Questionnaires

Yesterday, I went to Ilfracombe to get some questionnaires filled out by shopkeepers around the harbour. I chose this area as these shops are closest to Verity and therefore would have seen the most amount of change to their businesses.

Following the guidance of Angus and Shawn, I focused on using this day to do questionnaires only, and tried to get myself in the mindset of talking to strangers. As well as this, I stuck to their advice and used dad as my conversation starter. I also left some questionnaires with my family-friend, as she said she would hand them out at her darts and skittles matches to gather results.

I found that for the most part, people were welcoming and helpful, despite there being other students asking for similar help earlier in the week. We would leave the questionnaires and leaflets with them to fill out as we went to other establishments with more questionnaires. The places we inquired at included the RNLI shop, a countryside sporting store, gift shops, sweet shops, a soap shop, the aquarium, and the tourist board. I also inquired at the Driftwood Gallery, which was bought out of its original location by Damien Hirst. The employee said she was busy, but she took a questionnaire and said she would email me her results. We also inquired in Other Criteria (Hirst's gallery at the previous Driftwood Gallery location - it is next to his restaurant) but the employee said she was in a bit of a quandary as she is obviously employed by Hirst and did not know what she could say about it in regards to that. She did take one of my leaflets though. One man who owned a gift shop was very opinionated (almost bordering on intimidating), and wouldn't fill in the questionnaire but would answer my questions. He was very unwilling to give me even his first name.

After a couple of hours of questionnairing, I went to meet Philip Webb, an Ilfracombe Councillor. I have recorded my interview with him and will post the transcript.