•                     Extreme politeness is the key

•                     Individual protesters make more impact than a crowd because companies can see their customers walking out of the door, one by one, all day

•                     Chocolates or similar for the staff as a thank you are essential

Since I posted the original blog about my One Woman Protest on 6^th December, I've been overwhelmed with support, so this is a 10-step guide about how you can get involved and make your own lone protests. It would be lovely to have hundreds of people across the country making their own solo protests from now until Christmas – and beyond if necessary! If a group of you go along, spread yourselves out through the queues at various tills in the shop and don't all go in at once. And perhaps not while there's another demo going on nearby – the aim is not to attract the police or security.

Right, I’m going to be looking for an outfit for our work’s Christmas do this weekend – but will I be able to buy a little black dress in Top Shop like I did last year?!

1. Be prepared:

Here are are forms to use in the shop to download, adapt and print out before you start. Here are some leaflets to hand out to other shoppers during your protest about why you are doing it.

2. Please take responsibility for your protest and put your own name to it:

I’m aware that if this protest idea takes off, my name will be associated with it. I am happy with that – I put my own name and address on the flyers I first used in Top Shop because I would actually like to receive reassurance from the company about their business practices. Therefore, I urge you not to make this an anonymous protest but to put your correct name and address on the flyers please.

3. Be realistic in choosing your target:

For this to work, you need to be prepared to buy the product you take to the till. If you're picking a store to make your protest in, make sure it's one you would normally shop in. Remember, you're making this protest as an actual consumer of the shop involved, and expressing your disappointment and loss of trust in their brand. You need to be able to make it clear truthfully to the staff that you would have shopped there had they only been able to provide the requested guarantees that they can be trusted. And should your protest be accepted, you need to pay for the purchase, so if it’s clothes, do try them on just in case!

Here’s a list of Arcadia stores, the chain run by Sir Philip Green: Wallis, Top Shop, Top Man, Burton, Dotty P, Miss Selfridge, Evans & Outfit. BHS is also owned by the same company. If you want to apply these tactics elsewhere, you could try witholding the VAT on your Vodafone bill – obviously you will need to be an existing customer of theirs for this to work!

4. Don’t draw attention to yourself before you start your protest:

The idea is to start your protest at the till, so browse beforehand, decide what you want to buy, try it on if appropriate and generally act like an ordinary customer. You need to be prepared with your sums and flyers before going to the till, so if necessary, note the price of the item and leave the shop for a while in order to do this - or fill them in in the changing rooms. Too many people standing in corners using their phone calculators and scribbling will draw attention to the protest before it starts and – if it takes off across the UK – security might ask you to leave before you get to the till. Once you’re ready, take your item to the till and queue as you normally would. See below for detailed instructions on preparing the forms*.

5. Be polite and respectful while making your protest:

The staff are not to blame for the corporate culture of the store, so be polite at all times, but do take your request as high as you are able while at the counter. This could include asking staff to ring head office. This is good as you then have time to talk to the queue you are delaying about what you are doing and why. Hand out flyers for them to find out more and inform themselves about the issues so they can make a choice for themselves about where to shop. Don't force anyone to take a flyer – this is your protest, not theirs. See below for suggestions about what to say at the till**.

6. End your protest by thanking the staff for allowing you to make it:

I tried to make sure all the staff I'd spoken to could hear that they were included in my thank you, and I gave them chocolate as a gift for letting me make my protest. Company policy is not their fault, after all!

7. Start and finish your protest in a timely fashion:

Don't start your protest until you reach the till, to avoid alerting security or annoying other shoppers – or messing up the pitch for other lone protesters who may be in the store unknown to you! Talk to other shoppers and staff politely whilst in the midst of your protest. Once you have thanked staff and given them a token of your appreciation, leave the store quickly and quietly, saying no more about it. The aim is not to cause any fuss or chaos – just for the company to see its potential customers walking out of the store without making a purchase, or for them to have the hassle of taking personal responsibility for their company's tax affairs.

8. Have your support in place for afterwards:

While it didn't take too long to psych myself up to carry out the protest, I found myself quite wobbly when I came out due to the unusual bravery involved, so perhaps arrange to phone or meet friends for a postmortem session somewhere out of earshot afterwards to let off steam from the adrenaline rush!

9. Report your protest to inspire others:

If you’re on Twitter, please use the hashtag #onewomanprotest on any reports. I thought it might be good to have something shorter but that one seems to be quite popular already and some very unscientific straw polls agreed with me. Men, go ahead and protest too but please use the same hashtag to link the reports together.

If you’re not on Twitter, please report in the comments section below.

Feel free to blog your experiences and spread the links widely – the more people who know about this, the better.

10. Follow up any successes:

If you’ve managed to withhold your tax, send your cheque off to the address on the form immediately, and keep a record of the date, cheque number etc to show if asked. It could also be a good idea to send the shop full details of this payment for their accounting records – ask at the time of the protest if they need this confirmation and comply with any requests they make.

If you manage to get the guarantee form signed, follow it up after 30 days, which is a reasonable amount of time for them to have paid the tax onwards. Remember, follow up the person whose name is on the flyer as you’ve asked them to sign on behalf of the company.

*Prepare your forms:

Divide the cost of the item by 1.2 to find out how much the item costs less tax, then subtract this from the total to find out how much the tax is. Eg £20 /1.2 = £16.67. £20-£16.67 = £3.33. [Edited in Jan for the new VAT rate].

Form 1: Withheld tax

Fill in the date, your name and address, the branch name and store name, the amount you intend to pay and the amount of tax you intend to withhold.

Form 2: Guarantee for shop to pay tax

Fill in the date, your name and address, the branch name and store name and the total value of the items, including the VAT element as well.

If your protest is successful, fill in an identical copy of whichever form the shop agrees to, and get them to sign this too, so that both parties have a record of the transaction and pledge.

**What to say – here are my suggested wordings:

Allow the staff to ring up your items and ask you for the total amount. At that point, say ‘I will only be able to pay xx [the total excluding VAT] today, as I don't really trust Sir Philip Green not to find a way for his company to avoid paying it on to the government. I intend to pay the VAT of xx [state amount of VAT due] to the government directly by sending a cheque to HM Revenue & Customs myself. I need you to sign this form to confirm that I have done this please.’ You may need to repeat this several times to various members of staff as the query is escalated.

If they refuse this approach, take out the second form and say, ‘OK, I understand. In that case, I will need you to sign this form to confirm on behalf of [xx store] that the VAT will be paid correctly to the government and that you will write to me to confirm once this has been done.’

If they refuse this approach too, say politely ‘Would you be able to go and ring head office to check please, as I’d really like to buy this item but I am still worried about the tax question and need reassurances from you.’

If all these approaches are rebuffed, then say politely ‘I’m afraid I won’t be able to buy this item then, but thank you for allowing me to make my protest against your company’s business practices. Here’s a little something for the staff to apologise for any disruption I’ve caused. Thank you very much for your help.’

If your approach is accepted, thank them very much and say 'I'll fill out an identical form for you so that we both have a copy. Please write on my copy any details I need from you if you'd like me to confirm in writing when I've paid the tax to the government.' Pay, and get a store receipt to enclose a copy of in your letter to HM Customs. Once the deal is done, don't forget to break out the chocolate for the staff!

GOOD LUCK everyone and let me know how it goes!

Inspired by the UK Uncut http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/ Tax Avoidance campaign, I decided to stage my own small protest on Saturday afternoon.

While big businesses like Philip Green’s Arcadia Group or Vodafone are able to avoid paying their full share of tax on profits made in the UK (either by means of legal loopholes or by negotiation with HM Customs & Revenue), the coalition government is busy cutting public services and benefits, making life a whole lot harder for many sectors of British society. The idea behind UK Uncut’s campaign is that reclaiming the tax which ought to have been paid by big business could fund the government initiatives being axed and help out many of those affected.

I decided to take action in my own small way, and prepared two flyers to try to use in Top Shop (http://bryony.posterous.com/top-shop-vat-protest-4th-december). The first one I visited was the brand new branch in Wandsworth’s Southside shopping centre. I chose a Breton top costing £20 and did my sums (divide by 1.175 to get the cost excluding VAT). I then filled in my flyers and approached the counter. I waited until the top had been rung up, and £20 asked for, then politely explained that I would not be able to pay the £2.98 VAT and would only be able to give them £17.02.

A manager was swiftly called and I repeated my assertion, explaining that since Philip Green and his wife cannot be trusted to pay the tax that was owed by moral duty to this government, I could not trust them to pay the VAT to HMRC, and therefore undertook to do this myself. The manager was very nice about it and said that it would not be possible to do that, so I pulled out the second flyer and asked her to sign on behalf of Top Shop to guarantee that the VAT would be paid on to the revenue. Unsurprisingly she was not willing to do that either. I asked if she could check with head office and she willingly agreed.

While she was away, I apologised politely to the person behind me in the queue and explained what I was doing. She hadn’t heard of the protests but hopefully she went home and googled Top Shop. The person behind her in the queue turned out to work for Top Shop head office, so knew all about the protest already, and kept saying No Comment, which was quite amusing! The manager returned saying she had been unable to reach customer services but did offer to pass on my form to head office. She seemed quite pleased that someone had come to protest as they’d been keeping tabs on the other demos and appeared to be disappointed that no-one had come to them! I thanked her and her colleague for allowing me to protest and gave them a packet of Minstrels – it’s not their fault after all.

I decided to try again at the Kingston Top Shop, where the same protest method met with a slightly less friendly manager, but I did manage to tie up the till for about 5-10 minutes while she went to ring customer services, and I spoke to others in the queue again. The manager didn’t want to take the flyer, but I asked her to pass it on with the message that I would have shopped in her store that day had I been able to trust that the VAT on my item would be passed on to the government. She agreed reluctantly but I suspect no further action was taken. I also had more trouble leaving chocolates with them but did so anyway – hopefully the staff who had to hang around while I protested were allowed to have them.

I didn’t manage to find out where I should pay the VAT if I had been successful in my protest, but did not really expect to be successful either. This tactic would be applicable to anyone shopping in an Arcadia store, or paying a Vodafone bill. Ideally, next time I’d like to run a huge string of extremely polite One Woman (or Man!) Protests one Saturday, one after the other, all mingled in with other customers so they couldn’t shut down the shop for fear of turning away shoppers! Flyers explaining the protest to hand to other shoppers would also have been helpful.

Who’s with me?

Edit Wed 8th December: Thanks everyone for the phenomenal reponse and interest in this blog and protest idea! I'll be posting flyers and plans for a slightly more sophisticated version of this soon, for those interested to download, adapt and use. In the meantime, if you've done your own one-person protest, please share your experiences below to encourage the rest of us. I've added a few tips in the comments below about how to go about it. Thanks!

Edit Sat 11th December: Here's my 10-step guide to carrying out your own protest. All welcome to join me - and you don't have to be a woman!

Twitter: @BryonyEvens