Some of you will have already clocked that I have a bit of thing for fruit. It was an unknown variety of strawberry that first made me swoon, an incredibly sweet and juicy one that simple knocks the socks off anyone who tastes them. That was the initial hook which consequently set about a heightened sense of awareness of what fruit, if any, was growing quietly in other people’s gardens …with a relentless desire to have a sneaky little taste.
My eagerness for wanting to find and try fruit was, all of a sudden, completely quenched with the onset of the apple harvest season. I gathered unwanted apples of all shapes and sizes from the gardens I worked on, made enough apple crumbles and apple Dorest cakes to feed the five thousand and had enough surplus apples to keep family and friends extremely happy. It was an overwhelming time and they weren’t even my apple trees.
Borne from this abundant apple frenzy is fruitshare.net. I wanted to find a way of sharing this unwanted garden grown fruit, not just in the area I live but to make it accessible to people across the country. The website was set up and then redeveloped a year later in partnership with another fruit enthusiast, Richard Borrie from orangepippin.com, into a fully working database driven website. We are now in the beginnings of our second harvest season and we are keen to spread the word about the Fruitshare initiative as the more people that know about it the more sharing of the country’s forgotten fruits will take place.
Hence, I am now on a little mission to get as much publicity as I possibly can, and by publicity I mean national… and beyond. I think the idea is a great one, but I am biased I know. What would be really really cool is if all of the grow your own/buy and source local/encourage sustainable food endorsing celebrities/organisations would give Fruitshare a big thumbs up and link up to us from their websites …but, lets be honest, that would just be dreaming. So, back to reality, a press release is the normal first port of call. Done. This has been sent out to a whole raft of publications from local press [they're getting a bit fed up of me now I can tell], specialist magazines, national newspapers to BBC Breakfast! If anyone has close friends or relations at any of the major news publications please do get in touch!
You’re probably sensing that I’m not getting very far with the traditional publicising route; well you’d be pretty much spot on. Time is ticking, I don’t have oodles of free time to be chasing illusive ‘contacts’ I’ve been dragging out of the internet, I need a new plan.
Twitter. You’re very likely to be reading this because of Twitter. Fruitshare.net wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Twitter [Richard from Orangepippin contacted me via Twitter]. My other half rolls his eyes every time I mention Twitter…like many other other halves I am sure. People love Twitter, people hate Twitter. Twitter has had bad press, has been blamed for the recent youth riots, but, it was also the cause for the mass community clean ups that followed. It has a good side and bad side; I want to bring out its great side.
With Twitter on my mind I have devised a new little plan, just to see how far I can publicise Fruitshare by just tweeting. As Fruitshare’s website is purely in existence today due to Twitter what better way to see the initiative evolve into an international phenomenon [there's no harm in thinking BIG!].
So here’s the plan. If you think the Fruitshare idea is a great one and would like to get involved by spreading the word just simply retweet my tweets about Fruitshare. My mission is to tweet appropriate publications/media/organisations details of and a link to the Fruitshare site plus a link to this blog in the hope that they will give coverage to the scheme.
That’s it. Not rocket science I know. It may be a complete belly flop from which I’ll need to pick myself up and put my thinking cap on again. But, I’m up for giving it a go as I really would like to see people making the most out of the nation’s forgotten garden fruits. Please help by spreading the word. Thank you x
UPDATE 12/09/11
It is day 6 of the Fruitshare campaign and so far the blog stats have rocketed, the retweets have been immense and the lists on the fruitshare.net site are getting longer! Support and feedback has been really positive and I thank everyone who has spread the word so far.
One other idea I’ve come up with to help promote the Fruitshare initiative is a little A4 poster that can be downloaded from here, printed out and pinned to notice boards up and down the country [and beyond] in offices, cafes and shops. I’m demanding I know. I am duly printing them off myself and will be loading up the other half with them [who's still rolling his eyes at me] to put up around his workplace. I shall go and hassle all the shop owners, with big smiles.
I am still persisting with the Twitter campaign, although I do sense most are now fully informed with the whole Fruitshare thing…I apologies for my one track mind and repetitiveness. It shall all be over with the end of the harvests! My mission is still to get some national media coverage [I'm afraid I'm still thinking BIG]; and would love anyone to contact me for the official Fruitshare press release [mentioned earlier], for a chat about the project or any other ideas on how to spread the Fruitshare word. As you’ve probably guessed, I’m a bit passionate about the whole affair and will even share my precious, maturing sloe gin with anyone who can steal me that national slot for Fruitshare!
Thank you everyone, happy Fruitsharing x
I’m with you SBG. Come on people, let’s get this show on the road. Tweet Tweet!
Great Idea! Have tweeted! And FBed
Thanks Alex…any media contacts you can slip my way?
Thank you too Urvashi, your support is very much appreciated.
This is a fantastic idea – it just makes sense!
This is a FABULOUS idea!! I’m sure people around the country are always sad to see fruit that they can’t use going to waste, so why not share it around! I think it is a wonderful way of bringing commmunities (both physical and virtual) together and I wish you all the best!
)
Makes perfectly good sense to me Sharon… off for a retweet
Brilliant idea! I’m going to follow you and retweet for starters…
Thank you all for the great feedback and retweets… it’ll keep me going strong on the Fruitshare mission. I shall keep you posted on any developments.
What a good idea!
I’d love to see less fruit be wasted AND more fruit trees planted. It strikes me as insanity councils have only planted ornamental fruit trees in the past! Surely now is the time to plant fruit trees in parks and roadsides.
There are times when we all end up with more fruit than we could sensibly consume.
Right there with you on this!
And there are times when you run out of jars to jam stuff!
it’s a brilliant idea, I am registered and tweeting
How about hijacking http://www.landshare.net/
Like Diane says, wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were more ‘municipal’ fruit trees ~ guerrilla sowing methinks!
Best of luck <3
Thanks all for the positive comments and the retweeting. And yes, I agree, planting more fruit trees in our urban community spaces would be a wonderful way of increasing local food productivity. I’m right behind that idea, as well as the guerrilla fruit sowings, love it! landshare.net is a great idea too…I’m still waiting for some land to grow, you guessed it, more fruit near where I live through this scheme. Since the start of the mission fruitshare.net has had some good coverage on the internet, but I’m still pushing for more national publicity… so bear with my relentless tweeting about the project! Please keep spreading the word
What a great Idea. Shame there is not much local produce available in Yorkshire this year. Sign up if you have any spare fruit people!!!
By the way Lina, I already registered you (hope you don’t mind – usual password)!
Hi,
Just to let you know that your domain http://www.fruitshare.net/ doesn’t work without the www:
http://fruitshare.net/
You should have a word with your web designers / developers / hosts. It’s an easy one to fix.
Dan
Thanks Dan. Yes I had noticed it keep dropping the link when retweeting…will put it on Richard’s [Fruitshare partner in crime] to do list