Set Up A Stall
Abbie McGee, 12, running a stall in Cambridge
Organise a stall
Setting up a stall on your high street is a brilliant way to attract new support and talk to the public about campaigns. Ideally you will have someone to give you a hand with the stall, and help deal with the potentially steady stream of people coming up to ask questions and find out more. Two or three people should be sufficient to man a street stall—any more and you may find that passers-by will find the ‘welcoming committee’ off putting!
Your stall can focus on one specific campaign (eg, the farrowing crate) or cover a whole range of veggie issues. Viva!’s eye-catching posters and campaign materials are an easy way to attract attention and many people will come and talk to you.
Although permission and a permit is required from your local council to hold a street collection, this shouldn’t be necessary for a street stall, where you will not actively be collecting money but obtaining petition signatures, giving out information and accepting any donations offered to you. If you have any doubts or concerns about possible regulations or restrictions, however, contact your local council and they will advise you accordingly. Usually it’s fine to hold one in a public place (that’s not privately owned) so long as you are not causing an obstruction. If you are considering holding a stall within a shopping centre, you will need to get in touch with the manager.
Once the venue and date has been agreed, you can now start planning—it’s all systems go!! To guarantee the effectiveness of your stall, we suggest you follow our tips for success:
What you will need:
- a pasting or fold-away table like the one shown right - if you don’t have one, these can be bought quite cheaply from DIY stores
- a tablecloth—this makes the stall look more professional and also hides from view any bags or boxes that may be stored under the table
- clipboards and pens for petitions
- if you have permission to collect, use a bucket for donations (cover it with brightly coloured paper and the Viva! logo and the words ‘SAVING ANIMALS’) —this has been found to be really effective (we can alternatively provide a collecting tin). Otherwise, take a container with you to keep any donations made on the day.
- elastic bands—to go round leaflets to stop them blowing away!
What Viva! will provide:
- blank petition forms—a notice stating ‘Please sign our petition to….’ will help draw people in to the stall
- leaflets—have a good read through these before the stall takes place so that you can inform people confidently about Viva!’s campaigns
- campaign update request forms for people to complete
- posters—if you do stalls regularly consider getting posters laminated so that you can re-use over and over again. Or, think about preparing an eye-catching display board
Attracting attention
If you’re feeling confident, call out to passers-by and ask them to sign your petitions—once at the stall you can talk to them in more detail about the issues. Giving them a leaflet will encourage them to think about the issues after they have left the stall. If people seem very interested in what you’re saying – try giving them a Join Viva! leaflet!
Awkward questions
Most conversations you have with people will usually be quite general but it’s just possible that you will get 1 or 2 sticky questions that prove harder to answer. (There’s always one isn’t there?!) If you are asked a question which you can’t answer, take the person’s details down and the question they want answering, email us the information and we can contact the person directly.
After the stall
Please remember to post off to Viva! any completed petitions, forms requesting further details, queries and of course donations! Now congratulate yourself on a job well done!