One thing I often wonder when out petitioning is if the people I stop sign because they care passionately about the issue, or simply sign to get rid of me so they can carry on shopping. It appears my boss has been thinking about this too: the latest assignment he gave us was to ask members of the public to write a personal message about why they opposed new coal fired power stations. People couldn't just sign to get rid of us, they'd need to think about why they signed.
Doing a stall without a pre printed petition was something I've only done once before and I wondered how well it would work. However, I was very impressed by the quality of responses we received. You can see a selection of them in the picture above.
What wasn't so impressive is how many people we got to stop. This wasn't due to lack of interest, simply the fact there were so few people at Brixton Farmers Market on a Sunday morning. But finding good times to petition in Brixton is hard. Saturday morning is bad as there is too much competition from the Trotskyists, on Saturday afternoon there is too much competition from Christians, and on Sunday morning there are too few people around. I think our next trip to Brixton should be on Sunday afternoon. And I'm sure everyone will understand that I hold this view solely because I want lots of sign ups, and not at all because I like a lie in on Sunday.
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