This was a training day designed to help volunteers to find their feet at a Greenpeace stall, whether starting from scratch or working towards refreshing and improving old techniques.
A snowy start to the day allowed plenty of time for tea and coffee while we waited for delayed volunteers from across Edinburgh, but once we started it was all go, go, go! Our trainers were absolutely fantastic - full of energy and enthusiasm, and they really encouraged everyone to join in. Actually, it was very informal, so joining in was not scary. Just a group of people talking about, well … talking!
I felt that the training day covered pretty much everything to do with campaigning in a street stall situation: how to prepare for the stall and what to expect from it, how to act while we are there including starting and ending a conversation, how we communicate with body language, what impression we give off from our stall (we practiced ‘good stall’ vs. ‘bad stall, which was pure hilarity!) how to get our message across, the importance of finding out enough about the campaign ahead of the stall, and also how to deal with difficult people who don‘t like the message, or don‘t like our costumes, or whatever. We also got to practice this in a role-play exercise (optional). And some of the guys wore a pink cowboy hat, to help them to get into character.
It was a very friendly and supportive learning environment and we were frequently invited to ask any questions we might have had. By the end of the day, we had completely covered every spare bit of wall with large flip sheets of our ideas from various brainstorming exercises, and it was nice to look around at them all - a good day’s work, I thought.
At 5pm, we headed downstairs to the pub for a drink. Several pints later and reduced to the odd incoherent slur about climate change (and I think bull fighting?), the pub closed and we decided to call it a night.
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