I’m feeling very inspired and industrious today after meeting Isaac and Paula of The Exeter Green Party! Got lots of ideas on getting the NEW East Devon Green Party started. I’ve designed and printed off some posters to put up to advertise our first meeting. Thanks for your offer to design our posters properly Cherry – I will mention this at our first meeting and just use the basic ones I’ve printed off for now as the first meeting will be upon us extremely soon!! Sat 16th January is just around the corner now…
I could really do with someone who has the use of a car (I don’t drive, although learning intermittently!!) to ferry me around East Devon to put up posters EVERYWHERE. Please email me if you can give up a couple of hours and some petrol to do this. I’d love to say I could cycle round and do this – but realistically that would take three weeks (day & night) so we’ll have to make use of the demon car this time for the greater good! Can anyone please help?
I’ve drawn up a draft agenda and a contact list of local members, national members and other useful people. Here’s an update on who can come to our first meeting (so far!)…
Sharon Pavey (me) – lives near Membury/Stockland (will possibly take on the position of Local Party Contact and will be putting name forward as Prospective Parliamentary Candidate or PPC for the East Devon consituency).
Sharon Howe – in Sidmouth (will possibly be our Election Agent – Sharon has a lot of extremely useful experience of being involved in Green groups in East Devon for quite some time).
Isaac Price-Sosner – Local Party Contact for Exeter Green Party – is hoping to come along to help us get the new group started.
Amy Teague – Local Party Support Worker for Green Parties in Cornwall, Devon and South Somerset. Has been invited but as yet, I’ve not heard back but it is still Xmas hols etc…
Geoff in Budleigh (I’ve not included surnames at this stage as not sure if you want to be mentioned on my blog?) – is a shiny brand new member (like myself) and tells me he’s “happy to fill one of the roles needed” (be careful what you put in writing Geoff – as you can see you’ll be blogged !!!)
Diana in Exmouth – another positive response by email. Diana says “Yes, I will come to the meeting, and probably could take on one of the posts–though I’d like to hear more about what’s involved before fully committing myself.”
Cherry says “I would like to become a member but being a lot of the time abroad can’t make the meetings. My contribution would be on the design side.”
I’m emailing you all (mentioned above) now – so do please add a comment at the bottom of this blog entry if you have a particular skill to offer, fancy a certain position (eg secretary, press officer etc) or can think of anything which needs to be on the agenda – or just want to say HELLO and tell us a bit about yourself. Click here to read a bit more about me. It would be fabulous to get more comments on this blog – and get people chatting online prior to that first meeting, then we won’t be such strangers will we!!
I also emailed another three people who were kindly passed over from the Exeter group, awaiting replies. I have another ten or so East Devon members to email and three people to call (who don’t have email addresses). Fingers crossed, it’s all looking great isn’t it.
And – so I don’t forget to mention, and to make that first meeting a bit special – please bring along some nice foodie bits/cakes/delights etc to share. I suggest bringing your own flask of coffee/tea etc as we don’t have facilities (unless we pay more I think). Sharon Howe has organised hiring Twyford House for the meeting, thanks Sharon (full details of the first meeting here) which costs us £12 so any donations for that would also be good, although we should have our own funds very soon!
Add your comments – and we’ll all get chatting…
“We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives… not looking for flaws, but for potential.” Ellen Goodman
Quick update – Geoff has offered his car so we are driving round putting up posters about the meeting on Tuesday 5th Jan.
Snow cancelled our poster trip this morning but I got out this afternoon and did Boston Tea Party & the Wine Shop in Honiton plus Miller’s Farm Shop in Kilmington and Stockland village noticeboard. Sharon Howe has been busy over in Sidmouth sending posters to the Transition Town groups in Seaton, Exmouth, Ottery & Sidmouth plus sending a press release to The Sidmouth Herald. How’s everyone else getting on with posters?
Hya Sharon et al
have put posters up at East Devon District Council and on the employees intranet.
See you all tommorow
Thanks Kerry – see you tomorrow!
Kerry, I’ve had a East Devon resident phone me to complain you are using council resources for party political purposes, based on your comment above.
He obviously has mistaken me, for my Conservative namesake on EDDC (I’m a Teignbridge Liberal). It’s not a good idea to use council resourses for political purposes (if that is what you have done), and certainly not to publicise the fact on a public forum.
David – I think that the complainant doesn’t realise that I work for EDDC and only used the employee’s notice board which we are all allowed to do – and also that the intranet is only for in-house use and has a special place for items of interest like this, similarly used for “for sale” notices.