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Blow up Olympic Mascots
Date
Sunday, 24 August, 2008
Content
I was with The British Chinese Project at the Happy Family Gala, organised by The Chinese Channel - TVBS-Europe, at Brent Cross today, to help publicise the organisation and its aims. Usually, we give out leaflets and run prize draws to get the attention of passerby's.
We do this voluntarily, and dammit, are doing it for the good of these passerbys! Anyone who has manned a stall like this will know that you really need to encourage people to listen and take a leaflet, especially as we also had a survey to carry out.
Engaging the public isn't exactly my strong point and luckily, I was (self) assigned photographer duties. Why? The master stroke for this event, coinciding with the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, were two blow up mascots, lent by the Chinese Embassy in London.
It was quite amusing to see Huanhuan, the red olympic flame, working the crowd before they were let into the gala, and then to see both kids and adults alike flock to the stall enthusiastically to pose with these characters (although the crowds dispersed during costume deflating battery changes).
The prize draw for a Nintendo Wii, was entered by punters who could guess the waistline of Huanhuan, of course, by giving her a characteristically cute hug first. It was a universally understood question, prompting some quite *serious* discussion on the correct answer!
Sign up volunteers for The BC Project these aren't, but successes like this will undoubtedly work towards raising the organisations profile.
For more, check out The BC Project website and also the photoset for Huanhuan huggers, if you don't believe me.
We do this voluntarily, and dammit, are doing it for the good of these passerbys! Anyone who has manned a stall like this will know that you really need to encourage people to listen and take a leaflet, especially as we also had a survey to carry out.
Engaging the public isn't exactly my strong point and luckily, I was (self) assigned photographer duties. Why? The master stroke for this event, coinciding with the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, were two blow up mascots, lent by the Chinese Embassy in London.
It was quite amusing to see Huanhuan, the red olympic flame, working the crowd before they were let into the gala, and then to see both kids and adults alike flock to the stall enthusiastically to pose with these characters (although the crowds dispersed during costume deflating battery changes).
The prize draw for a Nintendo Wii, was entered by punters who could guess the waistline of Huanhuan, of course, by giving her a characteristically cute hug first. It was a universally understood question, prompting some quite *serious* discussion on the correct answer!
Sign up volunteers for The BC Project these aren't, but successes like this will undoubtedly work towards raising the organisations profile.
For more, check out The BC Project website and also the photoset for Huanhuan huggers, if you don't believe me.
Categories
Events. Living in London. East Asian Culture.
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Comments
LOL. Those mascots would probably scare me. I love the Olympics too much though. So many good moments!
Posted by Captain Falcon
on 29/08/08 at 11:45 PM
Finish
