to heading out to the local shops in break-time we could convert more students to Fairtrade.
I’m sure she has a point, but Miss Direction said we had to progress one step at a time and once we’d done the staff room test would be the best time to try and ‘take on the rest of the school.’ I was pleased that Miss Direction was on my side.
So we did our experiment. For half a term. The teachers drank as much as they ever did – and most of them never noticed the difference, except that they had to mark down in a book when they had a drink – and we collated the figures once a week. And we gave them ‘feedback’ forms about the choice of biscuits and cakes. And even though some of them said ‘I miss my Bourbons’ and the like, we also did a presentation to them in the staff room one break time explaining about Fairtrade and why it was a good idea that they should eat the Fairtrade choices and most of them said they agreed. I noticed that some of the teachers brought in their own biscuits sometimes, though – and when a teacher has a birthday sometimes other teachers make cakes for them. So we couldn’t claim 100% success rate but it was good enough for them to agree to keep on with the Fairtrade tea and coffee and biscuits in the future and if anyone wanted non-Fairtrade they would have to supply their own. So Miss Direction said we could claim that as a victory.
And once we’d collated our data we could show it to the head of Home Economics and the Bursar, who are responsible for the ‘purchasing’ of the consumables at school. And we’d be able to send the information to the Fairtrade people to help us get our Fair Achievers Award too. So things are changing at DrumTumshie. For the better.
Anyway, they all went off to find clothes for the fashion show and Brian and I stayed behind. One shopping trip a year was more than enough for me. I asked Brian if he fancied Melissa, because I thought she fancied him. He said, ‘I don’t know.’
I said, ‘Well, Jimmy Wong said that you were going out with her, and you never told me and I thought you’d tell me something like that.’
And Brian shook his head and said, ‘Women, what can you do?’
Which didn’t really answer my question. So I dropped it. There were more important and interesting things for us to talk about, after all.
But Melissa did seem to be spending a lot of time with Brian and me all the same. When she came back from the shopping trip she said we should try hard to get Fairtrade into the staff room. Remember, we drank Fairtrade coffee with sugar at the café in Aberdeen, well she said we should get it into the staff room because the staff all drink loads of tea and coffee there all the time. I’m amazed they have the time to teach, they all spend so much time drinking it.
We brought it up at the weekly committee meeting. Mr Smith said that the teachers needed the caffeine buzz in order to teach ‘reprobates’ such as us. I didn’t know what a reprobate was, nor did Brian but he said, ‘We’re not cold-blooded, actually, Mr Smith.’
And Mr Smith was about to explain that a reprobate isn’t the same as a reptile when Miss Direction suggested maybe we were getting off the point and asked Mr Smith to ‘talk to procurement’ and see if we could get the school policy changed.
He was taken a bit aback by that. A direct request to influence the policy of the school. And if you think about it, something of a challenge to his Free Market ethos. But because Miss Direction asked him, he really had to do it.
I like Miss Direction. I think she’s really clever. If I was going to have a girlfriend I’d like her to be like Miss Direction. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t fancy Miss Direction, or even have a crush on her. But you can’t help looking around and thinking what kind of girl or woman you’d like to end up with. And so I’m just saying. If I could find a girl who is a bit like Miss Direction and a bit like Heather, I’d be happy.
So at the next meeting Mr Smith reported back that ‘in theory’ the school could change to Fairtrade but that they wanted to make sure it would ‘be the right choice’ before they committed. I thought that was really stupid, I mean, how could it not be the right choice?
But with Mr Smith everything is about terms and conditions and you have to read the small print and so basically what we had to agree to do was to ‘run a pilot’ scheme. This meant that we had to buy Fairtrade tea and coffee and biscuits and sugar and monitor their consumption in the staff room. Usually the staff pay a certain amount each term for their tea and coffee and the school has a ‘budget’ as well but that’s not just for the staff room, that’s for all the ‘consumables’ around the kitchen as well. Because Mr Smith said that it would be hard to change school policy across the board, Miss Direction said that the staff room was the first place to crack.
Usually after half terms the teachers come back and put £10 each into a kitty for the staff room catering and that has to last them for tea and coffee and sugar and biscuits for the duration. The school provides milk each day. They don’t have to do that, but they do it to keep the workers happy – and to stop loads of teachers buying their own milk which then goes rancid because they all forget whose milk is whose and no one wants to start a staff room incident by throwing out someone else’s milk.
Miss Direction said that she would get the teachers to put in their money before half term and when they came back we would have replaced all their tea and coffee and sugar and biscuits and cakes with Fairtrade ones. And we would do an experiment where we would monitor how much they consumed and how much it cost and do a ‘satisfaction’ survey where they could see a) if they were getting value for money and b) if they enjoyed ‘the products’ better or not.
I told mum and dad about this and dad said, ‘Every day’s a school day with Miss Direction, isn’t it?’ And mum said that she thought it was a great idea and how about we went Fairtrade at home, too. So she went out and bought Fairtrade coffee and teabags and sugar and some biscuits and cakes as well. And she said that the coffee and tea didn’t really cost any more – and dad didn’t even notice the difference. But the biscuits and cakes were a bit different and sometimes cost a bit more. But we don’t eat biscuits that much at home, anyway, not now that John has moved out. I prefer crisps.
Miss Direction gathered in the money from the teachers before the end of the half term and we all sat down with her and the online stores – Traidcraft and Ethical Superstore were the ones we looked at – and we selected all the products we thought people would like. Miss Direction was keen on GeoBars (well, she is a geography teacher) and I liked the look of some of the ginger biscuits (even though it was for the staff, not for us) and we managed to spend the whole budget quite easily. And when we came back from half term we had a huge parcel awaiting us which was all the goodies.
Brian was quite jealous and asked whether we should set up a school tuck shop with Fairtrade things. And Miss Direction said it was a good idea, but we had to go one step at a time because there are all sorts of rules about what can be sold in school tuck shops (which is why DrumTumshie Academy doesn’t have one at the moment) to do with sugar content etc. And Brian said we should set up a ‘coffee bar’ like the staff room have. And Melissa said she thought that was a great idea. I said I didn’t really like coffee or tea to drink, but Melissa pointed out that what with all the healthy eating and sugar tax and all that stuff, fizzy drinks were really bad for you and so maybe if we had a healthy alternative to heading out to the local shops in break-time we could convert more students to Fairtrade.
I’m sure she has a point, but Miss Direction said we had to progress one step at a time and once we’d done the staff room test would be the best time to try and ‘take on the rest of the school.’ I was pleased that Miss Direction was on my side.
So we did our experiment. For half a term. The teachers drank as much as they ever did – and most of them never noticed the difference, except that they had to mark down in a book when they had a drink – and we collated the figures once a week. And we gave them ‘feedback’ forms about the choice of biscuits and cakes. And even though some of them said ‘I miss my Bourbons’ and the like, we also did a presentation to them in the staff room one break time explaining about Fairtrade and why it was a good idea that they should eat the Fairtrade choices and most of them said they agreed. I noticed that some of the teachers brought in their own biscuits sometimes, though – and when a teacher has a birthday sometimes other teachers make cakes for them. So we couldn’t claim 100% success rate but it was good enough for them to agree to keep on with the Fairtrade tea and coffee and biscuits in the future and if anyone wanted non-Fairtrade they would have to supply their own. So Miss Direction said we could claim that as a victory.
And once we’d collated our data we could show it to the head of Home Economics and the Bursar, who are responsible for the ‘purchasing’ of the consumables at school. And we’d be able to send the information to the Fairtrade people to help us get our Fair Achievers Award too. So things are changing at DrumTumshie. For the better.
About the Author
Jack MacRoary, also known locally as the Bard of DrumTumshie, comes from the small farming community of TattyBogle, which he has singlehandedly put on the map through his fame. After bursting onto the Scottish literary cultural scene in August 2012, when he appeared at the inaugural Edinburgh eBook Festival, Jack now attends DrumTumshie Academy.
During his brief but eventful literary career so far, Jack has been a blogger, providing an insightful commentary on rural life and Scots culture; a short story writer; and most recently a political commentator through his McSerial contributions to the McStorytellers website.
The Complete TattyBogle, Jack's first “real book” published by McStorytellers in 2015, brings together in a handy compendium all of his musings, commentaries and stories to date.
During his brief but eventful literary career so far, Jack has been a blogger, providing an insightful commentary on rural life and Scots culture; a short story writer; and most recently a political commentator through his McSerial contributions to the McStorytellers website.
The Complete TattyBogle, Jack's first “real book” published by McStorytellers in 2015, brings together in a handy compendium all of his musings, commentaries and stories to date.