No you haven’t misread the title of this blog. If you thought that Polar Bears only existed in the Arctic you would have been surprised to see one in a car park on Sat 29th Oct at the Belsize Park Green Fair. Little did I think when I joined the Camden Greenpeace group a few months ago that I would be standing in my knickers in the car park of Budgens getting in to a Polar Bear costume but there I was!
I joined the Camden Greenpeace group a few months ago and have been involved in a few Save The Arctic campaigning days. When I was asked to help at the Belsize Green Fair and help man the stall and do some more campaigning I was excited to be involved.
When we arrived we were given our space and some lovely bunting to put around our stall. There were lots of really cool stalls including one for saving English bees which had real bees and another one with lots of information about biking round London.
Once we had all set up the Greenpeace stall Neil our fab group leader dressed as a polar bear while we chatted to people and explained about the campaign and got them to sign a petition to make the Arctic a protected marine environment. We used ipads which are really easy to use.
It took a little while for it to warm up but then we had lots of interest. Aside from a guy telling me we are heading for a new ice age in our lifetime and people should stop breeding (nice) everyone was really friendly and interested in the campaign.
Neil had been in the bear for hours and was so hot I thought I would give it a go. After getting in to the costume in Budgens carpark I headed back to the stall. It was really hot and at first I felt a bit claustrophobic but then I found my inner bear!
It is amazing how differently people react to you when you are dressed as a cuddly polar bear and I had adults as well as children wanting to have a cuddle and take a picture. What was great was that the children seemed to know a lot about the Arctic and the animals there and really wanted to help. One of them said ‘we have to save your home don’t we all there won’t be any of you left’.
We closed up the stall around 3pm and Neil came with me to de-bear J. I was resigned to getting down to my knickers again in Budgens car park but the lovely manager said I could use the changing rooms.
Due to everyone’s hard work we received approx 180 signatures and the satisfaction of knowing that people do care about our environment and that they are willing to help out a bear who needs somewhere to get changed!
To sign up to the Save the Arctic Campaign and get your name added to the 2 million who have already signed follow this link http://savethearctic.org/
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