Common Fisheries Policy stall

This morning we had a stall in Nottingham at the Market Square asking people to back changes to the Common Fisheries Policy - the campaign we have been delivering for the past few months. It started off slowly and we were beginning to feel a bit despairing.

Then Jeannie said there was some sort of march arriving at the Market Square so we decided we would stay on a bit longer and hang around the back of the crowd and get them to sign our letters to David Cameron asking him to support strong changes to the CFP, to tighten up the regulations about overfishing, quotas and subsidies and to make the CFP truly sustainable.

We thought those folks would be more supportive of our campaign than the passing shoppers. It wasn't going well.  We reminisced about when the campaign started with Hugh's Fish Fight on TV highlighting the issues of discard and how easy it was to campaign on the issue then.  Not a long time since then but the public's memory is short so we needed a new angle and the Spanish issue just wasn't cutting it - it took too long to explain and people weren't interested in stopping to listen. So we decided on a new angle of approach.

We agreed that the letter to Cameron as it stands has a big empty space which was intended for people to add their own comments but on a busy street on a sunny Saturday people just didn't want to stop. "You want me to think of something and write it down?  Now? With no time to think about it? I have places to go, people to see so no thank you". And off they would trot, not even signing the letter on the back.

A big empty space that you are expected to write in is scary. Especially if you are asked to write something here and now, right this minute.  So we turned the letters over and asked passers by just to sign the letter on the back.  That wasn't much different from signing a petition and people are happy to do that so while they were signing we explained the issue to them and asked if they wanted then to write something themselves in the space. It worked better.

Not many people did add their own comments but we got a lot more letters signed. In fact we ran out of letters by the time the marchers arrived so we went to the Alley Cafe and had a cup of tea to celebrate our success.  110 letters signed in just 2 and a bit hours - not bad.