Hi all,

As with the last 2 years, our December meeting(Wed 5th) will take the form of a Bring and Share Christmas Supper. This is where we invite everyone to bring along some food for the rest of us to share. Use your imagination and culinary skills to prepare something special or, if you have neither(like me!!), pop into Red Kite Health Foods or your local shop and buy something that requires little work! It doesn`t have to be festive food, anything will do. As usual, the meeting will take place at St Georges Church Hall, St Georges Road, from 7.30pm. Please come and bring some friends with you!

At our last meeting, we decided to go out for a Christmas meal on Tuesday 11th December. As you know, we havn`t got a great selection of restaurants in Redditch, but we have chosen to go to Redolence Spice on Unicorn Hill, where there are apparently several options suitable for veggies and vegans. We`ll meet up at 7pm at the restaurant. Please let us know as soon as possible if you would like to join us.

We still have lots of seats left on the coach for the Veg*n Climate March in London on Saturday 8th December. This event now has the support of Viva, Peta, The Vegan Society, Animal Aid and various other groups. There is no doubt that it will be the biggest ever march of veggies/vegans on environmental grounds, and it needs to be!! We need to demand that the government stop subsidising/supporting the animal farming industry, which is responsible for more climate change gases than the worlds entire transport system! And we need to raise awareness amongst the 30,000 environmentally conscious people expected, that their choice of diet is critical to the survival of the planet, people and wildlife, not to mention billions of animals in factory farms!! The coach will pick up by the Birmingham Post and Mail Building on Colmore Circus at 8.30am and at Redditch Magistrates Court at 9.15am. Seats cost £12 waged and £6 unwaged. If you would like to ! book seats, please get in touch as soon as possible. More details of the event here http://veggieclimatemarch.50webs.com 

More Forthcoming Events

December - Xmas Veggie Leafletting in Redditch. We have 1,000`s of Viva`s Xmas turkey leaflets which are perfect for door to door leafletting! Please get in touch if you`d like to help, or collect some from our meeting on the 5th December and leaflet in your own street!

Sat 1 December - Farm Animal Sanctuary Annual Carol Service & Nativity in the sanctuary barn, from 5.30pm, School Lane, Middle Littleton, nr Evesham. There`ll be hot & cold veggie food & drinks, stalls, raffle etc. RVV hope to have a stall. http://www.thefarmanimalsanctuary.co.uk 

Sun 9 Dec - Hillfields Animal Sanctuary Xmas Fair and Open Day, at church hall opposite sanctuary, Greenhill, Blackwell, nr Bromsgrove. From 11.30am - 3.30pm. Visit the 300+ animals, there`ll be lots of Xmas goodies on the stalls and hot vegan food and drink. RVV will have a stall. See Hillfields new website http://www.hillfields-animal-sanctuary.com 

Thurs 13/20 Dec - Solihull Animal Aid Annual Carol Singing in Solihull Town Centre, from 6.30pm. Help raise funds for local sanctuaries, over £1,000 was raised last year and it`s great fun too!! If you don`t want to sing, shake a collection tin instead! http://www.solihullanimalaid.org 

Sat 15 Dec - Xmas Vegan Fair in Leamington, at Bath Place Community Venture, from 11am - 4pm. There will be stalls from a wide variety of animal protection groups, sanctuaries etc, guest speakers, childrens activities, a vegan cafe and there`ll be lots of free vegan food samples(primarily for the benefit of the meat eating general public!!). RVV will have a stall.

Hope you can make it to one or more of the above events.

Best wishes,
Kevin