good morning welcome to changes the program on sustainability i'm suzanne gregory the coordinating producer of the show and with me this morning in the studio are two most interesting people from global village and imo marjorie stewart who is well known to our listeners good morning marjorie and marjorie is a board member of global village and imo and joan  operations manager good morning joan good morning and this is one of our favorite topics we have tried to do something with global village almost every year because it's such a special thing so me be joan you could start off by telling us what global village does thinks is in global village and imo is a nonprofit society here  we've been active in many ways over twenty years or more i've asked margery to confirm that that number one of the ways we've been active is through through educating people as much as possible but also through a retail outlet where we are able to sell goods that we have imported from fair trade producers artisans and craftspeople around the world and brought them to that imo so people can see what is we perhaps go on to explain what fair trade is i'm going to take yeah ok there's a we hear a lot about free trade but that's  different it's very different and in fact fair trade came into existence because of the defects in so called free trade the problem with free trade is that it down corporate managed economic global system and the only mandate that corporations have had has been profit and they've got into the habit of much summarising profit and they have left out the people now the easiest way to explain fair trade i find is to compare it with organic because people often get confused between the two especially if you're in a coffee shop yes yes and the difference is this both of them charge a premium and you hear fair traders or organic farmers talking about the premium and what they mean is that people are prepared to pay more for organic goods because of quality and it's one particular quality that after they're after the organic quality of the product whatever it is and it's very easy to manage of organic products and that is done and you can find out if people are organic certified in canada it's not so easy with fairtrade which came later because you see organic is more  more something for yourself it's my health and my family's health that you're looking at but fair trade we're looking at other people and their situation in the world and social justice so the organic premium comes first and then at some point people start talking about the people involved that talk about whether they are being fairly treated in the production of coffee in terms of price they talk about whether they're being fairly treated in terms of cocoa in terms of the slavery issue in west africa so it's much harder to regulate and the problem with fair trade is ensuring that there's some oversight so at a place like global village joan has the ban to be sure as sure as she possibly can and she'll tell you how she and sure that that the products that she's buying benefiting the people who made them thank you when we were doing the purchasing for global village and i'm a we have quite a few different options in sources we can go to a lot of the suppliers do have an online presence and this is a presence where we can learn a little more about the company find out what others are saying about the company experiences that people in the ground have so that would be for some of the companies the cooperatives i should say that are fair trade certified a lot of the people we're buying from are not big enough to be fair trade should a fight to become certified is an expensive process and we are purchasing from some mom and pop shops small craft small craft  artisans they can't afford this process but in that case we'll have people who have actually been to the facility who have been able to talk with the workers to walk around to see that it is a reasonable work place to see the child care happening to see you know that there's there is health care for the staff and that they are in fact being paid a fair living wage so we have actually a number of suppliers that aren't certified because they are that small maybe the coffee is a good example and the cook courtney connection the fact that the people in courtney that we source our coffee from today are direct importers and that's what it's called direct trade direct and economists talk about a value chain so if it's direct the value chain is almost unbroken because we're getting it directly from the the supplier we have one i'm thinking of in guatemala it's a pottery place where are we have a one of the buyers actually speaks the language because we're dealing that directly with the people and with the family making the pottery and we we import that so that is direct when you say the language do you mean not spanish over but the problem then is all the different languages oh yes so you know we have quite a few of the direct a direct trade that we doing with bringing a raid in with some some confirmation that it is being the  workplace is a fair trade environment as well so where it is a fair trade product the other ones that we're buying from are some of the very large certified we can we can follow up and confirm that and this is this fair trade occasion process can be quite quite a cumbersome one so we know that these businesses are maintaining their status there's a fair bit of regulation on some of those and it's easier to do when it's one particular product for instance the coffee people only do coffee yeah people only do coke we buy coffee cocoa olive oil we have like an interesting setup with the olive oil and the soap and so on we do yes yes are all over the supplier  beauty of that of course is that presumably you can keep the price as reasonable because you're not having to pay wholesalers and people in the middle there must be i don't know what the typical broken because they're not buying from the producers and joan spoke about the large cooperatives where people are in a country they're trying to advantage the poorest people in the country so they're bringing lots of different products together the value chain is broken there too but it's much more obvious in something like coffee where starbucks for instance pockets most of the profit from its fair trade coffee and just gives a tiny bit back and it goes to the co op and we don't know if the co op is treating their members fair so they see the value chain gets broken up more when certification and tears and certificate is a hot issue co operative may not share well cooperatives are presumably owned by their members but you don't really know what they're doing with the money as an organization i guess in some instances i sometimes think that in fact i'm quite sure that many small private businesses are more ethical than some charities because they're very small the people who are operating them have a vision and a set of values which they are promoting they may not know that they're being social enterprises but in fact they are and at the same time you can see particularly in the u organization empires where the c e o s and the managing staff are paid ridiculous amounts of money and that of course all comes out of whatever it was that was supposed to be their mission  so the whole question of whether cooperatives the english cooperative system is the one i know best and twice within living memory it's gone totally corrupt and the just cleaning up their act now from the most recent level of corruption with people who should not have been in charge of anything being in charge of a lot of money good heavens we like to think of cooperatives as being the solution to a lot of the problems that we see in the world because of the member control supposedly so that's that's not good news is you know it means that there's no easy way out we have to do our homework and be somewhat vigilant and global village and imo in the person of joe is trying to do that homework for us yeah so you actually look at those co operatives see what in fact they are doing we do we do have to follow up as much as possible with them we try to look for sources outside of their own information sources to see feedback on some of them some of them are genuinely trying to help producer groups because they don't have the knowledge to export they don't have the the knowledge to package properly for shipping and some of these on a very smaller scale are helping them take that big step some of them are helping as many is as from twenty to seventy different tribes are or artists in groups in their in their countries in thinking in thailand we have some suppliers when cooperative that we purchase from that has seventy different groups that they purchase through  we've been told their fair trade we felt we follow up we look for information that might give us reason to be concerned about it and then we make our purchasing decisions accordingly and it's nice when we hired joe and we were pretty excited because she has a degree in business and what's the proper title of job bachelor of commerce degree so she can she can figure it figure out things like looking for the most recent financial statement and seeing where most of the money is going and that's a dead giveaway have always said that people if you're going to give money away don't do it until you've looked at the recent financial statement of the group that you're give it too because you quickly find out who spending a lot of the mission that's very that's kind of important let's face it there items that we still have to probably trace properly but we do our homework on behalf of the customer here yes did we find out anything about the sports bolz they sports balls we're very interesting we've been wanting for about a year to sell to sell fair trade sports balls soccer balls volleyballs we know there's a market for it people would be interested but we have a very difficult time sourcing them getting pakistan is the biggest source for sports balls that are moving into china but the better quality ones are still coming out of pakistan  child labor is a huge issue there there are some fair trade suppliers manufacturers but we they were not communicating with us as a small business we had a very hard time breaking through in that case we have been working with a person who is importing them on our behalf and we are now this year excited that we have got basketball soccer balls mini soccer balls and volleyballs in the stores that are fair trade and that to us that's a huge thing because that can that children can understand this they can look at a soccer ball that they play with and realize the difference between children who get to play with a bone chip and have to make the ball that way for us to reach a new generation is yes so you can guarantee to the children here that thought was balls are not being made by children in pakistan that's right there from back to stan but their adult me they've got a fair trade certification label on them and you know there's quite a strenuous process of checking up so parents and grandparents good thing to keep in my hand for gifts this holiday season and i'm very pleased that we have  this i've had three children who have grown up playing with all of them so we we've learned them yes so that's that it's one of the items and maybe there are other items that you want to talk about joan before i get into a one of the business is that i really enjoy working with is some bali trust it's in india it's an organization that works with marginalised women and children very much a empowerment program they work they work with  women they teach them skills they teach them boundaries and then they graduate them into their workshops where these women now get a chance to earn a living on their own and we purchase from that workshop we we know and it meets fair trade certifications and we're getting some amazing products out of there so i'm quite excited about that when we've purchased for two years from from that supplier that's one that really excites me we also have another one in kenya that we work with that  employees physically handicapped adults these are adults that would be considered unemployable in a burden to their family and to their societies and they now have a village in sort called bumble loop and we we purchased bags and jewellery and  things from from them and we were very pleased to be able to consistently provide an order every year to places like us as well i have an absolutely gorgeous malik global village several years ago you see it a full beautiful green yes yes it's all with as i always think of that group when i wear it because yeah they seem so special because i think when i purchased that it came with a tag that actually had the person make her of it on there with a photograph a little bio and everything so you kind of get to know the people which is really nice that is we've had customers i ask us as they fix us with a steely and they're handing over their credit card or their money does all this money go to the person who made this well that's kind of a silly question because they haven't considered all the overheads have they so that leads us to what the overheads are does it our course you have rent to pay on the store but what about staff fees of the volunteers well  the society of which i am a director has one employee part time and that's all the money we take out and we are committed to trying to be a good employer and not try and get extra work out of that employee for less money as you know nonprofits can be very exploitive employers so we don't want to lose children to some other job because she is very very good at what we want down so that's only wages type expenditure we recently saw recently i imagine purchased a storage container and one of our members has given us  so we find all kinds of ways to manage without having to spend money on storage for instance which in the beginning we did have to do it's tricky and the the key to this is that different levels of fair trade activity make different decisions about profit yes this is would be very interesting because there could be lots of well we talked a little bit about cooperatives earlier or let's say the recipients of the payments sharing with the  ploy ease or not but it's more let's say yes i think you can go into this a bit further well if you take the most extreme example start is very good double speak or fair wa and they do have some fair trade coffee and their system which they use i think purely for marketing and advertising purposes because with their fair trade coffee they pocket most of the profit a tiny little bit of it goes back to the people who were involved in the production of that coffee so that's when it in the middle you might find a group like ten thousand villages which is actually a u s and to take with i think canadian counterpart now ten thousand villages canada is run out of new hampshire and ontario so all the decisions are made there and i happen to know that a couple of decades ago ten thousand  managers made the decision that they would go for the high end market and if you've noticed in victoria there are i think there's now just one ten thousand for the just so the two still one and brought these cases they're very well funded they're wary well known they're part of a huge operation and fair trade matters but but they decided that they would try to get as much profit as they could from their clients that's why they're in those high renteria is where people have more disposable income now that's ok because ten thousand villages does good work and they buy more and they are to be trusted in the products they bring in but it's different from the decision that global village and i don't hate about our profit because we already knew that and imo after the vancouver downtown eastside has the lowest socioeconomic status of any place in british columbia and so we made a deliberate decision that we would try our hold and hold our prices down for our local customers so we can with a clear conscience when somebody gives us that old charity begins at home malarky we can say yes it does and that's why we keep our prices down because we know people here need to be able to buy things at a fair price as well as people at the other end need to be able to be paid a fair yes so we're looking at two or three different models here where perhaps well in the ten thousand villages example perhaps you and they may be paying the  yeah yeah and they also do their connect their men and some mennonite organization originally and that's why they're affiliated with level ground coffee which is a mennonite owned business and the mennonites do part the mennonite central committee m c c do terrific emergency development work they are there one of the best in the field and they're out there in the field so they have their own operatives all around in the places global initiative fair trade store its acronym is gifts we do a lot of our purchasing together as a team of three so that we can make better use of shipping expenses and sometimes some of the suppliers require a minimum order and that way we can all three afford to do that there's a little shop in salzburg which has started to join this as well so we are becoming our own group of buyers sort of a network of nonprofits doing the same sort of thing and that work of locally locally own locally you manage door board of directors ok who does pay the shipping then you pay the shipping we pay all of the shipping separately we cover it all make sure that this supplier is paid before the ship the merchandise so they they are paid they don't have to go in the hole in order to produce the merchandise for us so we pay usually half of it when  place the order in the other half when it's ready to be shipped we send it by wire so so they have all of the money right away we then pay for the shipping to get it to customs to the port of an arm or to the airport to the port of make sure regular whether or to the so yeah so that's that's the way the overhead scum and but we we have to pay money for they goods we have to pay money for the shipping and we'll be paying for customs and prices and everything will be going up but i did want to point out to people that very often they will see the same good it's in different places and in some cases the fair trade price for the direct purchase from the farmer and we get to know our local farmers so that we feel safe in that way but at the end of the season when they have surpluses they will sell at a much lower rate to the wholesalers who sell into their supermarkets and they make a proportion of their income from that too so the same thing happens with fair trade goods the people that we're buying from there's a tremendous population imbalance because you see there's only one hundred thirty thousand in the whole of the region or district of and imo and these places that we're buying from have cities around them of millions of people so they can produce a lot more than we can sell you see us so when it's when it's like that the whole business of the relationship puts us in the position of being a very small purchaser but we try to be a reliable purchaser and purchase we've been purchasing from a couple of groups and in bangladesh for almost all of those twenty years but they they sell to others as well they would have to because we're not because that's right and also we can quite easily saturate a market i'd love to have a point where we could take turns selling different things and not be saturated our local markets over again with the same goods  yes yes it's nice since some cases to see the same things over and over again but we also want to see new things and different things yeah that's that's an interesting idea well and you have the network of the different organizations the different local organizations maybe is that a possibility to sort of circulate the goods among the three or four we do we do benefit from each other's experiences and knowledge and we have shifted goods between ourselves location only as well we try to placement small enough orders that we can afford to take a risk on a new product aloft and take a look at something that one of the other stores is purchased one year and next year we replace the order to make a decision whether or not to do it a good example of that is some shells we brought in from tibet last year we only brought in over fifty or so and they sold out within two weeks this year we brought in several hundred because we learned our lesson so will we do that again next year i'm not sure not sure if bringing in several hundred of the same thing is going to be on the list for next year we may have saturated the market into the year or two and see if it's available again just to chase some of the people listening thought perhaps she was talking about its shell sun the seashore suzanne would you describe to the much jonas wearing  one on the wall if you wanted to i would think so where the sharing of having different goods comes in is at the purchasing time because each of the groups will make their decisions about purchasing depending on what they think they can sell in their area sure sure and like you say if if you've saturated the market here you have a few left maybe at the end of the season you can store them and just maybe sell the rest of those next year wait a while until the demand comes as back last year we had some people coming into the store as well asking to support a particular country that was they wanted to purchase things from problems getting some of them in for the last few years because that country we was just having problems communicating with the suppliers so we were very low on choices over the summer we worked very hard and we have two new suppliers from the philippines and we have products in from them so we are listening to what the people in and i'm aware asking for as well we're making the story uniquely minimal can i ask can i ask i've been in the philippines and the thing that i try sure the most from the philippines comes from the war torn islands down in the surf than mindanao they make these fabulous fabrics and they make them into gorgeous padded quilted bags of different sizes and i don't know about other people out there but i think that the philippine the where the the hand where the the stitcher the finishing is very very professional and beautifully done so if you see that based in downtown and imo but heard wherever there's an internet connection at c h l why dot ca where we stream live and podcast and i will upload the podcast of today's program as soon as i can so that if you missed any part of it you will have a chance to listen to the whole thing at your convenience we'll just mention really one event today and that is the upcoming zero waste international conference that's happening in the imo i've got a release here that says diverse innovative world class and then imo will be the center of the world in the conversation on now i like this term circular economics and authentic zero waste solutions this week thursday and friday october second the third at the coast bastion hotel and of course the big day for the community is october fourth at christ community church on bowen road it's the ninth annual zero waste international alliance conference and dialogue this effort is the product of over fifty speakers from over fifteen countries countless volunteer hours by over forty people and the support of over fifty not for profit organizations businesses and government organizations who all want authentic zero waste solutions and that's in contrast to what ian garth sure was describing on the show that we did about this you can check that out on our podcast page just go to c h l y dot c and click on podcasts and then scroll down to changes and you will see that from a couple of weeks ago there are people who think that if you burn it up it's gone it's zero waste because you can't see it anymore but that's not what zero waste is about and they'll be talking about that this weekend because the whole thing is actually called alternatives to incinerators and landfills you can find out more about this and fourteen there is also i should mention a family friendly community dance happening on friday night seven o'clock at bowen park i think in the auditorium and you can check of course all of that out at a w i a fourteen dot com registration for the saturday event is only fifteen dollars but do consider going to the other sections as well on thursday and friday at the coast basti and because it is a really important and fascinating topic there will be lots happening though on this saturday as well including a panel of local alone representative and i am a recycling exchange talking about the solid waste management plan and you will have an opportunity to give your input there will also be a youth meeting and the thing about the saturday is that you can see see things like junk to funk up cycling projects you can actually participate in up cycling something off on your own with repair caffeine and imo you can also visit city cycle co op who will be there or you will learn how to fix your bike or help to fix a bike from the n  which you might want to take home there will be a local artist helping to guide the creative process of turning trash to art so there's lots to do family friendly both the friday night dance and the saturday all point seven f m is changes and today marjorie stewart is here and join him stra who is the operations manager of the store at global village inn and imo and we would like to mention to watch the global village and i'm a web site and facebook page as well for events and news news because there are things that continue to come in from suppliers overseas right and also you do have the nicest event slate people talking about the tea for example and doing demonstrations or doing  we were quite pleased with some of the events that that we put on last year and we're finalizing a list of them for this year the olive oil test taste testing was very unusual when you mention that to people they assumed would be handing them a goblet of all of oil and i could take a that of course is not what you do it's a very delicate way of taking a nice course chunk of bread and dipping it just lightly in the olive oil the way that all of oil is often used in other countries we also have this is a tune spice seasonings base which you could dip into which is somewhat related to time but it's got a bit of an extra kick to it it's really quite narrow yeah it's lovely so we were offering people that opportunity which was interesting for a lot of them to try that out they were very happy not to have to slip it some presenter in showing the some the development of some of the small tea farmers in the province of assam and we do carry the a some tea as well so that was very interesting to see how that's grown over the last ten years we have a local woman who works with us with for amazing shea butter she imports the rashi better from africa and develops it into scented with essential oils and into different amazing lotions and creams that we can use here and she does the final processing here in a nine month it's called amazing shape and we're excited that she has a new product out this year as well a lip balm which we're carrying in the store so that's a that's a an international and a local touch as well on those two product i grudgingly do you just feed in the words global village and imo into the bit that says people are places and it will take you there yes and we were never happy to post new deliveries new shipments  and information from from our suppliers on that page so people have a chance to learn what we're learning and to be that as excited about some of the accomplishments of the people we're buying from as well x that you can even sign up to be on an email i believe so that the new products pictures and everything arrive in your inbox i mean never never cease to be mazed how much information people are interested in they don't want a novel they don't a big book about where they're buying from but to give them enough information to know that they are making a purchase that matters is very valuable and our customers are enjoying that and they're enjoying the various ways we have of communicating with them  and the board of directors had an interesting discussion it's here because as you know suzanne one of the issues with boards is succession planning and recruitment of new people and the board and we have struggled for a while with the question of reaching outside of our organization because we don't necessarily know who all the members are and asking people to come and join our board when they have the time to make kind of a commitment and it feels very silly to have to ask them to pay for a membership for you but you have to pay in order to come and serve so this year we decided to eliminate the membership fee so there is no membership fee for a couple  was only five dollars anyway you know i know i know but it just felt funny to say and now you have to pay five dollars in order to for us so free membership that's great so what does one do just sign up ye yes and then the board of the board presumably i hope delegates that to somebody to look after the lists and accepts these memberships because that's how do you see as direct yes and you can be a member without getting shanghaied shall we say on to the board yes and of course membership has some privileges anyway i would then permission in for not a great deal we're very careful not to send a great deal and then the other thing that joan would probably like to talk to you about is people who like to volunteer for global village because it's says it's a nice way of doing some short term follow tearing and being committed and commit open ended because the store just runs actually i'm not sure we've mentioned this today at the stores open now but it closes on december twenty fourth all right so that's it for the year and we don't do january sales and we do january sales but we do them all the time we have an incredible team of volunteers we have probably about forty people altogether many of whom were turned year after year to work in the store with us most of them started at one point as being customers and each month we've got one or two more customers who say i would like to volunteer here i'm enjoying it a large number of the of these volunteers are only active with us during the fall season when the stores open they are people who want to support fair trade with their time and and are willing to put that time into it to bring the products in and imo many of them are retired from other careers and are looking at this not only as way of giving back but as a way of learning something new many of our volunteers have had different careers and the pleasure in learning something how to do retail how to run a cash register how to set up displays management is something that they enjoyed doing as a second career we didn't know on our board they didn't know that in britain every year the little girl would get a present which would be a bowl x with cardboard stuff that you could play to be honest my barbie dolls never had any adventures other than setting up stores and my sister but the dolls always had to come and shop it but that's aside we also have a number of volunteers who are students both university and high school students were able to offer job experience and and cash training and job training to some of these people and we're always happy when they're unavailable to us the next year if they have a job but of course we're thrilled if they can come back and still give us some of their time a nd there are opportunities here around because i know that we have bought a piece of jones time around she is looking into various opportunities to have a global village stall or  table right kind of event so maybe you could tell us about some of the events this year we with we were very excited to be part of a number of things we were part of that and i'm a go grannies african market we've been in the multicultural festival for a couple of years we have done a few individual events with local organizations when they when we've been fortunate enough to be invited we were in the marks craft event and quality i'm i'm just sure what it is like fair is what it was we had a table there as well so to to introduce ourselves to new people in new places and to be current throughout the year gives us a chance to be in touch with the customers and for them to to see our products year round oh that's great so volunteer could sign up to help out with those what i think is nice about that type of volunteering is that there's sort of a left brain right brain combination isn't there there's the cash handling and so on and there's the creative part with the displays and you get to have the fun of actually handling those products putting them nicely on shelves so the biggest found is opening the crate so if we actually have a team at the store right now opening a few crates that had just arrived you had pallets coming in joe and varies if you put them there selling quickly out the front doors we give have more coming in we have several large shipments doing yet this year so we're looking forward to more and more products coming in that case you know the board of course has are from a fallen tears if you think you'd like to learn the skills of being on a board global village is is a good one to look into where we're looking for people who are interested in our mission which is to bring a fair income to some of the poorest people in the world that's what fair trade is about so i get really annoyed when people ask the question oh well what do you do for now and imo what do we do for now and i'm all we give people of done imo the chance to help people who are not even as well off as the people in and imo we keep our prices low so they can do it that's what we do and we are also quite a shame a shame and i should say attempting to change the world which is really what this program well plus which as john was just saying you also provide some job skills for people who might benefit from putting those on their resume indeed and in addition t we like to buy the stuff in the store ourselves yeah well that's what we have the opportunity to have such a wide range of amazing merchandise yes indeed well that's always the sad part to see the st close december twenty fourth and think in january or february oh i wish i had picked up that particular but there are there are ways actually of contacting you about those as well i think and so sam should perhaps explain that she's one of our best year round customers because she knows how to get hold of the olive oil here around the coffee have a go go and you can find that out if you look at our website of global village and i'm outta come yes we do sell some of those consumables year round this year we also had some online flyers where we featured a few of the new products that came in during the year before the store was open and we made those available to people want to mail out list as well and we we made a few direct sales there i won't say we have an online marketplace yet but that might be down the road when that would be that would be very nice it would be for you we do we do a lot of trust and we have never been let down and the trust maybe once years go by one branch of the bank of india and yes a very big place and it's not surprising that there might be one place where a little bit of money went astray  difference and this is just the very beginning of a test i understand there are over four thousand times now being fairly traded and the united kingdom so we knew about chocolate coffee did you know you could buy fairly traded gold or fairly treated diamonds bananas flowers sometimes you see fairly traded flowers in one of the supermarkets cotton and clothing made out of cotton you can get fair trade  clothing sugar that's something we haven't purchased for a while and if customers come and ask us about the plant hell or are there the raw sugar that's something we could we could look at having along with our commodities t v of course we're very fortunate because right here in vancouver island so far away we have one of the big success stories in penetrating the indian team market  you can get fair trade wine you can get fair trade spices and i'm going to look into that because i do a lot of in here cooking now and you need a pretty broad array of spices for indian cooking and i don't want to buy them in these nasty little bottles of tired old flavor lists places that they show up in the supermarket i want to buy no handful at a time really really fresh but you do have the one mix from palestine in though you're that middle eastern products are given as hostess gift and christmas gifts stocking stuffer for people who are not wanting to collect stuff it's that time of year when we're thinking about gift giving and while christmas has been hugely overcommercialized particularly with junky stuff which is just going to turn into non zero waste quite quickly along with all its packaging then it is a time when people want to exchange gifts and give something special and the more they look at retail opportunities in this area over time the more limited they seem to be  products actually something that popped into my mind just as you were saying that are those bags things that are made from really you other thing maybe you could mention those  there are lots of things like that actually and they're not it's not recycled it's really used repurposed materials yes yes often those the i think you're referring to the bags that are hanging in the window in the summer right now reuse but they are gorgeous they they hold moisture well i can't think of a better bag for wet beach towels groceries gardening gardening supplies and they come in a range of sizes and they're such a crisp clean of recycled magazines they're solid strips of magazines in the they press them into strips and make very strong plates and bowls quite a colorful combination yes we should mention too that you do carry christmas decorations for those who may not want to go hog wild on the shopping for gifts but they might like to dec very beautiful trees and stars made out of that we just today got some hand me orca's me with glittery beads hand so and on to them that we've just imported and there will be the very west coast there from india but the ideal for the people here to give as a gift to each other so they're they're actually going on the shelf today and i have to remind anybody who's listening that if you are interested in very different and often extraordinarily beautiful and tremendous craftsmanship in christmas ornaments come irony because they do disappear we don't buy we don't have the money to buy a huge amount of them so they'll be a few of this and a few of that and a few of the other things but really beautiful hair beautiful jewelry i'm just trying to think very quickly we've only got a minute left here but scar is silk scarves carved it's because many other people like myself have been disappointed with handmade so so which quickly turns to slush which reminds me of my mother strictures in my youth when she said never buy anything except french milled so and it all asked you well these afghan so are like the french french mill so they stay solid forever and ever and they have these wonderful natural sense in them fantastic we are out of time from global village thank you so much for our listeners do visit west hill it's in the west hill center the store is there now right behind tim horton's and it's on a bus route it's on yes it certainly is it's on the number four route that's for sure and that's our show changes heard every tuesday morning at eleven here on c h l y check us out on facebook as well and on behalf of our production team thanks so much for joining us