{"id":571955,"date":"2010-05-20T10:19:38","date_gmt":"2010-05-20T14:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oxfam.org.uk\/applications\/blogs\/pressoffice\/?p=12827"},"modified":"2010-05-20T10:19:38","modified_gmt":"2010-05-20T14:19:38","slug":"rock-stars-and-robin-hood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/571955","title":{"rendered":"Rock stars and Robin Hood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So, the Florence and the Machine tour has come to an end. Our lucky volunteer campaigners were privy to some amazing, sell-out shows in venues in Edinburgh, Blackpool, Wolverhampton and London. Really breathtaking stage scenery, with flowers, lights like stars, ornate birdcages and a GIANT disco ball where Florence made her entrance (who doesn&#8217;t want to arrive in a giant disco ball? I know I do). The set list and performance was simply divine too, really something.<\/p>\n<p>Obviously, this wasn&#8217;t about blagging free tickets to sold-out shows &#8211; it was about connecting with music lovers and talking to them about things that really matter &#8211; poverty, injustice, and how together we can overcome them. With some determination and people power, we really can make a difference.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve been following my blogs, you might already know that the campaign we were talking about at the Florence and the Machine gigs was the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.robinhoodtax.org.uk\/\">Robin Hood Tax<\/a>, a tiny (averaging 0.05%) tax on final transactions between banks that could raise billions, that could be fed back into domestic healthcare and education, helping the world&#8217;s poorest, and funding projects designed to help us deal with the effects of climate change. It&#8217;s not without its fair share of celebrity and political supporters, look out for the new Sienna Miller video launching tomorrow on the site, and please have a look at the first video, &#8220;The Banker&#8221;, starring Bill Nighy. Oh yeah, there&#8217;s also got a video with Sir Ben Kingsley in it&#8230; But it&#8217;s the idea that matter, not the celebrities. The supporters we need are YOU. YOU are the ones that really can make a difference, YOU are the ones that can make or break a campaign and ultimately YOU will be the ones that benefit in some way. Show some support if you haven&#8217;t already!<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, back to the tour. Approaching people to talk to them about a campaign is pretty nerve-wracking for a first-timer (which I was), knowing how to approach people in the first instance was what I found to be most difficult. A lot of it involves reading people &#8211; looking at the person, and assessing what kind of approach they would be most receptive to. Some people are responsive to a bubbly, energetic, almost silly introduction, and some people are more responsive to a gentler smile-and-&#8221;excuse me&#8221; approach. One thing I found was that once the initial approach had been made, getting people to show support and sign the petition was relatively easy &#8211; the campaign idea is brilliant and the cause worthwhile, so the work was pretty much done.<\/p>\n<p>I got a lot from the experience, aside from a free gig ticket. I got to talk to many different kinds of people (Florence&#8217;s fanbase is pretty diverse), got to hear first hand the public response to our campaign, and it was an excellent exercise in building self-confidence. I&#8217;d thoroughly recommend it.<\/p>\n<p>If this sounds like something you&#8217;d like to get involved in, there&#8217;s still time. Become a Local Events Campaign Coordinator! <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oxfam.org.uk\/get_involved\/volunteer\/latest.html#lecc\">Apply here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, the Florence and the Machine tour has come to an end. Our lucky volunteer campaigners were privy to some amazing, sell-out shows in venues in Edinburgh, Blackpool, Wolverhampton and London. Really breathtaking stage scenery, with flowers, lights like stars, ornate birdcages and a GIANT disco ball where Florence made her entrance (who doesn&#8217;t want [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6919,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-571955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6919"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571955\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}