121,000+ and just over a week to go

17 Replies to “121,000+ and just over a week to go”

1. Despite leaflets and general word spreading, Louth and Horncastle is still languishing at a poor 235. Come on guys, show some support!
   A final push this week would be great. Was it Richard who suggested 125003? Now that would look good.

2. Why no email from Mark to his readership requesting they contact their local bird club/ornithological society to spread the word? Just to reiterate a previous post, nine such organisations in my neck of the woods carry no publicity on their websites. If that is typical across the Uk then it’s no wonder the 6 Degrees of Separation theory doesn’t appear to work!

   1. Fight dirty – I have contacted many of these organisations directly more than once during the course of this campaign.

      1. Mark, your workload must be unbearable. Why not delegate?

         1. Fight dirty – you have no idea of the workload nor of the delegation going on – thank you for your concern.

            1. Mark, I’m OK, You OK?

               I can guess, Jeez – only trying to help! You currently have 12.1% of the RSPB’s “million voices for nature”.

            2. Fight Dirty – I know. But we currently only have a week to go too. And we have been over the 100,000 signature mark for nearly a month. And we are getting a debate. And we are getting an evidence session.

   2. FD – chin up old boy, very few petitions manage 100,000 signatures, don’t underestimate the achievement. I know it would be great to have 10 million signatures … but 100,000 is a lot!

   3. On a previous petition I sent an email to practically every local RSPB group in Scotland re this – not boasting wasn’t exactly a big task. I think two responded out of fourteen I contacted, and that was it. No idea what happened if anything with the rest. Also tried to stir up interest among angling organisations and clubs re the effect muirburn has on water quality – bloody awful and exacerbating flood conditions doesn’t exactly help angling the biggest field sports of them all. Virtually zilch in responses or interest – not one angling club responded. I can’t remember if it was the vegetarian or vegan society which replied that they sadly just couldn’t support every petition that was put their way. An awful lot of people and organisations who should have supported it haven’t. In some cases I have an awful lot of sympathy for their reasons/excuses, in other cases no. The big hitters who didn’t have anything to lose FoE, Greenpeace and Green parties are the ones who could have made a big, big difference by a direct approach to their members requesting they support the petition, they didn’t as far as I’m aware – maybe the greens south of the border did. Not much effort for them really to do it just once compared to the personal efforts of a certain Dr M Avery ably assisted by the equally brilliant Chris Packham who have taken on one of the very biggest and most important conservation and environmental issues in the UK effectively as private citizens. Enormous achievement for Dr A in particular that he went against the grain and brought this petition out three times, for blinding success on the third attempt. I wouldn’t have done that which is probably why I was never conservation director at the RSPB – not that I was ever in the running for it mind you. FD maybe, just maybe if you get in touch with Greenpeace UK, FoE or the Green Party you might be the person that manages to sway them into sending out an email to their members asking for last minute support and who knows push petition past 200,000 which I think is easily achieveable even now – the UK Green parties have a total membership of 68,000 plus alone, requests from Greenpeace to its supporters can stop financing of massive factoriess to turn rainforest into pulp for paper, and it seems dams in the Amazon. Ecological and environmental devastation inflicted on 3.5 million acres of land to shoot birds for fun must be a case for attention by any standard. In terms of possible return for effort that was probably the best bet ‘hassling’ them in a nice way – if you then got the support. Would be icing on cake if we got it now, if we’d got it the first time doubt there would have been need for a further two petitions. All the more remarkable then what Mark has achieved, he should never have had to start this in the first place, bloody good on him he has.

      1. Les – that’s very kind of you. To be fair, the Green Party of England and Wales (I know you hail from Scotland) has been a strong supporter of this cause on social media. They have been way ahead of any other political party…ooh, actually that reminds me, I need to reply to an email from the Greens. thank you.

         1. Yes I wasn’t sure about the greens down South, I think a direct email to supporters with sole subject the BDGS petition and strong request to support it is the best way for any org to get signatures for the petition. That’s what League Against Cruel Sports did and early on we got about 5,000 signatures in the space of pretty much a day or two and it doesn’t have a huge membership. FoE Scotland very kindly had the link to the petition with its text in their enewsletter, but that’s just not the same – you need a pretty explicit and strong message with it and it needs to stand alone – never the less good on them, a step forward.

      2. By co-incidence the song I’m listening to reading this features the lyrics “I’m crazy ’bout you baby, but you don’t care nothing in the world for me”.

         However, 121,691 doesn’t seem too bad – felt like a slower day today (perhaps its the heat) but that’s four more than when I started typing this. Anyone care to guess what the closing figure will be next Weds?

3. Even some of the constituencies with a low number of signatures are doing well in terms of percent of people – as an example, south Cambs has 338 signatures, about 0.3%. Outer Hebrides has only 79 signatures, but as there are far fewer constituents it is still 0.29%……….looking this way, several other rural constituencies come up the rankings to around the proportion of engaged votes as in parts of the rural south.

   Louise

   1. Louise, the top constituencies as listed amount to 18451 signatures. 15.25% of the total. Doesn’t look quite so impressive that way!

4. Mark, have run out replies on the above conversation!

   But as you’re still asking people to sign (or at least thats the way I interpreted it) I thought even at this late stage an email to the many readers whose email addresses you have loggedand are not currently reading this would help?

   Of course if you have it all under control and its a given that you are going to win well I apologise for my efforts (here and elsewhere) on your behalf.

   I really am going to leave this now and wish the good folk of Hebden Bridge all the very best. I hope you win for their sake and their sake alone.

5. Why is Ceredigion coloured green, its a Lib Dem seat?
   I have just received a negative reply from Mark Williams MP which has surprised me so I will be writing to him again.

   1. Still waiting to hear from my MP Watford since 24/8 Sent a reminder today since it is over 3 weeks. Realised recently that when I thought I was delivering leaflets in Watford constituency rather more got delivered in SW Herts than previously thought

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