9-Year-Old Who Changed School Lunches Silenced, then Ban lifted By Politicians

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-18454800

A council has lifted its controversial ban on a nine-year-old girl taking photographs of her school meals.

Martha Payne, from Argyll, got more than two million hits on her NeverSeconds blog in just a few weeks.

Argyll and Bute Council said press coverage of the blog had led catering staff to fear for their jobs.
But council leader Roddy McCuish later told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme that he had instructed senior officials to lift the ban immediately.

He said: "It is a good thing to do, to change your mind, and I have certainly done that."
The council was widely criticised for the move, which had sparked a furious reaction on social media.
Local MSP Mike Russell, Scotland's education secretary, wrote to the council's chief executive in his capacity as local MSP, calling for the "daft" ban to be overturned.

Martha became an internet hit after she began publishing photographs of her Lochgilphead Primary School lunches on 30 April.

She gave each meal a 'food-o-meter' and health rating, and counted the number of mouthfuls it took her to eat it.

But in a post published on Thursday evening, Martha said her headteacher told her not to take any more photographs for the blog.

Under the headline "Goodbye", the post stated: "This morning in maths I got taken out of class by my head teacher and taken to her office. I was told that I could not take any more photos of my school dinners because of a headline in a newspaper today.

"I only write my blog not newspapers and I am sad I am no longer allowed to take photos. I will miss sharing and rating my school dinners and I'll miss seeing the dinners you send me too."
The council's decision to impose the ban came after the Daily Record newspaper published a photograph of Martha alongside chef Nick Nairn under the headline "Time to fire the dinner ladies.."
Charity blog
 
Martha had been using the blog - which she started with the help of her father Dave - to raise money for the Mary's Meals charity.

An explanatory note posted on the blog by her father read: "Martha's school have been brilliant and supportive from the beginning and I'd like to thank them all.

Analysis Rory Cellan-Jones Technology correspondent

The decision, according to her father, was not taken by the school, which has been very supportive, but by the Argyll and Bute council.

It's not quite clear why - perhaps there is a ban on taking photos inside schools, or maybe there is some concern about the damage to the reputation of the school meals service.

I prefer to think there is another explanation - and that this is all a cunning plan by the councillors to draw attention to their beautiful region with its dramatic coastline, and fine cuisine.

It seems to be working - the case of the banned blog is rapidly becoming a cause celebre, with emails, tweets, and presumably phone calls arriving at council headquarters from around the world.
 

"I contacted Argyll and Bute Council when Martha told me what happened at school today and they told me it was their decision to ban Martha's photography.

"It is a shame that a blog that today went through two million hits, which has inspired debates at home and abroad and raised nearly £2,000 for charity is forced to end."

Mr Payne later told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme his daughter was not happy about the council's decision.

He added: "I can see that the photographs at the start didn't look the most appetising, but Martha marked the last school meal 10 out of 10.

"I understand that it's brought pressure from around the world and media interest, but that is really out of our control.

"But we are very supportive of the school - the fact that she has been encouraged to blog and she got permission to do this is testament to them.

"Everyone in the kitchens has been wonderful to Martha and she enjoys going into lunch every day."
In a statement released on its website, Argyll and Bute Council claimed media coverage of the blog had led catering staff to fear for their jobs.

It added: "The council has directly avoided any criticism of anyone involved in the 'never seconds' blog for obvious reasons despite a strongly-held view that the information presented in it misrepresented the options and choices available to pupils.

"However this escalation means we had to act to protect staff from the distress and harm it was causing.

If you had met with the staff at the school yesterday, the level of distress that was there - It was palpable. It was very significant for them. People were in tears”

Cleland Sneddon Argyll and Bute Council

 

"In particular, the photographic images uploaded appear to only represent a fraction of the choices available to pupils, so a decision has been made by the council to stop photos being taken in the school canteen.

"There have been discussions between senior council staff and Martha's father however, despite an acknowledgement that the media coverage has produced these unwarranted attacks, he intimated that he would continue with the blog.

"The council has had no complaints for the last two years about the quality of school meals other than one from the Payne family received on 6 June and there have been no changes to the service on offer since the introduction of the blog."

Cleland Sneddon, the executive director of community services at Argyll and Bute Council, told the BBC that school catering staff had been left "in tears" by press coverage.
He added: "Newspapers have a significant impact on public opinion. They have a significant impact on this particular staff group.

"If you had met with the staff at the school yesterday, the level of distress that was there - it was palpable. It was very significant for them. People were in tears. This was a culmination of a period of seven weeks of this level of coverage and we had to take some action to protect our staff."
However, Mr McCuish later told the BBC that he had instructed senior officials to lift the ban immediately.

Martha's blog was featured by media across the globe, with celebrity chef Jamie Oliver tweeting: "Shocking but inspirational blog. Keep going, big love from Jamie x."

Martha gave this cheeseburger a health rating of just 2/10

After hearing about the ban, Oliver tweeted on Friday morning: "Stay strong Martha" before urging his 2.3 million followers to retweet the message to show their support for the schoolgirl.
Martha had been raising money through a Justgiving page for the Mary's Meals charity, which helps feed some of the poorest children in the world.
Publicity caused by the ban helped her smash through her £7,000 target - with total pledges reaching more than £20,000 on Friday.

The total stood at only about £2,000 on Thursday evening.
A Mary's Meals spokesman said: "Martha's support for Mary's Meals has been amazing and we are extremely grateful for everything that she has done to help us reach some of the hungriest children in the world.

"We are overwhelmed by the huge response to her efforts today which has led to so many more people donating to her online donation page.

"Thanks to this fantastic support, Martha has now raised enough money to build a kitchen in Malawi for children receiving Mary's Meals as part of our Sponsor A School initiative and has broken the record for hitting a Sponsor A School online fundraising target in the quickest amount of time".
Among the pictures Martha published on her blog was one featuring her £2 lunch of a pizza slice, a croquette, sweetcorn and a cupcake.

Martha wrote: "I'm a growing kid and I need to concentrate all afternoon and I can't do it on one croquette. Do any of you think you could?"


http://m.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/06/neverseconds-shut-down/

For the past two months, one of my favorite reads has been Never Seconds, a blog started by 9-year-old Martha Payne of western Scotland to document the unappealing, non-nutritious lunches she was being served in her public primary school. Payne, whose mother is a doctor and father has a small farming property, started blogging in early May and went viral in days. She had a million viewers within a few weeks and 2 million this morning; was written up in Time, the Telegraph, the Daily Mail, and a number of food blogs; and got support from TV cheflebrity Jamie Oliver, whose series “Jamie’s School Dinners” kicked off school-food reform in England.
Well, goodbye to all that.

This afternoon, Martha (who goes by “Veg” on the blog) posted that she will have to shut down her blog, because she has been forbidden to take a camera into school. She said:

This morning in maths I got taken out of class by my head teacher and taken to her office. I was told that I could not take any more photos of my school dinners because of a headline in a newspaper today.
I only write my blog not newspapers and I am sad I am no longer allowed to take photos. I will miss sharing and rating my school dinners and I’ll miss seeing the dinners you send me too.

A little later, her father Dave (who helped her set up the blog but has been hands-off on the content), added to her post:

Veg’s Dad, Dave, here. I felt it’s important to add a few bits of info to the blog tonight. Martha’s school have been brilliant and supportive from the beginning and I’d like to thank them all. I contacted Argyll and Bute Council when Martha told me what happened at school today and they told me it was their decision to ban Martha’s photography.

Can we all agree how monumentally stupid this is?

Martha Payne, via JustGiving.com

Here we have a kid who got excited enough about feeding children well that she not only changed the food in her own district — within two weeks, officials were allowing children in her school to have “unlimited salads, fruit and bread,” which apparently was the policy all along only someone forgot to say so — but also got children around the world excited about their lunches too. Over the blog’s seven weeks, she received images of school lunches from Germany, Japan, Finland, Illinois, Spain, Washington State, a school in Atlanta that keeps kosher, and on.

And no, to stave off the inevitable snark, she’s not a bratty entitled kid. Here’s how we know: By her 19th post, she decided she’d gotten enough attention that she wanted to redirect it somewhere useful, and she asked her followers to donate to a charity called Mary’s Meals that funds school food in Africa. She started off the donations by sending £50 that she got from a magazine that reprinted some of her photos. By today, according to her father’s note, she had raised £2,000.

We anguish about getting kids to be enthusiastic about healthy, sustainable food — to not prefer the bad stuff, not waste the good stuff, and not be entitled little monsters who whine about when their next chicken nugget is arriving. And then a child emerges who, out of her own creativity and curiosity, does all of that, and gets other children around the world excited about doing it too. And then she gets told she is offending the powers that be, and is slapped down.

Those would be the powers who told a 9-year-old that she was making “bad choices” out of the food being served at her school, without ever taking responsibility for what they had allowed to be offered. (Which is not necessarily the norm for school lunches in Scotland, as this piece from the Daily Record makes clear.)

Infuriating.

If you’d like to tell the Argyll and Bute Council, who made the decision, exactly how idiotic they’ve been, their webpage is here. (And they are @argyllandbute on Twitter.)
If you’d like to send support to Martha, you can leave a comment on her final post. (Her email is on the same page.)

And if you’d like to honor her ingenuity by supporting the school-food charity she picked, the donation page is here.

(While I was writing this post, the news of the no-photography rule was posted by the Argyll News and the media site STV-Glasgow. The Argyll and Bute Council has not responded.)
Thanks @MJRobbins for flagging NeverSeconds’ goodbye post on Twitter.