veganactivism

A Weekend Of Activism – January 2019

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Veganuary is very food post heavy due to all the new products and menus coming out but it’s also important to highlight the vegan/animal rights activism that is taking place.

On Friday Havering Vegan Action (of which I am part of the admin team) took part in our regular Earthlings Experience event where we show footage from UK farms and slaughterhouses and start conversations with members of the public who stop to watch. We had some productive conversations with many people taking away more information to look into.

On Saturday I took part in the No Whaling March to The Japanese Embassy. Japan have decided to exit the IWC agreement and start commercial whaling again after originally signing the agreement in 1982. You can sign the petition to ask the Japanese Government to reconsider this here.

On Sunday I took part in the CAGED NW (Campaign Against Greyhound Exploitation and Death Nationwide) protest against the GBGB (Greyhound Board of Great Britain) Annual Awards Ceremony at the Park Plaza Hotel at Westminster.

I was charged with handing out leaflets to the public (so I still have my voice!) many of people I spoke to were anti-racing and supported the protest, others were tourists who were interested in the issue as it was something they weren’t aware of. I also spoke to some of the residents who lived opposite the hotel. I encouraged them to ask the hotel to not host these awards I’m future if they were bothered by the noise of the protest.

There were other events this weekend that I couldn’t make it to, there is so much going on!

If you’re a new vegan (or not) and you would like to get more involved in activism look on Facebook for events taking place in your area. If you have any questions reach out to the organisers and they will happily put your mind at ease.

Let me know what activism you have been getting up to in the comments below.

Plumes x

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A Weekend Of Activism – January 2019

A week of animal activism

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I’ve had a week standing up for the animals. On Monday I attended Essex Pig Save (which I wrote about here). Save’s are a good way to see the condition of animals in your local area and reinforces your conviction to fight for the animals.

On Tuesday I joined The Humane League to do some craftivism outside McDonalds in Leicester Square. The point of this was to encourage McDonalds to sign up to the Better Chicken Committment (which you can read about on THL’s website) to improve the welfare of millions of chickens each year.

On Friday I took part in our local Earthlings event in Romford. We’ve had a few weeks off so it was good to get back out there.

Yesterday was International Cube Day organised by Anonymous For The Voiceless. Last year 190 events took place on Cube Day and this year it was up to a massive 500 including the first event in the Middle East. We managed to get 22 people to take veganism seriously in Romford and there were also other local events going on in Southend and Chelmsford. I’ll update this when I find out the global tally.

Update – 491 cubes actually happened on International Cube Day with 22,188 people going away taking veganism seriously.

Have you been doing any activism this week? Let me know in the comments below.

Plumes x

A week of animal activism

Animal Rights March 2018

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Yesterday saw 10,000 vegans come together in London to stand up for animals. There were marches taking place in 23 cities across 14 countries.

We marched from Westminster to Hyde Park and then heard speeches from a variety of speakers. It was so good to walk alongside like-minded people united in the cause. We even made the news!

Here is a variety of photos from the Facebook event page, I didn’t take any myself as I needed both hands to hold my placard!

This is the third annual animal rights march in London organised by Surge and it is great to see the numbers doubling each year.

Did you take part in any of the marches? Let me know about your experiences in the comments below.

Plumes x

Animal Rights March 2018

Cube and Squash

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Yesterday was a very busy day for me. I took part in a Cube of Truth. This is a type of vegan outreach where volunteers stand in a cube formation, wearing masks and showing footage of common slaughterhouse and farming methods from the UK. There are also outreachers surrounding the cube who speak to the public who have been watching the footage about what they have seen and what they can do to stop it.

We had a really successful day with 46 people going away taking veganism seriously and likely to look into it further and make changes in their diets.

I spoke to 3 children and they were very receptive to what I was saying and seemed interested in the documentaries I had recommended for them.

Photo credit – John Kelly

We also had the most volunteers we had ever had at this event and hopefully the success of the event will encourage more local vegans to join us in the future.

Photo credit – Dave Murphy

If you are interested in taking part in an event look at the Anonymous for the Voiceless website to find your local chapter. AV operate on every continent so there should be a chapter in your country. If not you could look into setting up your own!

When I came home I had a rest and then made dinner. My Mum and her Husband have been growing spaghetti squash in their garden and gave me one from their first harvest. I’ve never had spaghetti squash so I looked online for recipes on how to cook it.

I decided to go with this lentil Bolognese from Yummy Mummy Kitchen. It was full of vegetables with carrots, celery, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes along with the lentils. I served the Bolognese in the roasted squash and topped with vegan cheese. These were quite large portions so I had plenty left over to have for lunch today.

So that was my Sunday! I hope you had fun whatever you got up to.

Thank you for visiting my blog.

Plumes x

Cube and Squash

Vegan Activism January 2018

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I’ve really kicked 2018 to a great start in January with attending some fantastic activism events.

I’ve taken part in two Earthlings Experiences with Havering Vegan Action. We take to the streets of Romford for two hours on Friday nights and plant lots of seeds by showing farm and slaughterhouse footage and talking to people about their food options.

I took part in my first Chelmsford Cube of Truth with their chapter of Anonymous for the Voiceless. We now have four chapters locally, Chelmsford, Southend, Basildon and Romford. Basildon’s first event is taking part on 4th February and Romford’s first event takes part on the 11th February. I like taking part in these events as you can swap from showing footage to doing outreach speaking to people. We usually speak to around 70 people when we do these events and it’s great to see more and more chapters popping up to spread the message.

I attended my first Essex Pig Save which I wrote about here.

And lastly tonight I attended the protest at the annual Great British Greyhound Board awards organised by CAGED, I wrote about last year’s event here. There was a great turnout and luckily it wasn’t raining this year. I hope to attend more events at my local greyhound track this year and see more stadiums across the country close down.

So let’s see how I get on in February.

If you are interested in taking part in activism events I would recommend you have a look at events in your area on Facebook. If you have any questions ask away in the comments below.

Plumes x

Vegan Activism January 2018

Canada Goose = Animal Abuse

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On Thursday Canada Goose opened their flagship London store on Regents Street so today about 400 of us showed them how welcome they are!

Photo credit – Vegan Blogger 78
Photo credit – Vegan Blogger 78

You can search the atrocities that go on to make these costs but it basically involves pulling feathers from live birds repeatedly and trapping cayotes for periods on time so they struggle and can become dehydrated before the hunters come and to shot them so their future can trim these fashion items.

It’s not fashion it’s violence.

Plumes x

Canada Goose = Animal Abuse

A weekend of Activism/Outreach

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This weekend saw me take part in two vegan outreach events in Leicester Square in London. For non-uk (or non-London) people, Leicester Square is one of the busiest tourist areas in London (it’s where all our movie premieres take place) and there is always lots going on!

Originally I was planning to take part in a preparation event making signs and meeting people who are taking part in the Animal Rights March which takes place in London on 2nd September, but unfortunately this was postponed due to the weather. 

Instead I took part in the Earthlings Experience, where we show the realities of the meat industry in the UK and speak to people about their reaction and feelings towards the footage and encourage them to do more research into adopting a plant based lifestyle. 

Photo from a previous event

This was my second Earthlings Experience and my first in Leicester Square, most people were respectful and some encouraging conversations were had. There were the usual dismissers and some louts (well it is central London on a Saturday night!) but all in all I think it was a successful event and I look forward to taking part in many mote.

On Sunday I was back in Leicester Square with Surge’s Down with Dairy event. There were over 50 activists, some showing footage of the dairy industry, some holding signs, some talking to the public and we had some maning our stall giving out sample of cheese and milk alternatives for the public to try.

I took part in different activities and spoke to some great activists. While I was stood silently holding my tablet showing footage I listened to another activist so eloquently speak to a group of young men and was so encouraged by their response to his words.

I’m definitely looking forward to taking part in more events with Surge. It was a talk by Earthling Ed at the Vegan Camp Out which really inspired me to take part in more activism and it was also great listening him speak to the public at this event.

If you are vegan and haven’t taken part in any activism or outreach I’d really recommend you search for groups in your area and get involved. I know I am lucky living in London where there are events going on every week but there are lots of things going on in other parts of the country too. It’s a great way to spread the vegan message of peace and compassion and you get to meet some great like minded people!

Plumes x

A weekend of Activism/Outreach

Vegan Camp Out 2017

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On Friday my Sister-in-law Gemma and I headed up to Nottingham for the Vegan Camp Out. Unfortunately it took us a bit longer than expected due to traffic but we made it there before nightfall and worked as a team to get the tent up! This was my first time camping ever (!) so you can see how proud I am celebrating with a can of Brewdog Punk IPA in front of our tent! 

We headed over to the main tent to watch Carl Donnelly’s set. I have been aware of this vegan comedian for a number of years and follow him on Twitter so it was good to be able to watch him in person. He was very funny and recounted vegan experiences the audience knew all too well!

After that we wanted some food. There were only 4 stalls serving food for over 2000 people (!) But after a 1 and a half hour wait we got our chomps around some battered sausages and chips from Battered. By this time it was dark and we were so hungry there wasn’t time for a photo!

We went back to the tent to get some shut eye but unfortunately we had some very noisy neighbours (from other reports a lot of the campers were of the partying in the small hours variety!) so I didn’t have a great night’s sleep.

In the morning we had a cooked breakfast on the camping stove to give us some energy for the day.

After that came the washing up before we headed over to the marquees for some talks.

We listened to Earthling Ed who I had recently followed on Facebook who gave some insight into activism, then I saw a talk and Q&A from a man from Nottingham Hunt Sabatours. It was really interesting and something I want to look into a bit more. After a nap in the tent we took part in a workshop on toxic masculinity and veganism, which again was very insightful and an area I am very interested in.

As we had a bit of a gap before the next thing we wanted to see we thought we’d brave the dreaded food queues! We decided to split up with me tackling the pizza queue and my Sister-in-law tackling the doner one. I got chatting to a couple of ladies from Manchester and I’d even been on the same greyhound protest with one of them in January! This time it took us an hour to get our food so we headed over to the main marquee to hear Juliet Galletley founder of Viva! speak and introduce the film Swine about the pig industry. 

After that we all huddled in the tent to see who I think was the most anticipated speaker of the weekend, James Aspey. I had never heard of him before although my Sister-in-law and I had noticed him (wink) earlier in the day walking around. He had a great way of speaking and telling his story and I would recommend you Google him as soon as you’ve finished reading this blog!

Afterwards we headed back to the tent and had some drinking fudge from Fudge Kitchen that we had bought from the Viva! stall. It  was delicious!

 All in all we had a fab time. We met some lovely people including a couple who are soon to be living very close to me! There were a few hiccups but the organisers seem to be taking all the feedback on board from what I have seen. This is only the second year of this event and I am really grateful to them for organising it. 2018 promises to be bigger and better and tickets are already on sale!

Did you go to the camp out? What did you think? Would this be something you’d be interested in? Let me know in the comments.

Plumes x

Vegan Camp Out 2017