Save Our Herbs

Mass lobby of Scottish Parliament

Tuesday 10^th November. 2-4pm

1. Make arrangements to meet your MSPs on the day

• Click here to find your MSPs and their contact details

• E-mail your request for a meeting. This is the best way to make contact at the moment, due to the postal strikes. However, write it like a letter, including address and telephone details.

• Ask for confirmation by e-mail or telephone due to the postal strikes.

• If they aren’t sure if they have time for an appointment on that day ask them to come down and meet us if they can find a few spare minutes between 2 and 4pm.

Ask us for a model press release you can use. If you are going to use it, send it as soon as possible – that way they might cover the story before and after the event.

3. Try to get the national media interested in the mass lobby

If you have any contacts with national radio/TV/newspapers please pass the information on to them. We will be sending out a national press release but there is no substitute for the personal touch.

4. Let us know if you get an appointment

claire.mullan@gmail.com
saveherbs@gmail.com

WHAT TO DO ON THE DAY

1. Take with you any correspondence from your MP confirming you have a meeting.

2.  Be prepared if you are taking children
Bored children make their own entertainment! There may be journalists present and although some are pro choice in health matters, others will be looking for an opportunity to criticise us.

3.  Gather at the demonstration area outside the Parliament building

The police on duty will point you in the right direction.

4. What to do if you do not have a meeting arranged

Come along and offer your support anyway. Bring your MSPs’ contact details and keep trying for an appointment by phone. Unlike Westminster, Holyrood does not seem to have a formal system in place for requesting a meeting in person. However, we are currently investigating this. Come prepared to have a meeting and we’ll update you on how to do that on the day if not before.

5. meeting your MSPs

Use a meeting with your MSP to try to:
• Give them the information they need about the Herbal Medicine issue,
• Influence their views with your own knowledge and concerns for both the public’s protection and the profession’s safety record.
• Explain to them that many of their constituents, some of whom are your patients, want herbalists to be Statutorily Regulated.
• Ask them to raise your concerns with any relevant Ministers by meeting them and by writing to them.
• Ask them to take appropriate action to show that they support your view.

It is best to be as brief, clear and courteous as possible. If they send their researcher instead, treat them in the same way. However, they may send their researcher on ahead of them if they are in the middle of something, and come to you a bit later.

You should thank him or her for taking the time to see you, establish how much time they have, make two or three key points and – most importantly – ask them to follow up the meeting. Briefing notes are useful but make sure you point out how the issues directly affect you, your business, your patients and your family.

Do not be surprised if your MSP only has a small amount of time to spare you. MSPs will be very busy on the day, so don’t take it personally. But make the most of the time you have with them.

WHAT TO DO AFTERWARDS

1. Stay in contact with your MSPs

Continue to try and meet your MSP in their constituency to follow up on what action they have taken or to raise the concerns with MSPs you are unable to meet with on the day.

2. Follow up any local or national media interest

Send in a picture of yourself (hopefully with one of your MSPs) to the local paper.

3. Keep in touch with us

We’ll keep updating the website with your stories and pictures

(This help sheet is based on one produced by the union Amicus.)

Many thanks to Afifah Hamilton for permission to adapt this from the Westminster help sheet.