Manchester Kissit Demo 14th July 2005

Hi everyone, welcome to the Kissit Manchester organsing list!

We had a great meeting in Hebden Bridge last week where people were keen to be
involved. Lots of interest in Manchester and other places too so we're going
well. Below is the updated list of tasks:
Tamasin


Kiss it Manchester - Thursday 14th July 2005

1. Finalise Details

The event will start at 1pm. The Manchester people feel that it will be more
effective and easier to get permission for a stay-in-one-place demo rather than
a march. This would be on Piccadilly Gardens. This is a busy area in central
Manchester and is the former site of the asylum – ‘the lunatics are taking over
the asylum’. Becky is currently writing to the police to tell them of our plans.

Costume / Theme: Lots of ideas were discussed at Evolving Minds. Including
-Everyone wear white coats; some people dress up as giant syringes; some people
wear straightjackets; get some plastic bums! Need to have good visual stunts to
get media attention. Talk of obtaining a hospital bed and having someone lie on
it (tied to it?) with people pretending to be nurses restraining them. Possibly
also push the bed from Bradford to Manchester in the run up to the demo to get
more media attention. Adam and Rufus are looking into this. Possibly also have
a play at the demo. Any other ideas?


2. Media Involvement

– contact mental health media to see what they can do to help (Amy)
- obtain/ make a list of media contacts
- design a press release, with images
- contact main mental health organisations with press release, tell them what
we’re doing and link into the previous march
- send press release to mental health journals reasonably well in advance of the
march
- send press release to newspapers, TV, radio a few weeks before the march and
then follow up with phone calls and contact again directly before the march
- try and get the Big Issue to do a story on the march, they are apparently
quite likely to give us a double page spread

Amy, Rufus, Tamasin are interested in being involved with the media side of
things. If we had funding we could pay someone to get media coverage. Or if we
know people who work in this area?


3. Publicity

- the current Kiss it website can be updated to be focused on the Manchester
march and the Kiss it email address can be made to forward messages to another
persons email address (Sky)
- design flyers / posters advertising the march (Michele)
- get sufficient flyers / posters printed (Adam; and others who can get
photocopying done at work for free?)
- distribute flyers (lots of people)
- organise mini-buses from other towns and cities

4. Appoint a March Co-ordinator, whose tasks would be

- recruit stewards for the march (in London 1 steward needed for every 50
marchers, when we deal with the police (see above) we will find out if it’s the
same for Manchester)
- be the head steward
- liaise with the police on the day

5. Extras

- collect placards from Derby before the day of the march (Adam)
- book a samba band to accompany the march. It was Creative Routes who came to
the London march (p: 020 7635 5956; e:  info@creative-routes.org.uk ; the
contact person was Trine.) Contact them to see if they know a Manchester band,
or find a North-West based band and contact them directly
- find somewhere to meet after the march - the Basement bookshop/ café has been
suggested, contact them to organise this
-make sufficient copies of the chants (e.g. ‘what do we want hugs, what do we
get drugs’) so everyone knows the words
- obtain a powerful loudspeaker (Sally) and sound system
-obtain giant syringe (Dave Harper in London has one)

(An email received by me today from the organisers of the Kissit demo.)