The Invercargill Vegan Society enjoyed World Vegan Day 1st of November 2015 celebrations and activism for our animal friends.
The southernmost vegans in the world…..WAIT! Not this year!
We’re thrilled to share this photo, of our friends Sophie and Inga (of Dunedin) from Scott Base, Antarctica! The southernmost vegans wished those jerks “in the Far North, Invercargill” and everyone on the planet a happy World Vegan Day, from the true bottom of the world :-)
Sophie Bainbridge (dressed as carrot) and Inga Smith (with leek hat) celebrating World Vegan Day 2015 at Scott Base in Antarctica. Photo by Nicky Brown.
3500 kilometres to the north, Invercargill Vegan Society members plastered our city with posters, a library display, and a newspaper article. We gave vegan awards to supportive businesses, held a picnic…..AND with Queens Park muffin giveaways. We really enjoyed celebrating World Vegan Day, raising awareness of respect for our animal friends.
Posters
Our friends at Phantom Billstickers placed our World Vegan Day posters across Invercargill. We used two designs, our annual green Invercargill Vegan Society poster, and the official WVD NZ bobby calf design. This featured a male calf, representative of all the millions of baby bulls killed, unwanted by the New Zealand dairy industry. Through volunteer rescuers like the Starfish Bobby Calf Project, vegan animal rights activists are working to directly save as many animals as we can from death and harm.
Library Display
Invercargill Vegan Society coordinator Jen created a 24 hour vegan display outside the Invercargill City Library. Directly below the meeting room which hosts our monthly potlucks, the library displays are viewable day and night.
The left display focused on the issues: animals killed for us to eat, to wear, to use. The right focused on veganism as our solution: to hold a deep respect for other animals. They belong to themselves, we have no right to see them as commodities.
The vegan solutions box included examples of what vegans wear, and eat. Through examples such as soymilk, coconut ice cream and vegan sausages, we displayed that it’s enjoyable and fun to live without eating animals.
With Ruby Roth books “That’s Why We Don’t Eat Animals” and “Vegan is Love”, the displays had a simple, clear focus on animal rights.
We also included material about dairy free cheese, vegan pizza, and a certain nearby Alehouse with a full vegan menu….
An animal friendly boot represented how animal rights is about more than what we eat! No “leather” (animal skin) involved, we supported the good people of Invers to “give animal products “the boot”! “Embrace a compassionate vegan lifestyle”.
Ruby Roth’s books are available to borrow from the Invercargill Library. “Vegan is Love” describes how vegan animal rights supporters feel about hurting animals to take their skin or wool.
“We love to dress in spots and stripes that make us look like animals. Fur, feathers and scales are beautiful too, but only on the animal that wears them. Today, we can put on natural and man-made materials instead of animal parts.”
“There is no harmless way to use the skins of animals. Their bodies belong to them just as our bodies belong to us.”
Hear-hear, let’s be kind in what we wear! :-)
World Vegan Day feature
Community paper “The Eye” ran an advertising feature for 1 November World Vegan Day. It was supported by local vegan friendly businesses. Bin Inn advertised their peas, beans and lentils, Windsor Health is “Vegan Friendly”. ComplEat Wellness stocks animal friendly products, “proudly supporting the Invercargill Vegan Society”
“World Vegan Day is an international day of respect for animals”
We met with advertising feature producer Holly, at every animal rights activist’s favourite type of zoo, Zookeepers cafe :-)
Also on World Vegan Day, Windsor Health kindly wished us well, and offered an instore discount.
Hell Pizza waived the $1 surcharge for vegan dairy free cheese :-) We’ve previously had support from our friends burning in the fiery deep, we awarded Hell Pizza Invercargill with an award last year.
For our WVD 2015 awards, we chose three local businesses who really support our local vegan community.
Elegance at 148 on Elles was to our knowledge the first Invercargill restaurant with a full vegan menu.
Elegance at 148 on Elles also have a simply fantastic answerphone message, the friendliest recording in all of recorded history? That deserves an award in and of itself :-)
Speaking of the Alehouse mentioned earlier, Speights Alehouse Invercargill also have a full vegan menu. They had long offered a custom vegan menu, when you booked ahead. INVSOC members asked ( with fair trade chocolate/soap!) if they would consider making it permanently available for all. They agreed :-)
Head chef Burt, with INVSOC coordinator Jordan :-)
Three Bean Cafe often advertise their delicious vegan food. We love their friendly staff, and great service.
Picnic Potluck
Originally scheduled for the Otepuni Gardens, our World Vegan Day picnic headed home to INVSOC HQ. Earlier in the morning there had been rain, and holding the picnic at our house meant we had more flexibility than a rained out park.
INVSOC HQ as our lunch venue also meant…..sitting in our backyard with our rescued Hen Friends :-)
We are vegan for the animals in need, the animals deserving of full respect. Without vegan activists taking them in from farms, these birds would have all been killed.
It’s always lovely to sit with our fine feathered friends, and get to know them. Most of these sweet ladies were saved during the mass Mosgiel rescue where we met Jane Goodall :-)
In this second video, Mary jumps up to say hello. Mary has broken toes which have set poorly. It’s likely that a farmer pulled her out of a cage, and she resisted by clutching onto the wire floor. Her toes would have snapped, and they’ve set in a closed “fist” position, rather than being spread out naturally.
With all she’s suffered, her foot doesn’t seem to actively pain her. Her toes have set this way, and she has adapted. We love her, and all our hen friends very much.
Inside, our picnic spread.
Couscous salads, topped with marigolds!
Chickpea salad
Holly made these little truffles, based on her “spirit animal” the rabbit :-) Almond ears!
Jen made a style of apple “tea cake”
As Otis Redding sang, “sittin’ on the INV-SOC HQ deeeeeck, eating the worrrrrld, vegan dayyyy, piccc-nicccccccc….”
Mini pizza quiches, made with spaghetti and dairy free pastry. On top, vegan Sanitarium hotdog sausage, and Kingland soy cheese from New World Windsor.
Banana chocolate chip muffins, pikelets, tea cake.
Jen doing the “batusi” as seen in classic Batman, or John Travolta/Uma Thurman’s dancing in “Pulp Fiction”
I love the almond bunny rabbit ears! :-)
Queens Park Giveaways
Each year, we like to share vegan baking, to share how easy it is to live without harming animals. Usually we share muffins etc downtown, but on a Sunday, Invers CBD is dead.
Instead, we visited the start of the 2015 Tour of Southland at Queens Park. We also caught up with some old friends, our WVD 2014 mosaic “Peace of Chicken”. Located near the Queens Park central playground, the two birds keep each other company while we work for a world of animal respect.
Helpfully, living birds have added a tribute in the form of their droppings! :-P
We shared banana chocolate chip muffins with passersby in the park. It feels great to get out there, enjoy a lovely afternoon, and chat about animal rights.
From all of us here at the bottom of the world, both Invercargill AND our scientist friends in Antarctica…..have a very happy World Vegan Day! Here’s to a world of love, peace and respect, to a world where “all animals are equal”.
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