Not in my Cuppa | rogergale

Roger Gale backs award-winning campaign

June 13th 2011

The World Society for the Protection of Animals’ (WSPA) dairy campaign Not in my Cuppa has won a prestigious industry award, in the face of stiff competition from fellow shortlisted organisations such as Facebook, Macmillan Cancer Support and Age UK.

Local MP Roger Gale has been a strong supporter of Not in my Cuppa and this week met up with the WSPA campaign team at Westminster to celebrate their success.

The Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) 2011 Excellence Awards recognise and reward best practice in public relations throughout the UK, acknowledging personal and team achievement at the highest professional level. The awards, now in their 26th year, attracted around 700 entries across 27 categories.

The animal charity’s campaign, which aims to prevent the spread of US-style mega-dairies in Britain, was voted as a unanimous winner in the Public Affairs category by the judging panel who said:

WSPA's 'Not in my Cuppa' campaign displayed creativity and went beyond the standard public affairs approaches under a single engaging concept. The campaign demonstrated effective use of external agency support. This campaign has repositioned WSPA from a purely fundraising organisation to one recognised for advocacy. It would not be an overstatement to say that their work has changed the future of British farming and established WSPA's reputation as a force for the future.

Suzi Morris, WSPA UK Director explained: “Winning a CIPR Excellence Award is incredibly exciting for the World Society for the Protection of Animals, not least because Not in my Cuppa is our first UK campaign.

“This award is a tribute to the hard work of everyone who has said Not in my Cuppa and I’d especially like to thank our parliamentarian supporters. Together with MPs like Roger Gale WSPA is able to bring about real change; we successfully worked with him and other charities to help overturn two applications for mega dairies, most notably the Nocton Dairies’ 3,770 cow proposal, which would have been the largest in Britain and could have put up to 100 dairy farms out of business.”

Roger Gale adds:

“I have taken the trouble to meet with Dairy Farmers and to discuss the “Concrete” pasture option with them and I have reached the probably inevitable conclusion that the mega-dairy proposals would have a deleterious effect not only upon the welfare of the farm animals but also upon the whole nature and appearance of our countryside. This is a step too far and we have to continue to resist the development of industrial cattle ranches .”

Through the Not in my Cuppa campaign, WSPA UK has seen some great successes over the past 18 months, as well as tremendous MP support from MPs of all parties.

Suzi added: “With Roger’s vital support, we are ensuring that the UK continues to make the right choices for the future regarding how we get our milk in this country, saying no to mega-dairies, and yes to safeguarding animal welfare and protecting the livelihoods of ordinary dairy farmers.”