A beginners guide to manning a Greenpeace stand for Greenpeace Portsmouth
Grayshott Village Square 20 April 2013 (by Karen Hewson)
PLANNING
Know your Brief – I read this through at least three times!
Know your Materials – I emptied the entire Greenpeace holdall and set up a dummy stand in my dining room
Know your Props – Test out the polar bear hat and wonder how to hold up the heart speech-bubble (I attached it to a badminton racquet!)
Know your Sister – Especially if she’s a pro at photography and cake/biscuit baking
PREPARATION
Know your Brother – Especially if he can lend you a good quality wallpaper table
Create a centrepiece – My sister and I made an iceberg scene with an iced cake, complete with Arctic animals and arctic-blue sea
Have something to give/sell – We made ‘polar bites’ and ‘melting hearts’ vanilla biscuits to go with the ‘love heart’ sweets
Invite the weather – The sun arrived at dawn in a clear blue sky and stayed all day!
PRESENTATION
Set your table – Attractively and neatly with leaflets, biscuits and collection boxes
Use your accessories – I weighted down the tablecloth corners with heavy decorative metal clips for a smooth finish
Look the part – We wore the polar bear hats nearly all day with white/neutral tops and trousers underneath the Greenpeace tabards
PRAISE THE PUBLIC
Nothing could prepare us for the overwhelming amount of support we received from the moment the Square opened for business at 2pm. The first donation came from an old man who boldly walked up and put money in the box “To stop the ships sloshing out their tanks at sea”. From then on we had pretty much a constant stream of well wishers and supporters who obviously loved Greenpeace. Our message was clear and everyone – old, young, mothers with children, single men, single women, boys with their friends, teenage girls – were happy to put on the polar bear hat and pose for a photograph to help Save the Arctic. Only one person mistook our iceberg for a Christmas cake! We gave away the sweets and biscuits for a “donation” which ranged from 50p to £20. The last contributor put in £2 “For the whales”. A fantastic day ended with us uploading 38 fab photos and 17 new contact names onto the Greenpeace international i-❤-arctic sites.
For more pictures of a fantastic campaigning day see here:
It's times like this that campaigning is really worth while - if you want to get involved locally get active here
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