The Org in Plymouth, Devon, has been a very quiet place for the last 10 years. Rarely see anyone going in and out, and it's on a side street near the police station, that few people go down unless they live in that area. I'd pretty much forgotten all about it until a few months back, when a friend at work tried to sell me $cientology.

Things there seem to have picked up somewhat. They are now out in force in town every week, with at least 2 stands, and they are physically grabbing people as they walk past. I even had a run in with them myself just befoer Christmas, which I wrote about in the guestbook here before I got approved. They certainly don't know how to deal with informed critics down here, and it makes me wonder what on earth would happen if they ended up getting picketed. They certainly have NO wog handling skills at all, despite some of the people on the stands claiming to be "senior" in the church.

I wonder what became of JOhn and Violet Good? They were the only people in the Plymouth area who made any sort of money and they were the perpetual GI cycle..

They were, incidentally, an incredibly nice and warm hearted family.

I have a friend at work who is involved with the $cienos at the moment, which, incidentally, is how I found this place, out of concern for him. If I can get him to talk me, I can try to find out for you.

Hi

Just wondering if you had any more news on what the plymouth org was up to? I was always aware of them there when I was at uni and hadn't thought much about it until my sis came home with a book from them.
She went on about the talk she had with them and "How they made a lot of sense and they could help her with her revision".
Hopefully she will stay clear of them but am now stressing about it all.

Advice?

It appears to be business as usual - the same 4 people out with the stress test cart at least 3-4 times per week, literally strongarming people into using the e-meter. I've not been past the org itself in a while, but about 6 months ago, it was looking as rundown as ever - dirty window, peeling sign, threadbare carpet inside. The only furniture was a school-type table and chair, a few bookcases, and a cheap and nasty looking coffee table with a few of Elron's books, and some magazines.

I really must go by and scope them out properly.

Plymouth University student union have said they will post a flier for us that will make students that Free Stress = Dianetics = Scientology, 1st year students being one of the more vulnerable groups the Plymouth Org prey on. I could only do this by keeping the wording fairly innocious because they could not post a flier saying Scientology is a scam.

We are handing out the following business sized cards to as many people we see taking the stress test:

SIDE A:


SIDE B:


The biggest problem is that a lot of people just don't seem to connect free stress test with scientology, those that do stay away.

I have also been in touch with the local council and the police with respect to their status as peddlers; they are treading a fine line and frankly abusing the system terribly but actually catching them is going to be very tricky and even then only the person who breaches the peddlers act will be in trouble. Never the less I am keeping the pressure on this one.

Everyone should note that peddlers must produce their license when asked to do so, under the UK peddlers act 1871. Another issue though is they also claim not to be peddlers because they don't sell, even though some do have peddlers licenses.

One piece of good news is they inflicted their own harm by running a full page add in the local news paper, costs at least £2000, after the last protest which gave the 200 questions on their personality test; aside from the cost to them this alone should put most people off.

Sounds like the cult is being beat to the punch.

scientology sets up their stress test. Out comes the long table with the two chairs at each end, the stack of dianetics books in the middle, the two emeters, the two testers and the in-charge.

They get approached and asked for their pedlar's license. "Oh, we're not selling anything. We don't have a license."

A while later along comes a young man in casual attire - trousers, casual shoes, a jacket. He looks just like everyone else. He sits down. The stress test gets administered. He gets offered a book, which he buys. The receipt gets made out and he gets a copy. He stands up and signals and then shows his badge as two or three other plain clothes types come up.

They seize the entire stress test setup and either issue citations to the people involved or arrest them. The charges are, selling without a pedlar's license and lying to the police.

A thing like that could happen. If it happens when you're around I hope you take pictures.

We peaked at 13 people this time around, we had 30 last time but this did not make us down hearted; there were several reasons not to expect as many this time around.

We who attended felt this one went as well if not better than last time as we handed out tonnes of fliers and spoke to a lot of people, who were generally receptive. We also had music this time which made for more of a party atmosphere.

Another difference was that our main flier had a link on for the petitions against scientology on our Government's petition web site; we get a lot of passive support now we can give them something they can do.

The police were called because it was claimed that we were harrassing them; this might have had something to do with one of us reading the Xenu (OT III data 1) story out loud from an A2 sized poster with it on in L Ron Hubbard's own hand writing. The police were alright about it and we agreed to stay out of their doorway, not to hold posters up to their windows and to not video them when they were not videoing us.

They did not get the free stress test kart out this time, no doubt because they didn't want the fiasco of last time when we followed it all around the town. A few of us decided to go in to the town centre anyway as this had greater exposure. In the end we all ended up in the town centre and we managed to knock a good chunk out of the 2000 fliers that one of our group printed out and then had to struggle to the protest with; his load was a lot lighter by the end of the day.

Main highlights:
1. The security guard they hired last time was there again, he came out and spoke to one of us. He said they had not paid him from last time and if they don't pay him by the next protest he will be joining us.
2. Stu, one of us who has being receiving late night calls had managed to get one of the numbers because the caller forgot to make their number private before calling. He called it while looking at Ryan (see video) through the ORG window. Ryan answered and Stu told him who it was and that he just wanted to confirm it really was him who had been calling him late at night.
3. OT III reading, a bit wicked really, this caused Ryan to put his fingers in his ears and leave the room while another turned up the TV.
4. Chat with woman who is a member of the local inter faith group that the scientologists also go along to. She said they made her not want to be open and wanted to know if she was right about them. We told her the church of scientology is not compatible with christianity, that according to the recordings of L Ron Hubbard's lectures and speeches he thought it something of a joke.
5. Music. Rain and Rick Astley.

Plymouth April 4th protest videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY6WObLZxug (OT III reading dubbed over with music to protect the innocent.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JFtaZ60H6g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri_-NYB2WVk

fantastic! very tempted to come down there for the next protest

Please do so, you would be very welcome. We've got them staying out if the city centre at weekends now, well the past two at least. See the same YouTube channel as the above vids come from for details.

The flier for the 10th is:

Plymouth Org has a problem, no more room for the books New Era publications keeps sending (and invoicing) them. So it's go to guns all hands to the deck. 14 uniformed scientologists (nice red T Shirts with "Get it, Read it. Dianetics" on), 5 e-meters, 3 trained auditors spread over 3 locations in Plymouth peddling dianetics from well before 12 noon until 5:30pm (a full shopping day) in Plymouth City centre. We counted 1 confirmed sell and 1 possible sell. And, as always, here is the video to prove it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj9o-ZVaoIU

Grathuln, if you are still around, how are things going with protests etc? I now work every single weekend, so find it extremely difficult to get into town on a Saturday. Last time I did, on Bank Holiday Monday, the cart was set up halfway down New George Street, but with more ridicule being aimed at it than interest.

HI there,

yes I am still around and we are still protesting in Plymouth. We last did a flash protest yesterday, 20th Sept.

A small number of protestors turned up at the org around 11am to flush out the stress test cart early. We knew that with a shock raid we would have them running scared; at planned raids they clear the window up and put black sheets up, we guess to block out the entheta. We knew therefore that in a panic to get us away from the org and all the publics they would send out the stress test cart.

We wanted this because the town was very busy and we wanted something as a focus for the raid. Needless to say the scientologists performed as expected, since Anonymous are now at cause they can only be at effect. Anyhow, it was a great day.

I lost count of the number of people thanking us for what we were doing. We gave out a hundred or so flyers, which doesn't sound much except each one was given to someone who asked for one, not thrust in to their hand as they passed. One woman read our latest tri-fold all the way through in front of me and thank me, said it looked very interesting and she was going to check out the websites.

One woman had a pop "haven't you got anything better to do, like earn a living." Oh Dear, she picked the wrong one. I have a full time job, I am married, I have a daughter in her mid 20s who has left home and is also fully employed. I own my own home and by own I mean I have no mortgage. Anyhow, I explained we were not against the individuals or their beliefs rather the organisation and she said she would look at exscientologykids, out of interest.

A local balloon seller had a pop at Stu, flipped his hat off and pushed his scooter say that Stu had no respect for human rights and was just doing it for a thril. We announced that it was a scientologist playing fair game, which the cart operators streneously denied. Big crowd point out the hypocracy of the balloon seller accusing Stu of harassment when in fact he was going beyond that. I spoke with the guy later and he seems like the type of person who has no opinion of his own, he changed his mind at least 5 times from oh dear they [the scilons] are a bit nasty to you shouldn't be protesting the scilons have a lot of support and you're in a minority. Don't think it helped him any as I would speak to him and then Tim, a cart operator would speak to him. Had him all confused. Drama but no big issue.

Oh and one woman moaned about us getting in the way of customers trying to get into her shop, which wasn't the case; I think her business is not doing well and anything near her shop she sees as damaging.

We have a had a number of people show an interest in getting involved but it was only yesterday I thought of taking email addresses, I had more than 10 by the end of the day. We reckon more people speak to us, voluntarily take our literature and passively support us than ever before; and considerably more than the scilons.

We've run 5 similar mini raids over the past couple of weeks on account of fresher week coming up and new students joining University. We understand that previously they have had a presence at fresher week but from speaking with the organisor he is not expecting them this year and says they would be asked to removed; he was happy for us to be present if we paid the £100 for a table like everyone else. We have however had a number of students take leaflets to distribute for us.

The August book-a-thon weekend was a washout for our scilons in Plymouth. At the previous book-a-thon (May 2008) they had tables and chairs, no such luck this year on account of the local council being forward of this possibility. Indeed Exeter and Bristol authorities were also put on alert for activity during this weekend but reported back no activing. Local cells are keeping an eye on things as both cities and surrounding areas are alternate targets; mind you with the cost of petrol I think it would poor business practice to keep going to these cities.

We also have several behind the scenes actions going on both local and national, which I can't say too much about, suffice to say they are on target but may not show results for a while.

We're not putting up (m)any videos at the moment because the street action is typically more of the same, except for the assault on Mike, which was meant to have gone up already. Most of the cool stuff is not something we can reveal or get footage of for that matter.

We go in to town most weekday late afternoons, after work. I usually get there around 4:15pm. We don't always protest, it depends how we all feel.