In our present catalogue there are products from Vietnam.  This new craft supplier, Mai Handicrafts, is based in Ho Chi Minh City.  They work with 26 craft groups, many of which are family groups in rural areas where work is often hard to find.

Chut is a member of the Tan Hiep village basket group, which is making seagram baskets for the Traidcraft Autumn catalogue.  Chut says that if she works for one day with the basket-weaving group she can buy enough food for five people.  She wants to thank the people who buy the baskets.  "When they buy it means we have work.  I try to make them very nice so people can enjoy using them".

A good read!"  "50 Reasons to Buy Fair Trade" by Miles Litvinoff and John Madeley.  Published by Pluto Press £7.99.

Weeks, months, (and possibly even hours) of highly secretive boat design and building finally paid off on 24^th June when a fantastic 18 paper boats were brought along to the Moat to take part in the Elstead Paper Boat Race. The variety of crafts, varying from the sublime to the ridiculous, showed just what could be done with a bit of thought and a lot of glue. The messy part over, it was time for the ultimate test: would these ingenious creations, made from cardboard and paper, sail in splendour or sink in style?

In the Junior races the overall winner was Alison Gordon in the rather sleek 'Shockwave'. The prize for the best designed boat went to '007', a stunning black and silver speedboat, crewed in tuxedoed style by Jesse Lewis and Tom Page.  Ellie Page and Bella Ruddick set off complete with palm tree on board the 'Bounty' while Conor McLaughlin and Louie Stollard-Taylor weren't bovvered when they won their heat in the camouflaged 'Bovvercraft. Lidia Keith and Jodie Elson were magical in 'The Fabulous Fairies', although neither magic nor giant pink wings kept them afloat in the end. Lilo Greenan and Elouise Hulme floated around for the Brownies in the very surprising 'Yum Yum ' (the surprise being that it didn't instantly sink) while Alice Budge and Billie Sue Anderson took a nice trip in the 'Guide Ship Lollipop'. Anna Keith and Rachel Denne completed the race, glamorous lipstick still perfect, in 'Lush Lips'; while two very young sailors, James Hancock and Frank Hammersley, set off bravely in their flaming design, 'Skippers Skip'. St. James School contributed five boats: most of them ably demonstrating that design technology, higher mathematics and scientific precision really have nothing to do with coming up with a boat for this race. Murray Greenan made commendable progress while possibly going backwards; 'Sinking Feeling' sank; 'The Drowner' went down; and there were shoals of smiling faces bobbing around after numerous shipwrecks.

On to the adult race, when people of an age where they really should know better crewed the remaining boats, usually to the detriment of the crafts in question.  Simon Hancock fell out before he had even got in; Deputy Head, Mr Smith, kept up his record of going no-where and secured a best disaster trophy; Rupert Keith sank and then succeeded in his efforts to scupper Simon Brooke; and Paul Hammersley very impressively managed to keep paddling with both himself and his boat almost totally underwater.

Despite the rather wet weather, there was a lot of laughter and a lot of fun. Elstead Brownies and Guides, who organised this event, would like to thank AJ Tracey's for their help supplying a skip to take a way the sad soggy remains of the boats and Lycett insurers for their sponsorship. We would also like to thank everyone who took part, including the many contestants not mentioned above, all those who helped, who turned up and contributed to the fund raising in this unique and wonderful village event.

There are some pictures of this on the Village Web Site - http://www.elstead.org.uk Ed