Buy Nothing Day 1997:
Report from New Zealand: Wellington

BND Wellington, New Zealand was a great success. The day included a shopping-free-zone in an inner-city mall with a monument to the 'God of Obsolete Technology' made out of an old photocopier, TV, computers and radios. This had money scattered at it's feet with a sign telling people they could take the cash if they wanted to.

BND Wellington included:

• screen-printed posters and stickers covering the inner-city (by a team of dedicated volunteers the night before)
• lots of handouts to give people
• full-colour postcards
• rubbish-action notices
• 'Happiness in a Bag'
• 'no-junk-mail' stickers
• letters to direct-mail advertisers offering our letterbox for $1000 per item
• cards to shop owners enquiring as to the origin of their products
• a cash-card cut-up
• and a sympathetic busker (after some confusion with our planned musicians).

We had national coverage on radio and newspapers, doing two quite long and detailed talks on the National public radio station, student radio interviews in Wellington and Dunedin, front-page article on a national church paper (Crosslink), an article in the national Sunday newspaper, a 500 word editorial in the Wellington inner-city newspaper (City Voice), plus letters to MPs and newspapers.

Most of the feedback was very positive with a number of individuals and groups keen to be part of an on-going Campaign for Responsible Consumerism. Three notable negative comments were:

1. the Property Manager of the mall we were positioned outside (an empty shop front) threatened the group with trespass if we didn't move more than three meteres away from her building (erecting a sign just to be totally clear)
2. a very upset man who blamed BND and its organisers for him being made redundant on Buy Nothing Day! He was very angry and upset, unfortunately there was not much we could say, but imagine it wasn't totally our fault! Probably rather another victim of the economic systems we try to critique.
3. a hysterical rapper who threatened to waste us if we didn't stop putting BND posters over his groups gig advertising posters (on the public poster spaces)! He really needed to chill out and take it down 100. I think everyone who witnessed his little rant missed his gig.

Other than these interesting events it was a great day and we look forward to a bigger, better and more shiney (less windy?!) day in 1998! Stay tuned...

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