Report on Derby and Nottingham Events
I thought I would post a report in case any information is
useful to others on the forum.
The Setup
A few weeks ago, I made enquiries about hiring a venue in
Derby for a sum that would be vaguely affordable to me. Initial enquiries at
Derby University produced a very coy response, and they did not return my
e-mails and calls when I asked about availability. They eventually said they
would send me a booking form (even though I had already filled in an electronic
one on their website - twice). The paper form never appeared.
Fortunately, it was suggested to me that I contact the
Metro Cinema in Derby city centre – I had heard of this place, but never been
there and knew nothing about it. It’s an independent Cinema, associated with
the University and City Council. I contacted the manager there and he was very
helpful and sociable. I sent him some copies of Loose Change, describing it as a
public domain film. I wrote a letter and said that I hoped he would be able to
support our campaign. About a week later, he rang and said we’d be able to
show the film, so I sent off a letter of thanks and the money to secure the
booking.
The Cinema was quite expensive to book, so I would not have
committed to it had I not known that David and Annie would be able to come and
give a talk – because the turnout almost certainly wouldn’t have been high
enough to have a chance of
recouping the costs.
Once I had the date booked, I e-mailed the local paper and
Radio Derby and, having got David’s agreement, said David would be willing to
do an interview etc. This was about 2 weeks before the event. I had absolutely
no response. A resend, about 1 week before the event, to the news desk, prompted
a response from the Derby Evening Telegraph – and 2 reporters rang me! I
passed on David’s contact details and the reporter also rang me and I spoke to
him for about 15 minutes. After I finished speaking to him, I wondered what, if
anything, would get into print.
Having appeared briefly on Radio Derby last year talking
about 9-11, I was expecting more of a response from them. They did eventually
ring me on a different number to the one I gave them, but did not ask for any
information, though they did eventually speak to David briefly on the day
of the event.
In preparation for the event, I had made some more disk
copies and printed out some leaflets for the 2 events.
Nottingham Setup
I wanted to try and maximise the use of David and Annie’s
time so, rather late, I decided to try and book another venue in Nottingham and
also sent the venue’s owner (a very friendly lady called Shirley) a couple of
Loose Change disks. She was kind enough to ring me back and agree to the use of
the venue. I contacted the Nottingham Evening Post and Radio Nottingham – I
received no response at all. Shirley knew people at Radio Nottingham and she
rang them too – but they did not, as far as I am aware, announce the event.
Another friend gave me a direct contact in the Nottingham Evening Post and I
contacted him, but he never contacted me following the information I supplied.
I printed some leaflets, which I left a few copies of in
local libraries and a record shop in Nottingham. I also stood for an hour
outside Nottingham Trent University and handed out about 100 leaflets, mainly to
students. I would like to have stopped and talked to people, but it was rather
cold to do that. I really left this too late because I did it in the same week
as the event. However, Steve Collier had done some postering/leafleting in
Burton On Trent earlier on.
Nottingham Event
The combination of factors of no announcements and possibly
lateness of organisation, along with the timing (2pm on a Saturday when people
were Christmas Shopping) meant that no one turned up for our event, which
surprised me a little bit. I wasn’t expecting a good turnout, but I thought we
may get a few people.
Derby Telegraph Article
This was a nice surprise and was published on the Friday.
It was a good, balanced article which reported the remarks I made fairly
accurately (not verbatim, but the thrust was accurate). This made me quite
optimistic of a good turnout.
Derby Event
In the afternoon before the event, Radio Derby spoke
briefly to David and said something along the lines of “don’t you think what
you are saying is an insult to victims?” (yes, that old chestnut).
We got there about 30 minutes before the start time and
there were already a good few people there – a good sign.
We had a drink and so it was quite a relaxed atmosphere.
Sinclair had come along and so we had a brief chat. I handed out a few of the
disk copies I had made to some of the staff when they asked about the film.
Annie said she would do an introduction and one of the
cinema staff also mentioned she herself normally did one, and she asked me how I
would like to be introduced (I just said “um Andrew Johnson from Borrowash). I
also managed my own slightly clumsy introduction, expressing that I hadn’t put the event on “for fun”.
Annie then talked for a short while about what they experienced in MI5 when they
were working on Counter-terrorism cases.
We then had the film played - “Loose Change” – this
is a good length for holding people’s attention, though some criticise it for
focusing initially on the “pod” evidence (nevertheless, most people seem to
agree there are some anomalies with the collisions of the planes).
A few people seemed to come in late and, by the end of the
film, we had about 100 people.
When the film had finished, David spoke for about 10
minutes about the issues raised and then I read out Eisenhower’s warning from
his 1961 presidential leaving address, and expressed my view that what he said
had come true.
We then had questions and points from the audience (after
David stopped me from almost forgetting about this bit!!). One person described
a test where a Flight Recorder had been placed on a Shrapnel grenade to see what
damage would be caused. The Recorder survived, thereby again refuting the idea
of the destruction of 7 out of 8 of them. There were some other questions, which
showed that some people in the audience were clearly quite knowledgeable about
things like PNAC.
Someone recounted that he had written to the Police about
the Crimes committed by Tony Blair and how this should be investigated. They
explained how they had received a response which indicated they could not/would
not do anything due to an issue of “discretion”.
There were no real objections to or rejections of the
content of the film, although one person (bless) asked me afterwards “So how
much of this do you believe?”.
I hadn’t thought to ask David and Annie what material
they would bring with them and therefore I hadn’t really printed enough
leaflets - we ran out. We had brought plenty of disks between us, and I had made
a couple of VHS tape copies of Loose Change – one of which was sold.
I advertised the event as “Voluntary Admission £3” and
therefore was not expecting to recover all my costs. To my surprise, we
recovered the majority of costs from donations and the disks sold. One person
donated £20 for a disk – a huge surprise.
The Derby event was, overall, quite successful I think and
it was David and Annie’s support and attendance was largely responsible for
this.
Conclusions
The local press coverage was a significant boost to the
event and I think the choice of an Independent Cinema drew quite a few
“independent minded” people.
I have had no feedback since the event, but as there were
about 100 people and I gauge the feedback as being from less than 1% of people,
this doesn’t surprise me greatly.
I would have tried to publicise the Nottingham event more
and persevere more with the local media, but I do have others things to complete
and I also don’t enjoy doing such things, as I am pretty much a quiet,
stay-at-home type by nature.
Thanks
Steve Collier also helped greatly with this event and
donated his own time and money, so big thanks to Steve as well.
Also thanks to Brian Coleman for returning my projector for
the Nottingham meeting – he came all the way up from London.
Follow-Up
I wrote to the Cinema Manager to thank him for his support and I also sent disks and a letter of thanks to the reporter who wrote the article in the local paper.
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