We knew the chances of great weather weren’t
on our side for this time of year, so when organising yesterday’s demonstration
at Parliament square and putting the word out about it for the last fortnight,
we were hoping that we would strike it lucky and get some sunshine.
Unfortunately it did rain, and rain, with
no breaks of dryness for us.
Despite the wet weather and turning up an
hour late due to transport difficulties, we set up our boards and handed out
our flyers to as many as many people as we could. We were soon accompanied by another nice group
of protesters that were campaigning to free political prisoners in Iran. ( http://www.iranpoliticalprisoners.org/i-am-her-i-am-his-voice--16051606-1589158315751609-15751608-1607158715781605.html
).
At the other side of us just a few feet
down was the permanent anti-war demonstration where Brian Haw used to be at
before he sadly passed away last year.
We knew there a big chance of nobody
turning up, but despite the bad luck with the weather two film students
travelled to London to film us for their gambling documentary.
We moved from Parliament square to Old
palace yard just after 3pm to use the megaphone (thanks to http://www.grasp-group.org for helping us
with funding for the megaphone) and read
out just a few of the shocking stories of crimes caused by gambling addiction.
Despite Westminster being occupied mainly by
just a few passing tourists, we did get some great feedback by the local police
who seemed to express that they were on our side with our campaign and that we
were doing a good thing.
After travelling back home with a lot of
flyers and some of them getting wet I handed out some of my flyers on the trains
heading home where we gained great feedback from people on the trains and
started getting people discussing betting shops and how it has changed their areas.
MISSION SUCCESSFUL. If it wasn’t for
this happening I could have quite easily gone home a little drained from the
pretty much unsuccessful day at Westminster.
I organised this demonstration because soon its getting cold, but we’re going to be doing things a little different in future. Please get in touch if you or anyone you know can help us with renting halls or function rooms to be able to hold our events and explain how the gambling industry and betting shop proliferation is having a serious impact on our communities.
I organised this demonstration because soon its getting cold, but we’re going to be doing things a little different in future. Please get in touch if you or anyone you know can help us with renting halls or function rooms to be able to hold our events and explain how the gambling industry and betting shop proliferation is having a serious impact on our communities.
Thanks for reading.
Take care.
Ben @ Neuroliberation campaign
