* The rise and fall of Colchester Vegetarian Society
The rise and fall of Colchester Vegetarian
Society
by Annette White
February 2008
My knowledge of the origins of a vegetarian society in Colchester is sketchy, but I do know that in 1982 there was a Colchester Vegetarian Society, which was organised by Mandy Crampton (later Stevens), who had started the group some time previously. By the end of 1982, the group was being run by Roy and Linda Parker who continued until 1989 when the group folded due to lack of people willing to help. Can anyone take us back pre-1982?
I had previously been a not very active member of Letchworth and District group, but on moving to this area found that there was no vegetarian group. I noticed an item in 'The Vegetarian' magazine (published by Vegetarian Society) – a lady called Vera Chaney was appealing for people to contact her if they were interested in joining a vegetarian group that was just starting. For several months I received no reply to my letter and assumed that nothing had come of it. So I contacted the UK Vegetarian Society and offered to start a vegetarian information centre for the area. Information centres were a new initiative that the Society had just started, for areas where there were not enough members to form a group. In the meantime I received a reply from a group called Green Network, who seemed to be setting up organic gardening groups – this was interesting but not exactly what I had in mind. Somewhat confused, I contacted Vera Chaney again and asked if anything had happened about starting the vegetarian group, not really expecting to hear any more. Meanwhile the Colchester Information Centre came into being in March 1991. Then out of the blue I received an invitation to a meeting from the same lady to form a vegetarian group! I was asked if I could bring along some information, and so I did, some Vegetarian Society leaflets and the video 'Food Without Fear'. On arrival, and to my horror, I found that I was expected to deliver a talk and presentation – I was totally unprepared but went ahead anyway – what else could I do? The video, especially, received a mixed reception. It soon became clear that the majority of people present were not vegetarians, and not even aspiring vegetarians, but were part of a kind of informal environmental group (Green Network) who took the view that it was OK to eat meat as long as it was free range. They seemed to be of the opinion that vegetarians should be joining them in campaigning against pesticide residues in milk and not against the meat industry. They were adamant that the new vegetarian group must be part of Green Network and not the Vegetarian Society and would only offer information on vegetarianism, and not advocate it! Clearly this was not going to be compatible with what I was doing – I’d already upset them with a feature in the ‘Colchester Evening Gazette' on why vegetarians are opposed to meat-eating, complete with photographs of my children in the kitchen pretending to cook something. In frustration, I decided to withdraw and continue with the Information Centre, whilst still being available for consultation if required. This decision was not well received, especially since I complained that it was misleading to call it a vegetarian group if it wasn’t against eating meat on principle. They responded by called me an extremist! (Since then I’ve got used to being called an extremist.) Eventually they changed the name of their group to the ‘Healthy Eating Group’, but the group folded at the next meeting and, as far as I know, never re-formed.
Unfortunately this whole episode had wasted a lot of time and been quite depressing and, as a result, I decided to start again from scratch in a way that I could handle myself and on my own terms. For the first year there was very little interest, largely, I suspect, because people who might have been interested assumed it was something to do with the ill-fated previous group – the small number of genuine vegetarians who had come to that first meeting had largely been put off by all the disagreements.
The first thing I did was get posters displayed in local health food shops, libraries and listings in publications such as 'The Citizens' Guide'. I received no response whatsoever from any of these. The first information stall I did was at Philip Morant School, where the pupils were organising an event called ‘Animals do matter’. This resulted in a good link being made with this school, which continued for several years.
I decided to compile a restaurant guide for the area and sent out a questionnaire to 160 restaurants. The resulting guide was published on 2nd October 1991 to coincide with the first ever National Vegetarian Day. It featured in the local press and resulted in numerous requests for copies.
Still feeling very isolated, I made contact with some other local groups – Colchester Animal Aid, who I had met at the Philip Morant School fair, and the Mid Essex Vegetarians based in Chelmsford. With Barbara and Lindsay Gamsa-Jackson from MEV (now in the Guildford group) we did a two-day stall at the Hylands Spectacular, an outdoor music festival, in the late summer of 1991.
National Vegetarian Day, October 2nd 1991
Press releases to the local press resulted in an article in the 'East Anglian Daily Times'. I organised a promotional event – a lunch for the then Mayor and Mayoress of Colchester, who were both vegetarians (Paul and Lindsey Spendlove) at The Warehouse Brasserie - and press coverage appeared in two newspapers. I was invited to be on Radio Orwell’s Nick Risbey show, a live ten-minute interview conducted at their Ipswich studio.
'Connections'
This was the title of our quarterly newsletter, the first issue of which was published in November 1991 – hand-typed by me on a typewriter (pre computers and DTP!) with pasted-up photographs – pasted with glue, I mean! The front page featured the Vegetarian Society’s annual demonstration outside the Royal Smithfield Show – does anyone remember these?
Once people began to subscribe to the newsletter, it became apparent that the Colchester Vegetarian Information Centre had evolved into a group – but where to go next?
It was nearly Christmas and I travelled to Loughton to do a talk and ‘Christmas Without Cruelty’ cookery demonstration for a ladies' group. I’d never done a cookery demonstration before – in those days I was just plain foolhardy! – but I took a risk and it went OK. Then we handed out leaflets about turkeys in Colchester town centre on each of the late-night shopping evenings leading up to Christmas 1991.
School talks
The first one of these I did was at Barstable School in Billericay in 1991 (I didn’t tell them it was my first). The Vegetarian Society, with Juliet Gellatley as Youth Campaigns Director, had mailed out to all schools in Essex and there was a good response. I had limited time available, having two children plus a business, but managed to do 22 school talks by the end of that academic year.
1992
My targets for the forthcoming year were to:
- Update and expand the restaurant guide
- Continue to publish the newsletter with the aim of involving more people
- Continue with public relations activities – stalls, lectures and school talks
- Establish stronger links with local vegetarians to give them support and help.
Forming a group was not a priority but it was certainly moving that way.
The diary for that year was as follows:
31 January – two of us from the group\info centre did a talk for the Greyfriars Guild in Colchester.
10 March – stall at Suffolk Vegans’ Cruelty Free Fair
10 March – we signed the forms to become an affiliated group of the Vegetarian Society, the first group in the country to make the transition from Information Centre to group
18 March – youth club session for Jewish youth club in Redbridge
27 March – live radio interview on BBC Radio Essex versus an ‘expert’ from the Meat and Livestock Commission
3 April – stall at environmental fair at Great Cornard Upper School
May bank holiday – stall at Wivenhoe May fair
30 June – first meeting of the group, attended by 28 people
12 July – visit to Parkdale (the UK Vegetarian Society HQ)
24 July – vegetarian evening with Clacton Animal Aid
23 August – stall at ‘100 years of Castle Park’ fair
26 September – published new edition of 'The Colchester Vegetarian Guide' to coincide with National Vegetarian Week and had stall in Colchester market with people dressed as animals
3 October – National Vegetarian Week exhibition at the Trinity Centre in Colchester – resulting in 'East Anglian Daily Times' article and various letters
10 October – stall at Ipswich Friends of the Earth fair
31 October – exhibition and information stand at Colchester Library on vegetarian children
I became a local contact for the Vegan Society.
18 November – veggie fast food evening for Colchester Woodcraft Folk
24 November – guest speaker Laurie Payne from the League Against Cruel Sports
29 November – went to the Smithfield Market demonstration and helped with the Vegetarian Society sponsored cycle ride
15 December – Christmas meal out
16 December – stall at Colchester Christmas fair
1993
This year got off to a very shaky start with the meeting on 19th January being very poorly attended. The meeting planned for 23rd March was actually cancelled – due to lack of interest! I began to have serious doubts about continuing as a group, as most of the 28 people who attended the first meeting had never appeared again including those who had volunteered to be on the organising committee. I decided to carry on doing the things I had planned and hope that others would come along and join in – ever-optimistic!
During this year I continued with doing school talks but managed fewer than the previous year – just 12. But we did lots of stalls, often making a profit on the day of £100 or more. But our costs were high – as membership grew (and at its height we had over 60 subscribers to the newsletter, including some overseas), so did the expense of producing and mailing out the newsletter. We also got through a massive amount of leaflets – school talks alone use a lot and travel costs all over two counties (Essex and Suffolk) were also considerable. On 15th May we had a stall at Ipswich ‘Be fair to the animals’ fair. On 29th May we had a stall at the Golden Hearts gala in Colchester, a charity event. I was interviewed by BBC Radio live on the air from the event. On 31st May we had a stall at the Wivenhoe fair. On 19th June, two group members did a stall for the group at an animal welfare bazaar in Wivenhoe. On 21st May I did a talk about factory farming and vegetarianism for a youth club of 10- to 13-year olds and on 10th June one for West Bergholt Women’s Register.
On 29th June we had our second AGM – fourteen people came and things started to look up slightly. We made some slight changes to our rules and aims and changed the name of the group to Colchester Vegetarian and Vegan Society. It was hoped that this might attract more vegans to join. A whole new committee of people came forward to offer to do things – encouraging signs. We had a big letter-writing campaign – the Meat and Livestock Commission had produced some advertising which was misleading about vegetarian diets and we wrote to the Advertising Standards Authority to complain. One of our complaints was upheld in a report published on 14th July.
I thought that I would try and find out what local vegetarians wanted from a group (if anything) and sent out a questionnaire to all local Vegetarian Society members and our own members. The response was poor (15%) but the overall view was that we were more or less doing what the membership wanted but no-one else seemed to want to join in - nothing new there!. Social events that we had tried had not been popular, so we decided to abandon these in favour of educational meetings and campaigning events.
On 4th July I had a stall at an exhibition of alternative therapies – not much interest. On 10th July I went to a training day organised by Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) – this was really useful. Throughout July two of us went to the educational workshops organised by Ipswich Animal Rights\Suffolk Vegans on various issues. At the end of July, I was contacted by a 15-year old student who wanted to start a youth group – this eventually came about and was called ‘Speak Out’. It became hugely successful in its own right and at its peak I felt enormously proud of it – these people were going to succeed us in the fight for animal rights!
Now that the group had several active members, we needed a proper meeting place and the Old Siege House was offering the use of a room free of charge to local charities. Our first meeting at this venue was arranged for 1st November. Meanwhile the summer continued with a stall at the West Mersea street fair on 30th August and a vegetarian evening on 3rd September for Tendring Animal Rights group in Clacton. Throughout September we had a display on ‘Healthy Eating’ at the information centre called ‘Healthy Colchester 2000’. On two days – 16th and 17th - we had a food tasting where people could try some vegan food. This was expensive to put on but created a fair bit of interest and we had campaigning videos playing non-stop as well. Following the success of this, we were invited back to do a display for National Vegetarian Week. Unfortunately this event was doomed – the posters failed to arrive in time and then I had to cancel my two days of raw food demonstrations due to coming down with a virus and losing my voice (not a good advert. for healthy living!).
On 9th September I was a guest on BBC Radio’s ‘Talking Point’ programme on the apparently controversial subject of teenage vegetarians.
On World Farm Animals Day, 2nd October, I did a stall in the town centre with Pamela Shorrocks, the local CIWF contact who sadly is no longer with us, which is a huge loss to the animals. On 23rd October we had a display of information at the Humane Research Trust Animal Welfare fair held in Colchester.
Things were now getting very busy indeed. As well as the local vegetarian group, I was actively involved in two other groups, Colchester Animal Rights (formerly Colchester Animal Aid) and Suffolk Vegans in Ipswich. I was going to lots of meetings and when I wasn’t doing that I was researching and writing the newsletter, which had now evolved into an 8 to 10 page magazine, still entitled ‘Connections’, covering wider issues than just vegetarianism. We had articles on Third World issues, peaceful protest, and human (as well as animal) rights. I probably had become a fairly boring person at this stage – struggling to keep my weight above eight stone (the archetypical skinny vegan), with even people who supported me saying that I was a workaholic and ‘driven’.
School visits and talks
22 September and 30 September – Rainsford High School, Chelmsford
15 October – youth club 13- to 16-year olds
2 November and 8 November – Bromfords School, Wickford
24 November – Belfairs Community College, Leigh on Sea
On 30th October we had a stall at the Environment Fair organised by Ipswich Friends of the Earth. On 1st November we had our first meeting at the new venue, attended by 14 people, more than at any meeting since the first one. The meeting was followed by a talk on health and fitness by Heather Smith of Palm Springs, a local health and fitness centre.
On 2nd December we provided information for a Humane Research event at the Trinity Centre in Colchester. On 6th December we had a meeting where people were asked to bring along their favourite Christmas food – not well attended.
On the late night shopping evenings – 8th, 15th and 22nd December - we handed out over 1,300 leaflets about turkeys to unsuspecting shoppers and on 12th December some of the group went to Ipswich for the Suffolk Vegans Christmas meal.
1994
This was quite possibly the most active year the group had, largely due to the people we had on the committee, who were students and Green Party members.
28 January – stall at Essex University Green Society fair
7 February – talk by local Green Party secretary on Green issues and vegetarianism attended by 23 people
11 – I represented the UK Vegetarian Society at an all-day Sixth Form RE conference on food at Shoeburyness High School
24, 25 and 28 Februay – sessions on animal rights in RE at Great Cornard Upper School
2 March – Hassenbrooks School, Stanford le Hope
4 and 8 March – Great Cornard Upper School
11 March – vegetarian evening at MICA Centre, West Mersea
15 March – Thomas Lord Audley School, Colchester
25 and 26 April – King Edward School, Rochford
11 April – talk by Beth Williams of National AntiVivisection Society, attended by 16 people
12 May – members of Speak Out attended a conference on youth campaigning organised by the Vegetarian Society
14 May – stall at Ipswich Animals fair
30 May – stall at Wivenhoe May fair
5 June – stall at Colchester Hospital Radio fair
6 June – book discussion evening: ‘books that changed the world’
10 June – we had letters published in the local press about a restaurant planning to sell ostrich meat. The barrage of protests that followed resulted in the restaurant managers changing their minds and removing ostrich from the menu – a victory!
11 June – protest outside KFC in Colchester against factory farming of chickens – media coverage on SGR radio
25 June – refreshment stall at One World Day fair in Colchester
1 July – interviewed by BBC Radio Essex, broadcast on 4 July
On 4th July we started to have problems with our meeting venue – we had been double-booked and had to decamp to the bar area – not easy as this was meant to be the AGM and 25 people arrived plus food with nowhere to go. At the next meeting it was voted that we move to the Friends' Meeting-house, where we would share the cost of the room with Speak Out, each group paying £5. This was to begin on 13th January 1994. In the notes I have from this meeting, it says that I expressed a wish to step down from taking such an active part in the group – clearly I had begun to realise that it was all taking over my life and possibly not having a good effect on my health, but I don’t think it made much difference as events seem to have continued relentlessly:
8 June – Thurston Upper School, Bury St Edmunds
8 August – young people’s Environment Day presentation and talk, Ipswich
29 August – stall at West Mersea street fair
30 August – stall at Mayor's Charity fair
5 September – talk by Juliet Gellatley about her launch of Viva! (Vegetarians International Voice for Animals), the national campaigning group, attended by 30 people, which was a record. This meeting nearly didn’t happen – I arrived at 6pm to drop off the raffle prizes to find a wedding buffet taking place in the room! I then had to pick Juliet up from the station and take her out for a meal as well as find an alternative venue – all before 7.30pm! Fortunately the staff at the Friends' Meeting-house were able to find us a room and we redirected everyone. Needless to say we discontinued using the Siege House from that evening onwards.
Following the formation of Viva! (I had been a founder member), I immediately became a local contact but unfortunately the committee rejected my proposal to affiliate to Viva! at the next meeting. On 2nd October we did a publicity stunt in Colchester, ‘the human battery cage’, which involved me dressing up as a chicken and frightening numerous small children and traffic wardens.
22 October – stall at One World Day event in Colchester
1 November – I did a talk at Essex University for World Vegan Day
3 November – exhibition at Holland & Barrett, Clacton
7 November – speaker from The Vegan Society, new record attendance of 33
10 November – talk at Rochford School
12 November – stall at Ipswich Friends of the Earth fair
5 December – Christmas meal, attended by 30.
The Christmas late-night shopping evening leafleting was organised by Speak Out this year, so I did manage to delegate some things!
1995
On 13th January we started our new phase of meeting at the Friends' Meeting-house, but it was only attended by 13 people and many of those who had come to the Siege House were never seen again – they had obviously enjoyed the pub. environment.
On 16th January, live export of livestock animals started from Brightlingsea.
On 18th January I visited Rainsford High School, Chelmsford. On 24th January I had a long radio interview live on BBC Radio Essex – this was the best one I have ever done and was given a lot of time and was able to go into the milk\veal issue in depth.
2nd February – on BBC Radio Essex, a discussion of the place of food in society. The Brightlingsea situation provided a good opportunity to highlight the vegetarian and especially vegan issues and we managed to get several letters published in the local press. In the first couple of weeks of constant publicity about live exports, our requests for information about vegetarianism by telephone and mail rose to roughly one a day. Sending out packs of information was expensive and our funds would not be able to sustain this, but membership was growing again after a dip and was now up to 42. Despite this, the meeting on 10th March was attended by three people and we spent most of the time discussing how we could continue in the light of our dwindling finances.
On 11th March, Viva! had organised a march for children and young people in Colchester against live exports entitled, in a true Juliet Gellatley fashion , ‘Children’s Crusade Against cruelty’. This was a fantastic event, and we also had a rally at the start in Castle Park where local children, someone from Speak Out and myself (representing Colchester Animal Rights) all made highly emotive speeches and urged everyone to get on down to the protests in Brightlingsea. Then we all marched through the town centre, making a lot of noise - and I doubt whether Colchester will ever see anything like it again. Predictably some people complained and said we were ‘exploiting children’, but similar events took place all over the country, some of which I attended with my children who read poems they had written – it was very moving and one of the best bits was meeting Hayley Mills at the Richmond event.
Back to normal business:
13 March – Manningtree School
7 April – talk by representative from CIWF attended by 33 people
10 April – stall at vegetarian cookery demonstration by Leon Lewis
11 April – display of food and information at Holland & Barrett, Clacton
8 May – stall at Colchester Festival of the Natural World
12 May – talk by representative of the Vegan Society
For National Vegetarian Week, 21-29th May, we had two displays - one at Colchester Library and one at Healthy Colchester 2000, where we also had food samples and an ‘advice and information desk’ (manned by me).
29 May – stall for National Vegetarian week at Wivenhoe May fair – this was the record for takings at any single event - £200.55.
I wrote to Benjamin Zephaniah to ask if we could hand out some leaflets at his gig at the Colchester Arts Centre on 17th June. He was fantastic – not only did he say ‘yes’, but he also gave us a mention in the show and donated some signed copies of his books for our funds – it was a great evening and he was such fun to be with.
21-23 June – display at Ipswich Borough Council’s food exhibition with food samples – this was a joint venture with Ipswich Animal Rights and we also managed to get two radio interviews on SGR Ipswich. From 1st July we sponsored a poster in the Vegetarian Society’s BSE campaign which was displayed in the Hythe area of Colchester for three months, rather than the one month we had actually paid for!
In May of that year, about four new people came to our meeting and said that they would be interested in organising and attending social events. We spent time discussing this as social events had never been a success, but we were prepared to give it a try. But those people never turned up again – so much for that idea!
14 July – AGM attended by 20 plus buffet and showing of Vegetarian Society environment video ‘Devour the Earth’
9 July – stall at CARE (formerly Colchester Animal Rights) garden party
16 July – stall at Redbridge Green Fair with local group Forest Vegetarians. We now had a canopy to use for outdoor events and a PO box number for security and privacy – I was obsessed with protecting my privacy.
On 12th August I went on a Viva! course for school speakers and ended up in a TV programme being made about Viva!. I also went to an Action Weekend at Aston University organised by Animal Aid. On 8th September it was decided that we would no longer book speakers for the meetings, due to the poor attendance. The October meeting was attended by three people and we decided that unless attendance improved by January 1996 we could no longer afford the cost of the room.
21 October – stall at One World Fair in Colchester – bad weather and low takings!
31 October – I did a talk at Essex University for World Vegan Day and an interview on SGR Colchester local radio.
A member of the group also took part in a debate at the Sixth Form College representing Viva! against the Meat and Livestock Commission.
We had to cancel the December meeting due to illness, and our planned stall at the Mayor's Christmas Fair also went the same way, but we managed to get to Ipswich Friends of the Earth fair to do a stall on 9th December.
1996
It was during this year that, for various reasons, the group began its decline. I mentioned earlier that I was also involved in two other groups, and they also experienced problems at around this time. The organiser of the vegan group based in Ipswich, who had been very enthusiastic, just seemed to go off the boil and moved on to other things and the remaining members, who were mostly already members of Ipswich Animal Rights, went back to concentrating on the one group. The situation at Colchester Animal Rights (CARE) was more complicated, but suffice to say there had already been at least two walk-outs and, following an influx of new people stemming from the events at Brightlingsea, the group polarised into two warring factions, divided on which animal sanctuary was the more deserving of support. There may have been other issues as well but this was the main one. I had put a lot of work into this group and was devastated at the way things were going, so I decided to leave, as did most of the original members. At least now I could concentrate on getting the vegetarian group back on course…
But by March, attendances at meetings had still not improved and we could no longer justify the cost of the room. We also had difficulties with Speak Out – we were supposed to be doing a joint event with them, an open day, but they went ahead with this on their own. We were also concerned about the fact that Speak Out seemed to have changed from a vegetarian group for children to an animal rights group that anyone could join – two members were adults who seemed to have taken over.
I was also very disappointed in that the mailout to schools in our area by Viva! resulted in not one single response – and we were too strapped for cash to do another mailing ourselves. On 13th April we had a stall at the LETS (Exchange Scheme) Food Day; six people turned up to the event, ie not a success.
On 9th May I did a very successful talk at King Edward VI School in Bury St Edmunds and was invited back the following week – school talks had been easily the most successful and worthwhile thing I had done, but they were expensive and time- consuming.
I had written and printed the May newsletter but we had insufficient funds to mail it out – we tried an appeal to members for funds but to no avail – this was not exactly good for morale, given the amount of work I put into it.
At the May meeting, we decided that since Speak Out no longer sent representatives to our meetings or participated in any of our activities, we would delete their slot from the agenda.
For National Vegetarian Week we had a display and info. stand at Healthy Colchester 2000 and information desks on 21st and 24th, followed by a stall at the Wivenhoe fair on 27th May – a struggle with only two of us and hardly anything to sell.
On 11th June, our 1996 AGM attracted just three people, myself and two others.
On 26th August we had a stall at the West Mersea street fair and the profits enabled us to buy a ‘proper' market stall (which I still have). On 28th September we had a stall at an event at Lion Walk Church – very poorly attended.
School talks were trickling in but were nothing like the numbers of enquiries we had had in the past. Meetings continued to be very poorly attended with an average of three. We decided to do letter-writing campaigns and try and get group members involved in this way – I don’t know whether any ever did. Now that we had very limited resources and fewer members were renewing their membership, we decided to concentrate on providing information, holding stalls and fund-raising.
On 23rd November, we had our usual stall at Ipswich Friends of the Earth fair – it was a very poorly attended event, probably the worst we had been to. On 3rd and 6th December I did talks for Philip Morant School.
We cancelled our Christmas meal as there was no response or interest from anyone. Not only that, but the restaurant didn’t even bother to send us the menus we had requested.
1997
I tried placing some free advertisements in the 'Colchester Express' free newspaper, for volunteers and items to sell on our stalls. There was a poor response – no volunteers and only two people with second-hand books, etc. We also contacted all the colleges and the university to see if they would like an information display, but there was no response.
At the April meeting, it was reported that Speak Out had folded, and we felt that it was the end of an era.
On 25th May we had a stall at the Redbridge Green Fair with good takings and a good response from people – this was the last successful stall we ever did. This enabled us to contribute to the Vegan Society video fund to make their video 'Truth or dairy?' featuring Benjamin Zephaniah. Unfortunately the person who had acted as the treasurer for a long time then resigned ‘for personal reasons’ and we no longer had a committee. Things had gone full circle and I was now on my own again. I decided to concentrate on fund-raising for the three societies we supported (the Vegan Society, Viva! and the Vegetarian Society). Fund-raising was something I had become good at and it could be done with very few people. The only meeting would be the AGM as required by our constitution, and there would be no social events or campaigns. The remaining twenty or so members, most of whom had never been seen, were sent a letter explaining this. From September I discontinued the PO box as we would be a fund-raising support organisation only. This would enable us to cut our costs and channel all funds towards the national organisations who were in a better position to campaign – our newsletter would also cease, as we had no money to produce or mail it out.
In 1998, as the last few AGMs had attracted no interest from members I decided to convert back to being the local Vegetarian Information Centre. During the year I did a couple of stalls, but it was difficult on my own.
In 1999, I did stalls at Redbridge, Wivenhoe and West Mersea and an exhibition at Healthy Colchester 2000. I became increasingly demoralised at the lack of help by other vegetarians, and at the end of 1999 I decided to resign. I put out an appeal for a new organiser via the Vegetarian Society, but no-one was interested, so on 31st December 1999 the Colchester Vegetarian Information Centre closed down.
Stop the world, I want to get off!
After nine years of this it was, in a sense, a relief to step back and reflect on it all and try and evaluate it all objectively. I had begun to ask myself questions, such as: do I really enjoy doing this? Am I really achieving anything? Who or what am I doing this for, exactly? The fact is that I had reached a stage where I didn’t actually want to do it anymore – I didn’t want to be an activist for the rest of my life. However, as time has gone on I increasingly realise that I can’t actually help myself, there is some kind of inner core that has never gone away, and so I feel I must do something, albeit on a smaller scale than before.
The future In 1999, I wrote that I would be happy to assist in a similar group in the future, but to ‘not take on too much work and not be the main organiser.’ I really did think that vegetarian groups were an out-dated concept and that there probably wouldn’t ever be another in Colchester. I never anticipated that such a group as the NESX vegans (North-East Essex) would happen, but I’m glad it has. The fact that it is a vegan group is even more remarkable – back in 1991, I don’t think that Colchester was even ready for vegetarianism! The NESX vegans were formed in March 2006 and it seems that I am still useful - helping to organise events, fund-raising, writing articles and campaigning, which is much easier now with emails, the world wide web and things like on-line petitions. The debate about livestock farming has also moved to the top of the West's agenda, with the environment being our current hot topic and all our arguments proving to be more relevant than ever.
We have come a long way, but there are still many mountains to climb.
by Annette White
February 2008
My knowledge of the origins of a vegetarian society in Colchester is sketchy, but I do know that in 1982 there was a Colchester Vegetarian Society, which was organised by Mandy Crampton (later Stevens), who had started the group some time previously. By the end of 1982, the group was being run by Roy and Linda Parker who continued until 1989 when the group folded due to lack of people willing to help. Can anyone take us back pre-1982?
I had previously been a not very active member of Letchworth and District group, but on moving to this area found that there was no vegetarian group. I noticed an item in 'The Vegetarian' magazine (published by Vegetarian Society) – a lady called Vera Chaney was appealing for people to contact her if they were interested in joining a vegetarian group that was just starting. For several months I received no reply to my letter and assumed that nothing had come of it. So I contacted the UK Vegetarian Society and offered to start a vegetarian information centre for the area. Information centres were a new initiative that the Society had just started, for areas where there were not enough members to form a group. In the meantime I received a reply from a group called Green Network, who seemed to be setting up organic gardening groups – this was interesting but not exactly what I had in mind. Somewhat confused, I contacted Vera Chaney again and asked if anything had happened about starting the vegetarian group, not really expecting to hear any more. Meanwhile the Colchester Information Centre came into being in March 1991. Then out of the blue I received an invitation to a meeting from the same lady to form a vegetarian group! I was asked if I could bring along some information, and so I did, some Vegetarian Society leaflets and the video 'Food Without Fear'. On arrival, and to my horror, I found that I was expected to deliver a talk and presentation – I was totally unprepared but went ahead anyway – what else could I do? The video, especially, received a mixed reception. It soon became clear that the majority of people present were not vegetarians, and not even aspiring vegetarians, but were part of a kind of informal environmental group (Green Network) who took the view that it was OK to eat meat as long as it was free range. They seemed to be of the opinion that vegetarians should be joining them in campaigning against pesticide residues in milk and not against the meat industry. They were adamant that the new vegetarian group must be part of Green Network and not the Vegetarian Society and would only offer information on vegetarianism, and not advocate it! Clearly this was not going to be compatible with what I was doing – I’d already upset them with a feature in the ‘Colchester Evening Gazette' on why vegetarians are opposed to meat-eating, complete with photographs of my children in the kitchen pretending to cook something. In frustration, I decided to withdraw and continue with the Information Centre, whilst still being available for consultation if required. This decision was not well received, especially since I complained that it was misleading to call it a vegetarian group if it wasn’t against eating meat on principle. They responded by called me an extremist! (Since then I’ve got used to being called an extremist.) Eventually they changed the name of their group to the ‘Healthy Eating Group’, but the group folded at the next meeting and, as far as I know, never re-formed.
Unfortunately this whole episode had wasted a lot of time and been quite depressing and, as a result, I decided to start again from scratch in a way that I could handle myself and on my own terms. For the first year there was very little interest, largely, I suspect, because people who might have been interested assumed it was something to do with the ill-fated previous group – the small number of genuine vegetarians who had come to that first meeting had largely been put off by all the disagreements.
The first thing I did was get posters displayed in local health food shops, libraries and listings in publications such as 'The Citizens' Guide'. I received no response whatsoever from any of these. The first information stall I did was at Philip Morant School, where the pupils were organising an event called ‘Animals do matter’. This resulted in a good link being made with this school, which continued for several years.
I decided to compile a restaurant guide for the area and sent out a questionnaire to 160 restaurants. The resulting guide was published on 2nd October 1991 to coincide with the first ever National Vegetarian Day. It featured in the local press and resulted in numerous requests for copies.
Still feeling very isolated, I made contact with some other local groups – Colchester Animal Aid, who I had met at the Philip Morant School fair, and the Mid Essex Vegetarians based in Chelmsford. With Barbara and Lindsay Gamsa-Jackson from MEV (now in the Guildford group) we did a two-day stall at the Hylands Spectacular, an outdoor music festival, in the late summer of 1991.
National Vegetarian Day, October 2nd 1991
Press releases to the local press resulted in an article in the 'East Anglian Daily Times'. I organised a promotional event – a lunch for the then Mayor and Mayoress of Colchester, who were both vegetarians (Paul and Lindsey Spendlove) at The Warehouse Brasserie - and press coverage appeared in two newspapers. I was invited to be on Radio Orwell’s Nick Risbey show, a live ten-minute interview conducted at their Ipswich studio.
'Connections'
This was the title of our quarterly newsletter, the first issue of which was published in November 1991 – hand-typed by me on a typewriter (pre computers and DTP!) with pasted-up photographs – pasted with glue, I mean! The front page featured the Vegetarian Society’s annual demonstration outside the Royal Smithfield Show – does anyone remember these?
Once people began to subscribe to the newsletter, it became apparent that the Colchester Vegetarian Information Centre had evolved into a group – but where to go next?
It was nearly Christmas and I travelled to Loughton to do a talk and ‘Christmas Without Cruelty’ cookery demonstration for a ladies' group. I’d never done a cookery demonstration before – in those days I was just plain foolhardy! – but I took a risk and it went OK. Then we handed out leaflets about turkeys in Colchester town centre on each of the late-night shopping evenings leading up to Christmas 1991.
School talks
The first one of these I did was at Barstable School in Billericay in 1991 (I didn’t tell them it was my first). The Vegetarian Society, with Juliet Gellatley as Youth Campaigns Director, had mailed out to all schools in Essex and there was a good response. I had limited time available, having two children plus a business, but managed to do 22 school talks by the end of that academic year.
1992
My targets for the forthcoming year were to:
- Update and expand the restaurant guide
- Continue to publish the newsletter with the aim of involving more people
- Continue with public relations activities – stalls, lectures and school talks
- Establish stronger links with local vegetarians to give them support and help.
Forming a group was not a priority but it was certainly moving that way.
The diary for that year was as follows:
31 January – two of us from the group\info centre did a talk for the Greyfriars Guild in Colchester.
10 March – stall at Suffolk Vegans’ Cruelty Free Fair
10 March – we signed the forms to become an affiliated group of the Vegetarian Society, the first group in the country to make the transition from Information Centre to group
18 March – youth club session for Jewish youth club in Redbridge
27 March – live radio interview on BBC Radio Essex versus an ‘expert’ from the Meat and Livestock Commission
3 April – stall at environmental fair at Great Cornard Upper School
May bank holiday – stall at Wivenhoe May fair
30 June – first meeting of the group, attended by 28 people
12 July – visit to Parkdale (the UK Vegetarian Society HQ)
24 July – vegetarian evening with Clacton Animal Aid
23 August – stall at ‘100 years of Castle Park’ fair
26 September – published new edition of 'The Colchester Vegetarian Guide' to coincide with National Vegetarian Week and had stall in Colchester market with people dressed as animals
3 October – National Vegetarian Week exhibition at the Trinity Centre in Colchester – resulting in 'East Anglian Daily Times' article and various letters
10 October – stall at Ipswich Friends of the Earth fair
31 October – exhibition and information stand at Colchester Library on vegetarian children
I became a local contact for the Vegan Society.
18 November – veggie fast food evening for Colchester Woodcraft Folk
24 November – guest speaker Laurie Payne from the League Against Cruel Sports
29 November – went to the Smithfield Market demonstration and helped with the Vegetarian Society sponsored cycle ride
15 December – Christmas meal out
16 December – stall at Colchester Christmas fair
1993
This year got off to a very shaky start with the meeting on 19th January being very poorly attended. The meeting planned for 23rd March was actually cancelled – due to lack of interest! I began to have serious doubts about continuing as a group, as most of the 28 people who attended the first meeting had never appeared again including those who had volunteered to be on the organising committee. I decided to carry on doing the things I had planned and hope that others would come along and join in – ever-optimistic!
During this year I continued with doing school talks but managed fewer than the previous year – just 12. But we did lots of stalls, often making a profit on the day of £100 or more. But our costs were high – as membership grew (and at its height we had over 60 subscribers to the newsletter, including some overseas), so did the expense of producing and mailing out the newsletter. We also got through a massive amount of leaflets – school talks alone use a lot and travel costs all over two counties (Essex and Suffolk) were also considerable. On 15th May we had a stall at Ipswich ‘Be fair to the animals’ fair. On 29th May we had a stall at the Golden Hearts gala in Colchester, a charity event. I was interviewed by BBC Radio live on the air from the event. On 31st May we had a stall at the Wivenhoe fair. On 19th June, two group members did a stall for the group at an animal welfare bazaar in Wivenhoe. On 21st May I did a talk about factory farming and vegetarianism for a youth club of 10- to 13-year olds and on 10th June one for West Bergholt Women’s Register.
On 29th June we had our second AGM – fourteen people came and things started to look up slightly. We made some slight changes to our rules and aims and changed the name of the group to Colchester Vegetarian and Vegan Society. It was hoped that this might attract more vegans to join. A whole new committee of people came forward to offer to do things – encouraging signs. We had a big letter-writing campaign – the Meat and Livestock Commission had produced some advertising which was misleading about vegetarian diets and we wrote to the Advertising Standards Authority to complain. One of our complaints was upheld in a report published on 14th July.
I thought that I would try and find out what local vegetarians wanted from a group (if anything) and sent out a questionnaire to all local Vegetarian Society members and our own members. The response was poor (15%) but the overall view was that we were more or less doing what the membership wanted but no-one else seemed to want to join in - nothing new there!. Social events that we had tried had not been popular, so we decided to abandon these in favour of educational meetings and campaigning events.
On 4th July I had a stall at an exhibition of alternative therapies – not much interest. On 10th July I went to a training day organised by Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) – this was really useful. Throughout July two of us went to the educational workshops organised by Ipswich Animal Rights\Suffolk Vegans on various issues. At the end of July, I was contacted by a 15-year old student who wanted to start a youth group – this eventually came about and was called ‘Speak Out’. It became hugely successful in its own right and at its peak I felt enormously proud of it – these people were going to succeed us in the fight for animal rights!
Now that the group had several active members, we needed a proper meeting place and the Old Siege House was offering the use of a room free of charge to local charities. Our first meeting at this venue was arranged for 1st November. Meanwhile the summer continued with a stall at the West Mersea street fair on 30th August and a vegetarian evening on 3rd September for Tendring Animal Rights group in Clacton. Throughout September we had a display on ‘Healthy Eating’ at the information centre called ‘Healthy Colchester 2000’. On two days – 16th and 17th - we had a food tasting where people could try some vegan food. This was expensive to put on but created a fair bit of interest and we had campaigning videos playing non-stop as well. Following the success of this, we were invited back to do a display for National Vegetarian Week. Unfortunately this event was doomed – the posters failed to arrive in time and then I had to cancel my two days of raw food demonstrations due to coming down with a virus and losing my voice (not a good advert. for healthy living!).
On 9th September I was a guest on BBC Radio’s ‘Talking Point’ programme on the apparently controversial subject of teenage vegetarians.
On World Farm Animals Day, 2nd October, I did a stall in the town centre with Pamela Shorrocks, the local CIWF contact who sadly is no longer with us, which is a huge loss to the animals. On 23rd October we had a display of information at the Humane Research Trust Animal Welfare fair held in Colchester.
Things were now getting very busy indeed. As well as the local vegetarian group, I was actively involved in two other groups, Colchester Animal Rights (formerly Colchester Animal Aid) and Suffolk Vegans in Ipswich. I was going to lots of meetings and when I wasn’t doing that I was researching and writing the newsletter, which had now evolved into an 8 to 10 page magazine, still entitled ‘Connections’, covering wider issues than just vegetarianism. We had articles on Third World issues, peaceful protest, and human (as well as animal) rights. I probably had become a fairly boring person at this stage – struggling to keep my weight above eight stone (the archetypical skinny vegan), with even people who supported me saying that I was a workaholic and ‘driven’.
School visits and talks
22 September and 30 September – Rainsford High School, Chelmsford
15 October – youth club 13- to 16-year olds
2 November and 8 November – Bromfords School, Wickford
24 November – Belfairs Community College, Leigh on Sea
On 30th October we had a stall at the Environment Fair organised by Ipswich Friends of the Earth. On 1st November we had our first meeting at the new venue, attended by 14 people, more than at any meeting since the first one. The meeting was followed by a talk on health and fitness by Heather Smith of Palm Springs, a local health and fitness centre.
On 2nd December we provided information for a Humane Research event at the Trinity Centre in Colchester. On 6th December we had a meeting where people were asked to bring along their favourite Christmas food – not well attended.
On the late night shopping evenings – 8th, 15th and 22nd December - we handed out over 1,300 leaflets about turkeys to unsuspecting shoppers and on 12th December some of the group went to Ipswich for the Suffolk Vegans Christmas meal.
1994
This was quite possibly the most active year the group had, largely due to the people we had on the committee, who were students and Green Party members.
28 January – stall at Essex University Green Society fair
7 February – talk by local Green Party secretary on Green issues and vegetarianism attended by 23 people
11 – I represented the UK Vegetarian Society at an all-day Sixth Form RE conference on food at Shoeburyness High School
24, 25 and 28 Februay – sessions on animal rights in RE at Great Cornard Upper School
2 March – Hassenbrooks School, Stanford le Hope
4 and 8 March – Great Cornard Upper School
11 March – vegetarian evening at MICA Centre, West Mersea
15 March – Thomas Lord Audley School, Colchester
25 and 26 April – King Edward School, Rochford
11 April – talk by Beth Williams of National AntiVivisection Society, attended by 16 people
12 May – members of Speak Out attended a conference on youth campaigning organised by the Vegetarian Society
14 May – stall at Ipswich Animals fair
30 May – stall at Wivenhoe May fair
5 June – stall at Colchester Hospital Radio fair
6 June – book discussion evening: ‘books that changed the world’
10 June – we had letters published in the local press about a restaurant planning to sell ostrich meat. The barrage of protests that followed resulted in the restaurant managers changing their minds and removing ostrich from the menu – a victory!
11 June – protest outside KFC in Colchester against factory farming of chickens – media coverage on SGR radio
25 June – refreshment stall at One World Day fair in Colchester
1 July – interviewed by BBC Radio Essex, broadcast on 4 July
On 4th July we started to have problems with our meeting venue – we had been double-booked and had to decamp to the bar area – not easy as this was meant to be the AGM and 25 people arrived plus food with nowhere to go. At the next meeting it was voted that we move to the Friends' Meeting-house, where we would share the cost of the room with Speak Out, each group paying £5. This was to begin on 13th January 1994. In the notes I have from this meeting, it says that I expressed a wish to step down from taking such an active part in the group – clearly I had begun to realise that it was all taking over my life and possibly not having a good effect on my health, but I don’t think it made much difference as events seem to have continued relentlessly:
8 June – Thurston Upper School, Bury St Edmunds
8 August – young people’s Environment Day presentation and talk, Ipswich
29 August – stall at West Mersea street fair
30 August – stall at Mayor's Charity fair
5 September – talk by Juliet Gellatley about her launch of Viva! (Vegetarians International Voice for Animals), the national campaigning group, attended by 30 people, which was a record. This meeting nearly didn’t happen – I arrived at 6pm to drop off the raffle prizes to find a wedding buffet taking place in the room! I then had to pick Juliet up from the station and take her out for a meal as well as find an alternative venue – all before 7.30pm! Fortunately the staff at the Friends' Meeting-house were able to find us a room and we redirected everyone. Needless to say we discontinued using the Siege House from that evening onwards.
Following the formation of Viva! (I had been a founder member), I immediately became a local contact but unfortunately the committee rejected my proposal to affiliate to Viva! at the next meeting. On 2nd October we did a publicity stunt in Colchester, ‘the human battery cage’, which involved me dressing up as a chicken and frightening numerous small children and traffic wardens.
22 October – stall at One World Day event in Colchester
1 November – I did a talk at Essex University for World Vegan Day
3 November – exhibition at Holland & Barrett, Clacton
7 November – speaker from The Vegan Society, new record attendance of 33
10 November – talk at Rochford School
12 November – stall at Ipswich Friends of the Earth fair
5 December – Christmas meal, attended by 30.
The Christmas late-night shopping evening leafleting was organised by Speak Out this year, so I did manage to delegate some things!
1995
On 13th January we started our new phase of meeting at the Friends' Meeting-house, but it was only attended by 13 people and many of those who had come to the Siege House were never seen again – they had obviously enjoyed the pub. environment.
On 16th January, live export of livestock animals started from Brightlingsea.
On 18th January I visited Rainsford High School, Chelmsford. On 24th January I had a long radio interview live on BBC Radio Essex – this was the best one I have ever done and was given a lot of time and was able to go into the milk\veal issue in depth.
2nd February – on BBC Radio Essex, a discussion of the place of food in society. The Brightlingsea situation provided a good opportunity to highlight the vegetarian and especially vegan issues and we managed to get several letters published in the local press. In the first couple of weeks of constant publicity about live exports, our requests for information about vegetarianism by telephone and mail rose to roughly one a day. Sending out packs of information was expensive and our funds would not be able to sustain this, but membership was growing again after a dip and was now up to 42. Despite this, the meeting on 10th March was attended by three people and we spent most of the time discussing how we could continue in the light of our dwindling finances.
On 11th March, Viva! had organised a march for children and young people in Colchester against live exports entitled, in a true Juliet Gellatley fashion , ‘Children’s Crusade Against cruelty’. This was a fantastic event, and we also had a rally at the start in Castle Park where local children, someone from Speak Out and myself (representing Colchester Animal Rights) all made highly emotive speeches and urged everyone to get on down to the protests in Brightlingsea. Then we all marched through the town centre, making a lot of noise - and I doubt whether Colchester will ever see anything like it again. Predictably some people complained and said we were ‘exploiting children’, but similar events took place all over the country, some of which I attended with my children who read poems they had written – it was very moving and one of the best bits was meeting Hayley Mills at the Richmond event.
Back to normal business:
13 March – Manningtree School
7 April – talk by representative from CIWF attended by 33 people
10 April – stall at vegetarian cookery demonstration by Leon Lewis
11 April – display of food and information at Holland & Barrett, Clacton
8 May – stall at Colchester Festival of the Natural World
12 May – talk by representative of the Vegan Society
For National Vegetarian Week, 21-29th May, we had two displays - one at Colchester Library and one at Healthy Colchester 2000, where we also had food samples and an ‘advice and information desk’ (manned by me).
29 May – stall for National Vegetarian week at Wivenhoe May fair – this was the record for takings at any single event - £200.55.
I wrote to Benjamin Zephaniah to ask if we could hand out some leaflets at his gig at the Colchester Arts Centre on 17th June. He was fantastic – not only did he say ‘yes’, but he also gave us a mention in the show and donated some signed copies of his books for our funds – it was a great evening and he was such fun to be with.
21-23 June – display at Ipswich Borough Council’s food exhibition with food samples – this was a joint venture with Ipswich Animal Rights and we also managed to get two radio interviews on SGR Ipswich. From 1st July we sponsored a poster in the Vegetarian Society’s BSE campaign which was displayed in the Hythe area of Colchester for three months, rather than the one month we had actually paid for!
In May of that year, about four new people came to our meeting and said that they would be interested in organising and attending social events. We spent time discussing this as social events had never been a success, but we were prepared to give it a try. But those people never turned up again – so much for that idea!
14 July – AGM attended by 20 plus buffet and showing of Vegetarian Society environment video ‘Devour the Earth’
9 July – stall at CARE (formerly Colchester Animal Rights) garden party
16 July – stall at Redbridge Green Fair with local group Forest Vegetarians. We now had a canopy to use for outdoor events and a PO box number for security and privacy – I was obsessed with protecting my privacy.
On 12th August I went on a Viva! course for school speakers and ended up in a TV programme being made about Viva!. I also went to an Action Weekend at Aston University organised by Animal Aid. On 8th September it was decided that we would no longer book speakers for the meetings, due to the poor attendance. The October meeting was attended by three people and we decided that unless attendance improved by January 1996 we could no longer afford the cost of the room.
21 October – stall at One World Fair in Colchester – bad weather and low takings!
31 October – I did a talk at Essex University for World Vegan Day and an interview on SGR Colchester local radio.
A member of the group also took part in a debate at the Sixth Form College representing Viva! against the Meat and Livestock Commission.
We had to cancel the December meeting due to illness, and our planned stall at the Mayor's Christmas Fair also went the same way, but we managed to get to Ipswich Friends of the Earth fair to do a stall on 9th December.
1996
It was during this year that, for various reasons, the group began its decline. I mentioned earlier that I was also involved in two other groups, and they also experienced problems at around this time. The organiser of the vegan group based in Ipswich, who had been very enthusiastic, just seemed to go off the boil and moved on to other things and the remaining members, who were mostly already members of Ipswich Animal Rights, went back to concentrating on the one group. The situation at Colchester Animal Rights (CARE) was more complicated, but suffice to say there had already been at least two walk-outs and, following an influx of new people stemming from the events at Brightlingsea, the group polarised into two warring factions, divided on which animal sanctuary was the more deserving of support. There may have been other issues as well but this was the main one. I had put a lot of work into this group and was devastated at the way things were going, so I decided to leave, as did most of the original members. At least now I could concentrate on getting the vegetarian group back on course…
But by March, attendances at meetings had still not improved and we could no longer justify the cost of the room. We also had difficulties with Speak Out – we were supposed to be doing a joint event with them, an open day, but they went ahead with this on their own. We were also concerned about the fact that Speak Out seemed to have changed from a vegetarian group for children to an animal rights group that anyone could join – two members were adults who seemed to have taken over.
I was also very disappointed in that the mailout to schools in our area by Viva! resulted in not one single response – and we were too strapped for cash to do another mailing ourselves. On 13th April we had a stall at the LETS (Exchange Scheme) Food Day; six people turned up to the event, ie not a success.
On 9th May I did a very successful talk at King Edward VI School in Bury St Edmunds and was invited back the following week – school talks had been easily the most successful and worthwhile thing I had done, but they were expensive and time- consuming.
I had written and printed the May newsletter but we had insufficient funds to mail it out – we tried an appeal to members for funds but to no avail – this was not exactly good for morale, given the amount of work I put into it.
At the May meeting, we decided that since Speak Out no longer sent representatives to our meetings or participated in any of our activities, we would delete their slot from the agenda.
For National Vegetarian Week we had a display and info. stand at Healthy Colchester 2000 and information desks on 21st and 24th, followed by a stall at the Wivenhoe fair on 27th May – a struggle with only two of us and hardly anything to sell.
On 11th June, our 1996 AGM attracted just three people, myself and two others.
On 26th August we had a stall at the West Mersea street fair and the profits enabled us to buy a ‘proper' market stall (which I still have). On 28th September we had a stall at an event at Lion Walk Church – very poorly attended.
School talks were trickling in but were nothing like the numbers of enquiries we had had in the past. Meetings continued to be very poorly attended with an average of three. We decided to do letter-writing campaigns and try and get group members involved in this way – I don’t know whether any ever did. Now that we had very limited resources and fewer members were renewing their membership, we decided to concentrate on providing information, holding stalls and fund-raising.
On 23rd November, we had our usual stall at Ipswich Friends of the Earth fair – it was a very poorly attended event, probably the worst we had been to. On 3rd and 6th December I did talks for Philip Morant School.
We cancelled our Christmas meal as there was no response or interest from anyone. Not only that, but the restaurant didn’t even bother to send us the menus we had requested.
1997
I tried placing some free advertisements in the 'Colchester Express' free newspaper, for volunteers and items to sell on our stalls. There was a poor response – no volunteers and only two people with second-hand books, etc. We also contacted all the colleges and the university to see if they would like an information display, but there was no response.
At the April meeting, it was reported that Speak Out had folded, and we felt that it was the end of an era.
On 25th May we had a stall at the Redbridge Green Fair with good takings and a good response from people – this was the last successful stall we ever did. This enabled us to contribute to the Vegan Society video fund to make their video 'Truth or dairy?' featuring Benjamin Zephaniah. Unfortunately the person who had acted as the treasurer for a long time then resigned ‘for personal reasons’ and we no longer had a committee. Things had gone full circle and I was now on my own again. I decided to concentrate on fund-raising for the three societies we supported (the Vegan Society, Viva! and the Vegetarian Society). Fund-raising was something I had become good at and it could be done with very few people. The only meeting would be the AGM as required by our constitution, and there would be no social events or campaigns. The remaining twenty or so members, most of whom had never been seen, were sent a letter explaining this. From September I discontinued the PO box as we would be a fund-raising support organisation only. This would enable us to cut our costs and channel all funds towards the national organisations who were in a better position to campaign – our newsletter would also cease, as we had no money to produce or mail it out.
In 1998, as the last few AGMs had attracted no interest from members I decided to convert back to being the local Vegetarian Information Centre. During the year I did a couple of stalls, but it was difficult on my own.
In 1999, I did stalls at Redbridge, Wivenhoe and West Mersea and an exhibition at Healthy Colchester 2000. I became increasingly demoralised at the lack of help by other vegetarians, and at the end of 1999 I decided to resign. I put out an appeal for a new organiser via the Vegetarian Society, but no-one was interested, so on 31st December 1999 the Colchester Vegetarian Information Centre closed down.
Stop the world, I want to get off!
After nine years of this it was, in a sense, a relief to step back and reflect on it all and try and evaluate it all objectively. I had begun to ask myself questions, such as: do I really enjoy doing this? Am I really achieving anything? Who or what am I doing this for, exactly? The fact is that I had reached a stage where I didn’t actually want to do it anymore – I didn’t want to be an activist for the rest of my life. However, as time has gone on I increasingly realise that I can’t actually help myself, there is some kind of inner core that has never gone away, and so I feel I must do something, albeit on a smaller scale than before.
The future In 1999, I wrote that I would be happy to assist in a similar group in the future, but to ‘not take on too much work and not be the main organiser.’ I really did think that vegetarian groups were an out-dated concept and that there probably wouldn’t ever be another in Colchester. I never anticipated that such a group as the NESX vegans (North-East Essex) would happen, but I’m glad it has. The fact that it is a vegan group is even more remarkable – back in 1991, I don’t think that Colchester was even ready for vegetarianism! The NESX vegans were formed in March 2006 and it seems that I am still useful - helping to organise events, fund-raising, writing articles and campaigning, which is much easier now with emails, the world wide web and things like on-line petitions. The debate about livestock farming has also moved to the top of the West's agenda, with the environment being our current hot topic and all our arguments proving to be more relevant than ever.
We have come a long way, but there are still many mountains to climb.