Today the Royal Navy visited the University of Bradford. Publicity for the event was terrible, and in fact - the only poster we saw after touring the entire campus was placed outside the meeting room a bunch of activists were meeting in. And not just any activists, but a bunch of activists who were discussing anti-trident actions.
There they were, a bunch of activists discussing press releases and how to get media attention when somebody says "We could always go and visit the navy tomorrow, there's a poster just outside". Well how could we resist! So, a few hours later and a poster had been created with the exact same style as the original and a bunch of people covered the campus in these new posters early this morning.
A new press release was written, sent out, and we then went to meet the navy. Our careers department staff greeted us and made us very welcome, making us even more welcome when they later realised why we were there.
After much sitting around we finally got to go and see a very nice man from the Royal Navy. We talked about the war in Iraq, we talked about recruitment, we talked about the Trident replacement. He hadn't really thought whether Trident replacement was a good thing, didn't have an opinion on pulling troops out of Iraq, and didn't understand the difference between protecting our interests and protecting our security. He told us how people are still keen to join the navy, but that they are struggling to find engineers. The engineering students present declined his offer of jobs. Sadly he declined our invite to visit the Faslane Peace Camp, but he did promise to take our posters back to show his Captain and with a little luck he'll think about the questions he couldn't answer. We then had to leave him, as he was about to head off to a school to recruit some 14-17 year-olds so we then went off to write a follow-up press release over lunch.
A new press release was written, sent out, and we then went to meet the navy. Our careers department staff greeted us and made us very welcome, making us even more welcome when they later realised why we were there.
After much sitting around we finally got to go and see a very nice man from the Royal Navy. We talked about the war in Iraq, we talked about recruitment, we talked about the Trident replacement. He hadn't really thought whether Trident replacement was a good thing, didn't have an opinion on pulling troops out of Iraq, and didn't understand the difference between protecting our interests and protecting our security. He told us how people are still keen to join the navy, but that they are struggling to find engineers. The engineering students present declined his offer of jobs. Sadly he declined our invite to visit the Faslane Peace Camp, but he did promise to take our posters back to show his Captain and with a little luck he'll think about the questions he couldn't answer. We then had to leave him, as he was about to head off to a school to recruit some 14-17 year-olds so we then went off to write a follow-up press release over lunch.
