Not A Trace Awards 2016

Regular readers will know that each year I have my own little awards ‘ceremony’ where I acknowledge the best products / companies in various categories.

The awards for 2016 are obviously a little late(!) and as my blog posts were few and far between last year, due to a certain little person taking all my attention, the 2016 awards are more a summary of my blog reviews from last year.

Despite my inability to blog of late, it’s great to have had over 58,000 blog views since Not A Trace began. I am also very proud to see the constant stream of views every day even if I haven’t blogged for a while. Thank you to you all!

So, on to the awards / 2016 round-up….

Bath & West Wilts Gluten Free Food Fair – 21st November 2015

I’m sure any local readers will have seen details about this event both on my Facebook page as well as the local Facebook groups, but this is a quick reminder that this event takes place next weekend (Saturday 21st November) from 10:30am – 2:30pm at Bath Racecourse, Lansdown.

Entry to the event is £2 (with accompanied children being free of charge) and there will be more than 35 exhibitors from the gluten free world, along with representatives from Coeliac UK and local dietitians.

Bristol Coeliac Group – Meet Nos. 4 and 5

Coeliac UK Local Bristol Group update

As well as providing you with the lowdown on our latest group outings, I also want to use this post to update you on the Coeliac UK Local Bristol Group that we’re working to reinstate.

At present we have a committee in place and we’ve all signed up to the Coeliac UK constitution. We are now waiting for the go-ahead from Coeliac UK to move things forward, but unfortunately they already had commitments to start other groups during the first part of the year, so until they’re up and running it’s a waiting game for us.

That said, I’m very pleased with the progress we’ve made to date to put a committee together and fingers crossed we will hear some more news soon!

Blog Update

Morning all,

I just wanted to post a little update to explain my recent absence.

Over the past few months I’ve been trying to sell a house, planning a wedding, arranging my 30th birthday celebrations, liaising with Coeliac UK to try to re-establish the Bristol Coeliac group, oh and getting to grips with my relatively new job too! So things have been a little hectic! 😦

I’m still keen to hear about any gluten free news or reviews that you have and I’m always on the look out for guest bloggers, so if anyone’s interested or has something to share please get in touch! 🙂

In the meantime, I’m off for a relaxing weekend with my soon to be in laws, so I hope to be back with you shortly. There’s so much I need to review!

Thanks all,

Trace

Bristol Coeliac Group – Meet No. 3

The third outing for the ‘Coeliacs in Bristol’ Facebook group, hopefully soon to be renamed ‘Coeliac UK Bristol Group’ if everything goes according to plan(!), was earlier this month when we booked to have a gluten free Christmas meal at The Townhouse on Whiteladies Road.

There are always new faces at every gathering, as well as some familiar ones, and it was great to see that this continued at this meet up.

We had decided to go for The Townhouse as it was recommended by lots of members of the group, and I’d been there previously myself. On my first visit the food was absolutely stunning, but unfortunately the restaurant let themselves down on the service as it was a very busy day and it seemed that they didn’t have enough staff to cater for the guests. I was keen to see if this had been improved.

Gluten Free Somerset

You may recall that at the first gathering of the ‘Coeliacs in Bristol’ Facebook group (details here), one of the members that runs her own food business kindly offered us the opportunity to try some of her products.

Mandy runs Gluten Free Somerset and she kindly brought us all a gluten free chocolate and orange cupcake to try, as well as gluten free Battenberg! I love Battenberg so this was very exciting for me! 🙂

Before I give you my review of the cakes, here’s a little bit more about Mandy and her brand, taken from her website:

I have been gluten free for nearly 20 years, back in the days, when gluten-free pizzas were posted to you! 

I have learnt to create my own recipes in my gluten-free kitchen. 

I can make that special occasion, very special. 

Children’s birthday parties, with traditional cakes, like Battenberg, victoria sponge, cupcakes, sausage rolls, quiche, character birthday cakes and so on, just let me know what you require!

Bristol Coeliac Group – Meet No. 2

You may recall that I’ve been trying to persuade Coeliac UK to re-establish the Bristol Local Group, but when I was advised that they wouldn’t be considering it for the time being I went ahead and set up a Facebook group of coeliacs and gluten free-ers in Bristol. The main purpose of the group is to be social and arrange monthly meet ups, but also with the intention of being able to show Coeliac UK that we mean business (details of our first meet up can be found here).

Well, it worked!

On Tuesday I contacted Coeliac UK again and advised them that we now have our own Bristol Facebook group with over 100 members and a lot of interest in re-establishing the group.

On Thursday I received the following response:

Bristol Coeliac Group

When I was first diagnosed in January 2013, I was advised by Coeliac UK that the Bristol Coeliac UK Group no longer existed and was advised that they ‘have tried on several occasions to set up a Local Group but lack of engagement by Members in the area made this unsustainable’.

I tried broaching the subject with them again a few months ago and received the following response:

We have had Local Voluntary Support Groups in North Bristol and South Bristol but sadly these were both closed due to lack of support from Members. We then had interest shown a couple of years ago from Members in the area and set up a Bristol Local Voluntary Support Group but again, due to the Committee Members standing down and getting no support from Members in the area to form a new Committee, the Local Group was subsequently closed.

Therefore, and I am sorry, but we would not consider reopening another Local Group in Bristol at this particular time. However, as we say to all our Members who enquire about Local Groups, should we have significant requests relating to a Local Group in Bristol we will give serious thought to writing to Members to ascertain the level of support in the area and consider reopening a Local Group in the future.

As you probably know by now, I don’t let things lie, so I replied saying that as far as I’m concerned it’s ridiculous that somewhere as big as Bristol doesn’t have its own group, which yielded the following response: