Feel the Rhythm African Style

Good evening everybody, Chelmer bear reporting in. Regular readers may remember my session drumming with local band 'The Usual Suspects' at the end of last year which I reported on in the blog The Beat Goes On. What a great evening that was, and what an adrenalin rush I had!

Now I don't wish to boast too much, but it seems my fame as a drummer is spreading, as the other Saturday I was invited to do a spot of drumming to accompany a singing workshop.


This was quite different different to my last drumming performance. It wasn't all about noise and thrashing the drum as hard as I could. This time I had to feel the beat and just use fingers to tap out the rhythm. I couldn't help but dance as I drummed as African songs are so full of life and I just couldn't keep my feet still. I wish I'd known what everyone was singing about, but unfortunately my Swahili isn't very good.

I would have loved to take this drum home as it looked as good as it sounds, but I handed it back, leaving my business card of course, should a drummer be needed again soon.

Lots of love, Chelmer & Rocko xxx

Easy Shopping the Ethical Way

One of our minders has a birthday coming up and we couldn't think of any better place to search for a present than the Traidcraft mail order catalogue. There is just so much choice of lovely and exotic fair trade gifts, ranging from lovely patterned clothes to equisite wall hangings and carvings, jewellery and items for the house and garden. And the great thing is that these gifts are absolutley unique -you won't find them in the shops.

Sorry, but we can't tell you what we're getting our minder as she might read this. However, we can reveal that we're giving up buying nutella, having recently found out some of the awful things that go on in the cocoa platations, and are putting in a big order to Traidcraft for their fair trade chocolate hazelnut spread.

If you want to do the same checkout www.traidcraftshop.co.uk

Love from all at Bears Unlimited xxx

More Happy Munching

Taste testing fair trade products at home is all very well, but we needed to go public and win some converts to the fair trade concept. After a Bears Unlimited team meeting, we decided that the best way to achieve our goal would be to bake some delicious cakes using fair trade ingredients and then have a coffee morning in one of our local church halls, serving fair trade drinks with the cakes of course.

We thought we'd baked extra large quantities of cakes: hazelnut & chocolate brownies, fruity banana bread and pecan toffee whirls, so there would be plenty left for us to eat at the end, as you've got to admit they do sound mouth wateringly delicious!


However, we were completely bowled over by demand for our fair trade cakes. They literally flew off the plates and all our happy customers said they would now be looking for the fair trade logo next time they went shopping.

As you can see from our picture, our success meant that there wasn't much left to take home at the end. Just a couple of the hazelnut brownies topped by coffee icing. Mind you, these really do tickle a bear's taste buds as the chocolate /hazelnut combination is rather similar to that staple of a bear diet - nutella. (Note to our friend Bear, we'll send you the recipe).

The other great thing about our coffee morning is that it raised a lot of money which we will be sending off to Traidcraft.

All in all, a good morning's work.

Lots of love, all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Taste Buds in Action

Chelmer and Rocko returned from their trip to Morrisons with lots of fair trade products. We decided to have a fair trade tasting session to critically evaluate the products and see if we could recommend them to our friends, not only on ethical grounds, but also on grounds of taste.


As you'll see from our picture we put to the test: tea, coffee, hot chocolate, wine and bananas. We all had a taste / sip of each and compared tasting notes. Not surprisingly the wine proved to be the most popular but that probably says more about the audience than the product!

The verdict from us all is, buy fair trade products as they do taste good as well as doing the producers a lot of good.

We do like a win/win situation.

Lots of love, Chef Oakly and the tasting team xxx

Congrats from Suffolk Branch

Great oaks from tiny acorns grow! Not that Suffolk Branch is implying Norfolk Branch are nuts despite their liking for Nutella but who'd have thought you'd be blogging away so energetically 7 months and 100 blogs later! Definitely worth a few party poppers and some bubbly - although to our disappointment the party poppers were a bit of a phut rather than a big bang! Unfortunately Panda the cat (not to be confused with Panda the Panda and Pilchard, Snowy and Black Cat the cats!) couldn't be persuaded to stay still long enough to join in the official Suffolk Branch centenary photo but rest assured he had a big bowl of champagne and sends his congratulations along with the rest of the gang. Hope you left us some cake!

Please Support Fair Trade Fortnight

As we hope our readers are aware, it's currently Fair Trade fortnight. We, at Bears Unlimited, are very enthusiastic supporters of Fair Trade products and we really want the growers of the products we enjoy, to earn a fair wage. We can't bear to think of it being otherwise.

Yesterday Rocko and I (Chelmer) popped along to our local Morrison's supermarket where we usually shop. We wanted to make sure that Fair trade fortnight was being properly advertised in the store and there was lots of attention drawn to fair trade products.

We got off to a good start, finding an advertising board in the shop entrance.


However, we did have to turn it round as we thought it important that shoppers saw it as they came in, not as they left (there was a different advert on the other side).

As we toured the shop, we did get increasingly disappointed. Although there were fair trade products on sale there was nothing to draw attention to them and no promotional material.

We will have to write to Mr Morrison as we don't think it is good enough. We hope you will do the same if your supermarket is not giving enough support to fair trade fortnight.

In the meantime, talking of Morrison's, Blue Bear is currently checking out Bearmobile 2 as she was filled up with petrol on the very day the fuel scare hit the news. Paws crossed everybody!

Lots of love Chelmer, Rocko and the gang xxx

Party Time!

Today is a very special day in the life of our blog as we are publishing our 100th posting. Such an auspicious occasion called for a celebration, so earlier chef Oakley and his assistants got busy in the kichen baking a clebration cake.


N.B. the recipe book isn't standing up on it's own, Raj is behind it reading out the all important instructions, but due to his dark fur and the fact he had forgotten his glasses, you can't see too much of him!

What a delicious chocolate cake they made. Nutella was an important ingredient of course. Such a special cake deserves a photo of it's own. Well done Oakley & team.


We were pleased to be able to share this special occasion with members of the Midlands branch, Rajah, Rupert & Confection who came up specially. For once we decided to forgo our usual favourite tipple of a glass of Wherry and celebrate in style with some champagne. We hope you like the official photograph. Members of the Suffolk branch were of course with us in spirit, and we drank a toast to them.


We look forward to the next 100 blogs, hope you do too.

Love from all at Bears Unlimited xxx