With every purchase of Charity Pot, Lush cosmetics donates 100% of the price (minus the taxes) to grassroots organisations like Fin Fighters to help them continue the incredible work that they do. Charity Pot supports organisations that align with our ethics in the areas of environmental conservation, animal welfare and human rights. This year we were the grateful recipients of just such a grant and are very excited to be supported by such an awesome company.

With the launch of the Fin Fighters charity pot lids, we will be holding charity pot parties and awareness events in various Lush shops around the country. More details on dates and locations to follow, so keep an eye out because we may be coming to a Lush shop near you!

Lush Times is a free magazine distributed in every Lush store, and this season it features a write up on Fin Fighters! 

We are really excited to be included alongside some awesome organisations in this publication who are working on great campaigns. We are also pleased to announce that we will also be featured on the Lush website https://www.lush.co.uk/article/charity-pot-supports-animal-protection-groups

The image used in these articles and upon the Lush charity pots is kindly offered by fellow conservationist and Photographer Gary Curtis Who's work we greatly admire. 

This is the second year that our founder Lou has been asked by Lush cosmetics to co-lead a campaigns training program with the Charity Seeds For Change who help design workshops and training for companies and activists. This round of training sessions used our Fin Free Cambridge campaign as inspiration and took place in 6 UK cities including Pool, Bristol, London, Sheffield, Nottingham, and Edinburgh. Bringing the total of these training events up to over 14 days in over 12 different cities across the UK. The events were very successful and have lead to many Lush employees creating and managing their own campaigns and inspiring action in many communities. After these training session a poster was commissioned featuring the work of Fin Fighters/Fin Free Cambridge which is displayed for staff in every Lush shop across the UK!

At the Beginning of July we were asked by Truro school in Cornwall to participate in their World Aims event where we lead talks and engagement activities with students on Plastic pollution in the ocean and shark finning; inspiring them to become active within conservation and sign a petition asking for better protection for sharks in the UK. http://www.truroschool.com/senior/school-life/world-aims/

This short film is a clip from a longer piece that was made by Phil Knox of Purple Flame Media, you can see the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S3XjNqXXWQ

The Green Vision event otherwise known as: The Youth Climate Summit, takes place in Bath and is a coalition between several schools in Bath and North East Somerset (BANES). It is a topical two day event raising awareness and engaging the students in activities to help safeguard the environment. Fin Fighters gave an awesome and inspiring lecture and follow up workshop session with the students that really got them questioning the importance of apex predators such as sharks in marine ecosystems. Other speakers included Green Party leader Natalie Bennett and Eco lawyer Polly Higgins as well as many others.

After the success of our Fin Free Cambridge campaign we decide that we need to step up our efforts and work to make the entire UK Fin Free. We set up a new organisation titled Fin Fighters - and declare our intent to the world! We believe that our generation needs to be the one that creates this change and challenges peoples preconceptions of sharks.....and so the epic adventure begins. 

This is a blog by Cambridge's very own awesome real life mermaids, featuring a section about Fin Fighters previous incarnation Fin Free Cambridge and our success in achieving the UK's first official shark fin condemnation! http://www.realmermaids.co.uk/blog/any-fin-is-possible

Highlighting our work as Fin Free Cambridge, Schnews writes a fantastic article that discusses conservation and how more people can get active and involved in making a difference. You can read the full article here: http://www.schnews.org.uk/stories/SHARK-TALE/

On 21st February 2013 Cambridge City Council unanimously vote to strongly condemn all sale of shark fin within city limits. Every member of the council including the Mayor of Cambridge voted in our favour - passing the motion to become the first city in this country to officially condemn shark fin! AMAZING......we did it!!

Lou stands in the Lush Cambridge shop window for 6 hours, With a longline hook in her mouth - drawing attention to the issue of not just shark finning but this destructive fishing practice as well as stimulating public debate and involvement with the campaign. 

Greenzine - a new magazine created by Cambridge university students picks up on our story and gives their support by featuring our antics on the river Cam, A buzz is created throughout the city and people start to get involved an join the movement.

Fin Free Cambridge featured in the Ecologist

To our surprise and delight, the Ecologist magazine feature our efforts on a front page spread! the news of our campaign starts to generate a lot of excitement globally and many online environmental journals cover our activities in Cambridge - a very positive sign that communities around the world want to see an end to the exploitation of sharks and support our efforts.

Fin Free Cambridge featured in Cambridge News and Varsity Magazine

We Launch our grassroots campaign group - Fin Free Cambridge with a series of awesome events in the Lush Cambridge shop, including lectures and auctions, kicking everything off with a fancy dress Caribbean Calypso party. Our aim was to achieve enough petition signatures and public support in two months to table a motion to the city council. This motion asked that Cambridge stand up against shark finning and the sale and distribution of shark fin becoming the first city in the UK to offically condemn these practices. With the help of our local Lush shop we held various events over the course of two months.