Let's face it, Shellday was great - in the UK alone, getting on for 60 garages were visited (if not more), with well over 500 volunteers involved, many of whom had been inspired to join a Greenpeace event for the first time. Everything was peaceful and trouble-free with huge amounts of public support from drivers and passers-by, local media covered the event, and tweets using #tellshell (keep them coming!) made sure the message that Shell need to stay out of the Arctic was spread far and wide. And round the world, there were many other events, including in countries we don't hear so much about in Greenpeace terms, like Lebanon and Russia. A truly global day of action. So, what's next?
Well, there will undoubtedly be more visits, banners and leaflets in hand, to Shell garages - when and where, only time will tell, but it seems unlikely we'll be staying away... Beyond that though, it's a great opportunity to enrich our local groups with new members - of 20 volunteers at the Southampton group's event on Shellday, over half were brand new, a pattern that's been seen all over the country. We have our next meeting in a few weeks and everyone knows to find our website to keep informed about what's happening - so, there's every chance that some of these new faces will become more regular ones, and the more volunteers we have, the more we can do to Save the Arctic. Of course, what we do depends on Shell's response - ideally they will stay out of the Arctic - however, they haven't yet shown much indication of this, so the campaign continues and will evolve if necessary. What can you do? Well, getting active with your local group is an excellent start, along with online campaigning (on our main website, facebook and Twitter - use #tellshell and #savethearctic), and if you have a bit of spare cash in these difficult (and for us, busy) times, please do donate - there are many ways to do this and we'd be eternally grateful! After all, many of our new-found volunteers started as financial supporters... :)
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