Wednesday, March 17, 2010

How you can help me get elected

I try to maintain a bit of a distance between my day to day political activity and this blog for all kinds of reasons. Partly because if I told you every time I went out campaigning or reported on every meeting or event I attend then they'd be no time for anything else. This is not my diary, and I intend to keep it that way because that would be pretty boring.

I guess I tend to see this place as a space to discuss political, philosophical, or personal ideas and I've always tried to blog for enjoyment, not for rankings or for stats. Not that I have a policy of never talking about the stuff going on in my life, it's just that's not what The Daily (Maybe) is for.

However, I have probably gone a bit too far when it comes to the fact I've not really mentioned that I'm standing in the upcoming council elections in a very winnable seat.

Some of you may know I'm standing in Crofton Park, Lewisham, for the Green Party but for many of you this will be the first time you've heard of it - even though I was selected way back last year.

The campaign is going well and, apart from the stinking cold I've managed to catch last night, things are cracking on nicely. However, some of you might be so enthusiastic about the idea of Cllr Daily (Maybe) that you may be moved to give me a bit of support, feel free not to, obviously. Here's a few ideas on how you can help in the next seven weeks;

This Saturday:

We have our action weekend this Saturday, which is a fun way of getting the word out accompanied by dozens of other activists as we blitz our target seats. To take part come to our campaign shop from 10 am onwards at 252 Brockley Road, which is mid-way between Brockley station and Crofton Park station.

There's also a fund raising party afterwards to celebrate delivering our millionth leaflet (think of all the trees we've saved by sourcing the paper and inks ethically). It'll be fun!
Any other time:
Any time you want to rock up and deliver leaflets our campaign shop is open from 10am to 7pm every day. There's plenty to do and we've made it as easy as possible to get involved. You might even want to phone canvass for us from the luxury of your own boudoir, in which case let me know and I'll brief you on the drill.
Polling Day, Thursday May 6th:
I've been sorting out my polling day team this week and if you think coming to Lewisham and helping me get elected is the most useful thing you could do that day then all help will be much appreciated. The tasks aren't particularly difficult but we need to be in lots of places at once - so if you can get the whole day off that would be even better.

If you can only do one thing, this would be the one I'd really like from you because we're mounting the biggest polling day operation we've ever attempted and we're going to be stretched.
Donating:
If you want to fund the campaign, then you know what? You can!

Use this button if you're fully armed with hyper-modernist techno-knowledge.





Alternatively you can send cheques (before they ban them) to the Lewisham Green Party Treasurer, 202 Malpas Road, London SE4 1DH. Please include your name, address and phone number, in case of any queries. Make them out to 'Lewisham Green Party' to ensure I don't siphon off the money to fund my outrageous gambling habit.
Anyway, I wont mention it again. Well, I wont bang on about it anyway. Thanks for your support.

10 comments:

thermalsatsuma said...

Good luck with the election Jim!

Red Green Nick said...

Looks winnable!

Strategist said...

Good luck Jim.

Here's Strategic Voter's contribution to your forthcoming battle of the dodgy graphs.

http://www.strategicvoter.org.uk/doku.php?ward=AZGH

I understand you don't want to overblog about your campaign but I do hope you'll post up your most outrageous "can't win here" leaflet designed to put the squeeze on that old LibDem vote.

Stuart Jeffery said...

Excellent news, good luck!

Simon Grover said...

All the best for the campaign, Jim. Good luck.

Organized Rage. said...

Good luck Jim, you say it is a winnable seat for the Greens, I would be interested to hear a little about the make up of your ward, class, race, schools, owner occupied, public housing, that type of stuff.

I ask because it would give me an idea about the type of seats the Greens might do well in.

Comradely regards

Mick

Jim Jepps said...

Thanks everyone and on Mick's point...

We came second at the last locals in Crofton Park when we did not do any work there and have been working the ward consistently for the last three years and we have a strong campaign now so I'm hopeful.

I would characterise the ward as 'respectable working class'. It's not rich but it doesn't come out of a scene from train spotting either.

Crime is low and there are some nice public spaces/parks.

It's very mixed with quite a lot of Irish, Afro-Caribean and Eastern European residents.

There is some very run down council housing that the residents have just voted to sell off but it's mainly private rented.

It's not the town center so it doesn't have some of the sharper edged issues that other parts of Lewisham have but school places are in short supply.

That was off the top of my head although I've seen all the stats before, just don't have them to hand. Basically it's a nice place!

Whether it's typical of Green areas nationally I'm not sure but Lewisham doesn't really do 'posh'.

Bob Piper said...

I shouldn't say this but... good luck Jim.

by the way, you need to ensure that because of this blog entry being visible in the run up to the election that you have displayed somewhere an imprint with details of the full name and full postal address of the printer and promoter of the material (in this case it would be Blogger and whatever their US address is). The name and address of any person on whose behalf the material is being published must also be included if this person is not the promoter. The law on imprints was changed by Section 143 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.

Sorry to be a pain or a nerd, but your election can be voided if you haven't done it and someone challenges it.

Jim Jepps said...

Thanks Bob! I've added an imprint as a footer, just in case.

Anonymous said...

Best of luck, Jim!