On Saturday 22 September 2018 Chris Packham will lead the first Peoples Walk for Wildlife in London’s Hyde Park.
Everyone is invited to come along to show your support for Britain’s beleaguered wildlife and unite in a call for greater action from those with the power to bring change.
An event like this costs money, a surprising amount of money, and Chris has just launched a crowdfunder appeal to help cover some of those costs. He explains all in this video:
The crowdfunder page can be found HERE
Please support this with a few quid if you can.
Thanks
Raptor Persecution UK 
Not much of a response so far – where are Chris’ quarter of a million twitter followers?
Actions speak louder than tweets!
Possibly crowdfunding is acquiring a bit of a bad name. When we see the likes of Salmond’s crowdfunding band wagon then it could well be a big turn off for some people.
Would have thought that a high profile gig such as this would have attracted corporate sponsors who wished to appear ‘green’. I guess this route must have been tried.
Another point on this is that I’ve put in a search for this on the RSPB site and a couple of wildlife trusts sites. Zilch! Nothing. Thought they were supposed to be supporting this?
Really hope it’s not going to flop, we need this to be a huge success.
Problem for many of us is the cost of attending in the first place and then there is the unknown element of what exactly we need to fund. Travel from the north, accommodation and chipping in makes it a pricey test of our commitment to the cause.
I gave a friend a donation to give to Raptor Pers. Scot. In July. She and I both have try’d to locate their donation ‘part’ and I have asked them via twitter LOTS. This will be my last enquiry and If no answer, I will give to a group that need my donation more.
Hi Nadia,
Thanks for your kind offer but we are currently well-funded and not in need of financial support (hence, we don’t have a donations page). Hopefully another group can benefit from your generosity. Cheers
Support as at 1047 Wed 5 Sept is up to £3995 = 7%. Not looking good at all.
Mike said on 4 Sept “there is the unknown element of what exactly we need to fund”. That is a very pertinent point. The overall degradation of wildlife mentioned in the call for support is very large and has a broad spectrum.
When I read of the loss of wildlife and habitat plus ecological damage etc. etc. one common cause always springs to mind ………. over population. There are too many people. Nothing is being done to tackle over population and that makes the long term situation hopeless. There is no realistic prospect of changing that.
Having organised major green events I suspect that the event will require lots of funding for:
Liaising with emergency services to set up emergency response systems eg fire, policing, ambulance
Costs for:
Hiring, installing and dismantling toilets, stalls, tables, stages, associated electronic equipment – speakers, microphones etc, water services
Policing
St Johns Ambulance or other medical services
Fire service
Insurance
Publicity – very expensive
Liaison (office costs, phone calls etc) with Council officials, Health and Safety staff, Food Safety officers, community and voluntary groups, press and pr companies etc.
Stalls – huge admin and associated costs of renting land, organising contracts, etc etc.
Costs of fund raising, organising sponsorship deals and liaising with funders and business donors.
Potential costs of speakers and expenses
The event I used to help organise attracted 20,000 people and cost (15 years ago) in the region of £80,000 so £50,000 sounds on budget to me.
I hope that helps.
Perhaps the organisers could outline some of the costs the money is required for.
I’ve donated.
Some corporate sponsors could be a huge help.. Hope the event gets promoted widely and well by a range of conservation groups… their memberships also could be a very good source of support to help cover the costs of putting on a large-scale event of this sort. It’s a great idea… we all need to speak up for the natural world much more, and to approach it from an overarching interconnected perspective… Obviously within the environmental movement people have particular cause-celebres, but an integrated approach is called for, with ACTION and long-range policies to make long-overdue positive changes. Have donated. Hope this one might spark multiple similar events globally, that could happen on an annual basis.
To organise and advertise an event before securing the funds needed for its implementation seems a strange way to go about things! I tried to find some specific info on the whys and wherefores of the funding target and the breakdown of costs but could find nothing. We don’t even know if any sponsorship has been pledged. I suspect that many people have been reluctant to cast their money into a vacuum.
Hi Sandra,
If you watch the video embedded in this post Chris explains some of the costs for this event: liability insurance, stage, PA, generator, large screens, barriers, walk management…..
This event is more than just a walk – there is a 3-hr pre-walk event being staged in Hyde Park and there is also a much wider thing planned. The details of this wider thing and what will happen at this event have not yet been released but rest assured, a LOT of people have been putting in a LOT of their time, free of charge, to make this event a success. More info will probably be released next week…. (there’s very good reason for it to be kept under wraps for so long).
Ignore the social media trolls who have been spreading lies about Chris ‘profiteering’ from this event. If you know anything about him, you’ll know that’s obviously not his style. And he’s also said that the accounts will be fully audited in due course. He personally has put in considerable time and effort to organise this, and he’ll probably be out of pocket as a result.
If you can spare a few quid, please consider supporting this event.
Thanks for the information, very helpful. I didn’t think for one moment that Chris was profiteering but it did seem late in the day to instigate the crowd-funder and I wish it every success. I must confess to not having watched the video, I concentrated on the written script. All best wishes to the participants, I hope the event is a great success.