What did you do over the Bank Holiday weekend? Whatever it was, I hope you hope you had fun. On Saturday the Go Vegan Scotland team erected our stall in Glasgow City Centre and had yet more conversations with would-be vegans. By my (poor) arithmetic I make that our seventh stall this year, with four taking place in Glasgow and three in Auld Reekie (Edinburgh).
In the glorious sunshine, I couldn’t help but think back to our first stall on Buchanan Street a few months back, in the depths of winter, when the weather was wet and blooming freezing, it was grim!
Whilst the weather has been variable, my experience of these events has been consistent. I’ll admit that the first time I took part in the stall I was bit concerned at what kind of reaction we would get. I shouldn’t have worried. 95% of the conversations that we have at the stall are positive. We have vegans pleased to see vegan representation in the city. We have vegetarians thinking about veganism, and getting the information they need to ditch dairy and eggs, and then we have non-vegans who range from the potentially interested, to the mildly curious, down to a very small percentage who claim to have zero interest in the topic.
Regardless of the stance of the person coming up to the stand, we embrace them equally and try to have a positive conversation about veganism. I personally find it especially rewarding when you can see that people are starting to make a connection with the plight of animals and their actions i.e. consuming animal products. People often talk about light bulb moments. You genuinely see it happening when you chat to someone and they get it. It’s quite a buzz I can tell you! Hand on heart, I have had more positive exchanges with non-vegans on the subject of veganism at the Go Vegan Scotland stalls than I have anywhere else in my life.
So what next for the Go Vegan Scotland? You guessed it, we have more stalls planned. Next weekend we will have a stall at the Meadows Festival on the Saturday and Sunday 4th and 5th June. This will be the first festival we will have attended, so it will be interesting to see how it contrasts with our other stalls. We have an aspiration to attend more and more events.
Think you could help? Please get in touch. If you are worried you may be caught out with a tricky question that you don’t know the answer, well don’t be. The stalls are a team effort and if you don’t know the answer another of the team will. Worried that you won’t know anyone? Well again don’t be. We are a friendly bunch, especially if you come bearing vegan cake. In all seriousness please get in touch. We would be delighted to hear from you!