Today’s meeting at The NECi didn’t go as well as we hoped. 

We were greeted by security and had our mobile phones removed and my bag.  We were taken to his office to start the meeting. 

His secretary typed as we spoke but did not type everything that was said! I’m a competent fast typist myself so it was easily noticeable to me! 

We gave every argument against this show on ethical and moral grounds you’ve read all the updates on the petition. 

It seems that over 122k signatures are not enough to sway the NEC from hosting The Great British Shooting Show neither to please the nation, Birmingham or on moral grounds!  

He tried to compare the show by using an example that labour candidates weren’t happy about him hosting the Conservative party conference but as my friend quite rightly pointed out that’s hardly a life or death situation so there is no comparison. We are talking about the lives of sentient animals bred in captivity for the purpose of trophy hunting and the hunting and stalking of other innocent animals. 

He said that he had people at my march to find out what was going on and mentioned COBRA anti terrorism police!

Ive been running events in Birmingham for the last 4 years and have a good relationship with the Police and Birmingham City Council. 

At the end of the march on Saturday when everyone had left and I was packing up I caught a guy with a large professional camera taking close ups of my face!

So all in all we were not given a clear answer but towards the end of the meeting I felt that we had raised a few points that perhaps will make the NEC think about their decision in the future and we live in hope that they will make the right choice and listen to the 122k people that oppose this dreadful show that should not  still be in existence in the year 2020! 

We would like to thank Paul Thandi for making the time to speak with us, we had a civil discussion and heard each other’s side. He agreed he’s concerned about the economic impact of 122 thousand people boycotting the NEC and he thanked us for coming. 

Thank you to everyone that has supported me and the petition! The fight for animals continues, when they stop we stop!