The Branch sponsored the Bandstand at this year's Nottingham Riverside Festival, and Sunday 6th August saw several volunteers give up their afternoon to help run the stall.
The Region kindly supplied the marquee, and we supplied the balloons and sweets for the children (of all ages). We also handed out "spikeys". These are small plastic stoppers that go in the top of your bottle when you are in a pub or club and prevent people spiking your drink with drugs. Visitors were also given "goody bags" with application forms inside.
While we had people's attention with the freebies, we asked them to sign two petitions: one against the cuts in the NHS and one against the cuts in NCC Social Services.
We filled many sheets, and had lots of supportive comments from members of the public as well as members of UNISON from Council and Health Branches around the country.
The picture below is of a UNISON member from Exeter who visited the stall and chatted about how they are facing similar problems in the South West. She decided to pass the afternoon in the sun making a daisy chain of balloons.
The Branch leaflets and petition about the crisis facing Social Care in Notts with the major budget cuts that were on the stall in the marquee are all available to download:
NCC faces biggest financial crisis in its history (pdf)
Public Services not Private profit (pdf)
Petition for you to print off and circulate (MS Word doc)
For details of the NHS leaflets and petition that were on the stall: click here
AND we recruited a new member for UNISON (though not for our Branch) when a young man approached the stall for an application form to join UNISON as he had just started working for the Police force as a civilian. We gave him a regional application form and helped him fill it in there and then.
For bigger versions of the photos, just click on them
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