From: Peter Lucey <peterl@xenuislove.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Poole 28th March Picket Report
Date: 1998/03/30
Message-ID: <X6w+8GAVI9H1EwEF@xenuislove.demon.co.uk>#1/1
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Saturday, 28th March 1998
A bright sunny Spring day in Poole; excellent picketing weather. Seven SPs - including two from the US!, flown in specially by the ARSCC (Global Outreach Org) - paraded in the shopping centre, handing out flyers (Xenu, Lisa, Space Alien, and Poole). The flyers were all Rolands excellent work.
Indeed, the Poole flyer was brilliant, and I'm sure can be amended for any town. BTW: Roland deserves congratulations for his efforts. (We contribute to the printing cost, but I'm well aware that Roland makes the major effort.) $cn will rue the day they conned him. (And the day they assaulted him).
Also deserving of congratulations (is this getting smarmy? :-)) were the prop team (Dave, HP), and Jens in the Xenu costume.
This was a cheery occasion. Lord Xe[m,n]u was present, Duke the Dog, balloons for the children, loudspeakers and we even had a enormous blue clam, tastefully tied with pink ribbon. (None of these provided by me :-).
I am not a regular at Poole - I have attended more demos in London - and I was really encouraged at the public's response. Maybe because there were more locals than in London(?), there was lots of thanks and apprecioation of our work. I think that the Poole residents are very pissed off by Scn and I was often asked "What can I do?". - I just advised spreading the leaflets, and calling your local councillor to protest at deceptive selling. (Any other ideas?)
Equally cheery was the lack of bodyrouters. I don't know where they all went, but Poole was the happier for their absence. But I expect they will be back.
So will we!
And I also suspect the Poole Org will soon take its rightful place among Roland's Trophy Room collection :-) Peter
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From: Zenon Panoussis <oracle@xs4all.nl>
Subject: Poole picket
Date: 1998/03/30
Message-ID: <351FE016.6039FF2E@xs4all.nl>#1/1
Organization: XS4ALL, networking for the masses
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology,nl.scientology
Karin and I attended the Poole picket this weekend. Here's the report:
We left Amsterdam on Friday morning. The plane was late and we had to kill a lot of time in Schiphol airport, which we did with the help of (false) champagne. When we finally arrived in London, we left our things at the dump we thought was a hotel when we reserved, and went straight to the Hayward gallery for the Francis Bacon exhibition. Bacon was superb.
Next day we slept late, met an old friend of mine in the afternoon and two more in the evening. We had a just lazy and very pleasant day.
On the morning of the picket - Sunday - I had a terrible quarrel with the receptionist of the hotel. He was supposed to wake us up at seven and did instead so at a quarter to nine. Late and without breakfast we rushed to Waterloo station and took the train to Poole.
The train - and the rails it runs on - tell a lot about what years of Thatcher did for the country. However badly shaken and stiff, we did get to Poole, and easily managed to find the org. There was no-one outside.
We knew that the demo would move between two places, so we tried to find the second one. The centre of Poole is an apparently idyllic bunch of sweet little houses and cobble-stone pavements (we intentionally avoided scratching the surface) and, by now, we know all of it. There was no other location to be found anywhere.
So I called the police. I knew that Dave would have announced the picket to them and given the addresses, so they should be able to tell me where the other picket site was. They weren't: they didn't have those papers at that office and they had received no scieno complaints so far.
So we stopped a police car; patrolmen would have seen the demo. And indeed they had, the previous day outside the main org. THE PREVIOUS DAY!
Still not believing what was becoming obvious, I called Dave. Yes, the demo had been on Saturday. Someone must have leaked to the scienos that Karin and I were coming and, evidently, they used their OT powers to confuse us. Damn, I thought our OT powers were far superior to theirs.
Karin had stir-fried chicken on a bed of rice and I had chicken filet with hickory sauce and french fries. Half a liter of Soave between the two of us and fairly good coffee, considering we were in England. That was the utter purpose of our trip from Amsterdam to Poole. We took a few pictures of us with the org and on the same evening we almost missed the plane back too.
Z
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From: Roland <roland.rashleigh-berry@virgin.net>
Subject: Poole picket report - 28th March 1998
Date: 1998/03/28
Message-ID: <351D6128.4BD4@virgin.net>#1/1
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
We picketed Poole again today. There were 6 picketers, less than normal. Therre were a few drop outs and two just didn't turn up. We still managed to distribute about 900 leaflets though. The public were very supportive as usual. Most of the flyers given out were the new Poole flyer that went down very well with the locals. No resistance from the Clams since they had won the Birthday Game and were at St Hill to collect their award. Roland
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From: Dave Bird---St Hippo of Augustine <DevNull@xemu.demon.co.uk>
Subject: picket report, POOLE (UK) 1998/Mar/28...Sat
Date: 1998/03/29
Message-ID: <DzuUizACUmH1Ew2e@xemu.demon.co.uk>#1/1
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
POOLE PICKET 28th March
Well, it appears the clams have a new tactic, using OT intention beams: one person's Saturday morning work commitment stretched to afternoon, another had an accident and sprained his wrist. Still, a nice demo on a warm spring afternoon. All in all there were Dave, Roland, Jens, two other UK people, and two American women from ARSCC(US) on vacation in London, not forgetting Duke-the-Dog and Clarrie-the-Clam [a three foot diameter snapping clamshell]. We met up at London Waterloo station and caught the early train, then down to a pub near the Org at the southern end of the High Street. A quick trip out to the Org at lunchtime revealed not much activity at all. One or two people popped out -- one of the three women body routers, and another bloke we didn't recognise. Stuart, the EO, crept out after the demo had gone and I was eating my sarnies on the bench opposite; and Zoe the ED was around somewhere too. This picket had been thoroughly and openly publicised....maybe we should just turn up unexpectedly in the middle of teaching and bodyrouting next time.
The 5th of the UK group, and the two American women, arrived when we were having lunch. About ten past one -- announced start was halfpast -- we picked up all the gear and moved out to the usual spot in "ambush alley", a semi-open square with a circle of seats where two ordinary roads join the pedestrianised High Street, and split into groups at the north and south ends. We put the sound system at the south end away from possible sources of likely problems, and had one or two people talk to adjacent shops to check there was no problem. We told the police there was no public order reason not to use use it and it would be going on shortly (grumble, grumble; the relevant department manager was away and we were dealing with new people). On it went with Hubbard spouting "there was no Christ" and body thetans that go "vroom"!
Helium balloons at the north end -- the nice silk sreened ones with big space alien eyes -- and DukeTheDog stood on top of a bin, the clamshell and the sound system at the south end. Roland was solidly on "scientology is a scam, scientogy says you're full of dead space aliens." There is a nice detailed Poole flyer which he posted earlier. Basic schpiel, but the mic went on later and I did some short bits on Richard Collins, History of Man, etc, and single verses from songs. Xemu smiled on us and an "overcast, occasional rain" day became warm spring sunlight. I stood in the shade side of the square, and took a few cocacola breaks during the day.
Towards 4pm we stond down and gathered everything together at the top end. Standing next to Duke I did a bit about the judge's dog and sang "they're drowning my doggie in the Poo-l". Then up to a pub neat the station, and onto the train back to London.
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From: Hartley Patterson <hpttrsn@vossnet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Poole picket report - 28th March 1998
Date: 1998/03/29
Message-ID: <351E5A3A.5BAC@vossnet.co.uk>#1/1
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Poole, UK; 28 March
Wog science predicted rain, but the mighty power of Xenu soon cleared away those pesky clouds and led by Duke the dog the usual suspects gathered in sunshine outside the winning Org in this year's Birthday Game (TM).
A minion was sent out to collect a copy of Roland's new leaflet. Since it describes _all_ the ways the CoS takes your money it was two sheets instead of the usual one, so I guess it took them the rest of the day to write up the Knowledge Report (TM).
The afternoon was spent on the High Street, where Xemu handed out balloons and plenty of leaflets were distributed. The populace were generally receptive. I was approached by one lady who said her grandchildren used to be scared of coming down the street because of being accosted by clipboard carriers. She had never been bothered until recently, and advanced the opinion that they must be getting desperate if they were trying to recruit grandmothers!
Special thanks to Minton Money for providing a balloon inflater from Boston.
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From: hosborne@lynx02.dac.neu.edu (Hilary B Osborne)
Subject: Re: picket report, POOLE (UK) 1998/Mar/28...Sat
Date: 1998/03/30
Message-ID: <6fosnl$h5m$1@isn.dac.neu.edu>#1/1
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Ted Mayett (KOX) (teddy@skylink.net) wrote:
: >Xemu smiled on us and an "overcast, occasional rain" day became
: >warm spring sunlight.
: This seems to happen quite often when pickets occur. It's quite funny
: actually, you would think the OT's would cause just the opposite.
: A salute to the visiting American women who joined you.
Thanks :). It's OK to use my name, folks, although my companion would like to remain anonymous.
Just got home an hour ago. After calling my mother, I immediately logged in. 46 messages, most of them from arsers. Then onto ars itself. This will take a while. Ah, the dedication this nonexistant organization requires. Do real groups require this much time and effort?
My version of the picket report:
My friend, whom I will refer to by her initials, ARC (yes, really :)), and I arrived at Waterloo a bit late for the 9:30 train, so we got the next one, a mere 20 minutes later. Upon arrival in Poole, we follwed the directions we had been given and soon found the ARSCC (wdne) contigent having lunch. We joined up and prepared.
For the picket itself, I did balloons. I destroyed my manicure and cut my finger tying the damn things, and my legs *still* hurt from the repeated squatting to tie on strings. I did get good at it, though. Gave out all of 'em. I hurt, but it's worth it to see a budding young SP.
ARC went shopping, then returned to take photos. She ended up disseming to a curious family. If the group photo she took comes out well, she'll scan it in.
We had a great time. We would do future pickets elsewhere, but our schedules give us only one week of vacation a year. So I'll have to concentrate on Boston :).
-HiLary, #193, SP2
