Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology From: gerdw@cougar.vut.edu.au (David Gerard) Subject: Demo report: Melbourne 7 Dec 1996 Message-ID: <E27B61.Ls0@matilda.vut.edu.au> Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 14:06:01 GMT Demo Report - Melbourne December 7th 1996 (*zzz* wake me up when something happens) Another sedate and ridiculously polite demo. But then, Sydney has AOSH ANZO on their side and Tony McClelland on ours, and Melbourne is a comparative backwater. Barbara (lurker) and I showed up 11:20am, which is 20 minutes late. Brian Johnston (CoS) came down to say hi as we were assembling the signs and let us know that Frank Copeland was waiting for us and the signs and leaflets (and had been for twenty minutes). Oops. We went on up to the org (corner of Russell Street and Flinders Lane) and handed Brian our leaflets, and he handed us theirs (the same ones used in Sydney and Brisbane). The four of us - me, Barbara, Frank and Cyril Vosper - stood around the street corner handing out leaflets and chatting. More foot traffic than previous times, maybe. Maybe I'm imagining it. It was an uninteresting day. No conversation with the CoS - perhaps it's a new strategy of handling through boredom. Ah well, it was cheap entertainment in its own way. The CoS had two people near us and one on each of the four streets leading to the org, handing leaflets to all and sundry. This was actually quite an effective method of dealing with our acivities - we were outnumbered. Two of their number were in dress-up as Christian priests - I'm sure those were Christian crosses around their necks, not Scientologist ones. Wonder how people felt when they read these things a priest had given them and found out they were from Scientology ... We didn't have a video camera this time, just my snapshot camera (scans to come). They had a video camera (which they couldn't work, despite different operator) and one woman with a disposable camera who came right up to us to take pictures. At 12:30pm, we got a photographer from the Herald-Sun (the more popular of the two daily newspapers in Melbourne). He spent half an hour taking pictures of all of us and most of them, and forgetting Frank's name every few minutes. From the conversation Brian Johnston was having with him, I gather that the CoS had no idea this was going to happen. Perhaps this is why the story, slated for Monday's paper, did not appear in Monday's or Tuesday's. We'll see. At 1:00pm we went home. "See you in March!" Our signs this time: STOP CHURCH'S LEGAL THUGGERY C o $ SUPPRESSES FREE SPEECH HANDS OFF THE INTERNET They didn't have signs; just leaflets and priest costumes. -- *** Rev Dr David Gerard http://www.suburbia.net/~fun/ *** "The Church of Scientology is like a huge machine where many of its gears weren't properly produced and as a result are constantly grinding at the rest of the machine." (Jonathon)