New Gizmo. New Questionnaire. Friday, our day to try them out near Gandhi’s end of Union Square. It’s a new chapter of the Drone-Free NYC campaign. The more you think and engage, the greater the odds of your joining in, we figure. And so…the poll – 8 questions “What Do You Think About Drone Use?”
(Click on the small images for a medium image. Click on the medium image for larger sizes.)
Today’s Granny team reached out with fliers: “Give us your opinion! What do you think about drones?” An example of one response to Phyllis:
Girl: What’s a drone? I don’t know anything!…
Phyllis: Take a look at these questions.
Girl: (Does) Oh…. You just want my opinion!
Phyllis: Right! And you can join the poll at the table, over there! Vote red for NO and white for YES. We want to see how people respond and test our new questionnaire.
Girl: OK!
The girl went to the table, for each of the questions there was a plastic tube. If her answer was ‘no’, she dropped a soft, fuzzy red ball into the tube; if ‘yes’, she dropped a white one.
Phyllis was busy handing out fliers, but later she noticed, this girl was still standing near the gizmo table, talking with others, explaining the poll to them. Success!!! Over 100 people took the poll. The rain held off until we packed up and headed for lunch to tally the votes. The questionnaire worked well except for #2 that we’ll revise.
Meantime, we heard diverse points of view. Caroline dropped her leaflets. Before they could blow too far, a tall guy kindly helped her gather them up. He was interested in who we were: how many, where from. He addressed each question thoughtfully, at first seeing military use of drones as most efficient in terms of loss of lives. He would not want to limit the police in their choice of tactics…but, (as he continued down the list of questions) drones might not be the most cost-effective way to police the city…
We feel ready to go on getting people to think about it, care about it, talk about it. Next stop City Hall Thursday November 13th. We want the City Councilmembers to see us in action.
– Caroline Chinlund – with Phyllis, Joan, Nydia, Barbara H, Eva-Lee, Barbara W, Edith, Nancy and friends Steve, Bud, Fran and Cindy
for the Granny Peace Brigade
Granny Peace Brigade 