Saturday, January 07, 2006

On a brighter local level.

On a local level, far away from Westminster, the town of Warwick has a steady increase in members and activists. I was greatly encouraged by a talk given by Lynne Featherstone at the autumn conference about how she built up a derelict constituency. This is the situation we faced in the Warwick part of the Warwick & Leamington Constituency. However in the past year we have more than doubled the number of activists, have a strategy (its secret, if I told you it wouldn't be secret would it) and plan to put out our first Focus by the end of the month.

This follows a number of sessions surveying. This really is an excellent way to meet people on the doorstep and the response we get is very encouraging. I would recommend this to anyone starting in a new ward. Each time we go out two things happen. 1/ It rains and 2/ We pick up a new member or deliverer.

Finally a personal view on Focus. I firmly believe that we should broaden the appeal of the Focus to include some stories from Westminster. We need to present the view that we are a serious party of government not just litter bins and park benches.

I welcome any comments and advice any of you have to give to a new group of activists starting out in virgin territory.

2 comments:

Edis said...

So action again in my old Warwick stamping ground. Great! At one time I was the only Liberal activist in that town, then saw various revivals. It won't be the first FOCUS ever in Warwick though but I dont have copies on file of my early efforts alas. Sad to hear it derelicted since I moved to Milton Keynes... All the best pounding the streets of The Woodloes estate...

Tristan said...

This is good :)

I agree with your point about Focus.
In my part of the world we have different editions for different parts of the constituency, partly because we are split over two local boroughs. Perhaps a constituency wide one with some Westminster news as well would be suitable occasionally.