On Saturday 22 September, whilst others in the group joined forces with Glasgow Greenpeace for Shell Day 2, a number of us from the Edinburgh group took a stall to Septemberfest 2012 at Broughton High School.
This was a great and diverse event, with lots of food and craft stalls alongside political parties and many others besides. We were particularly pleased to see the Spokes Cycle Campaign, who aim to get more people in Edinburgh and the Lothians on their bikes, and Changeworks, who work towards local action on waste and the environment. In addition, the quality of the music and performances at the fair were extremely high and helped the day go by in high spirits.
One thing we hadn’t really been prepared for before we got there was the demand for face painting, which we were doing by donation to Greenpeace. As there were already face painters in the fair (who were probably far better at it than us!) we expected that we would just have a few children coming by who wanted us to do it.
However, after a slightly slow start at the beginning of the fair, we were totally overwhelmed with huge queues of children waiting to have their faces painted, seemingly not put off by our amateur skills. Even with two of us doing the face painting, the queue never seemed to diminish, and over the course of the day we raised over £40 in donations to Greenpeace!
Whilst two of us were face painting, any other volunteers on the stall talked to parents and others who were interested in Greenpeace’s current campaign to save the Arctic from oil companies and exploitative fishing practices, and hopefully gained a few sign ups to the campaign.
All in all, it was a very successful and enjoyable day, and we hope to come back next year!
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