Rob Blackie's posterous

How Gary collected 1,000 email addresses

Here are Gary's top tips for gathering more email addresses:

  • You need to set yourself an achievable goal - say 250 emails at the start. Then increase as you get more.
  • It is important to email residents useful content, and avoid too much being party political - have lots of positive Lib Dem stories, promote community events and give out contact numbers of the local police and other services.
  • Do not email residents too often. However you can add the extra odd email for a more urgent local issue.
  • Try to have some regional or national content to show we are not just looking at our ward.
  • I signed up lots of emails by literally knocking on doors and asking if residents would be happy to sign up to the list (like gaining petition signatures), given them some examples of stories we have run recently so they appreciate how useful it is. If you need to sell the idea mention they can unsubscribe if they wish to and that they can contact their local councillors very quickly by pressing the reply button. Easy.
  • You have to remind canvassers to also ask for email addresses. Some do and some don't. Try to motivate the ones who get a lot. One example I gave was a local contensious bus issue where I got over 100 replies to an email within about 24 hours from only having 700 emails! People read it, most don't reply but do not worry about that. It does convert voters to becoming Liberal Democrats or stronger Liberal Democrats.

Easy ways to collect more email addresses

Here's a good list that I've culled from various friends and contacts recently. All are obviously opt-in in some way:

  • street surveys/grumblesheets
  • attendance register at street surgeries
  • casework
  • canvassing
  • work (if local or appropriate)
  • resident groups' exec membership
  • ask for emails twice in printed surveys, both as part of contact information and as part of a 'get local news' section
  • publicising email lists on Twitter and Facebook (and vice versa)
  • petitions
  • sign in sheets at meetings, with somebody explicitly working the room
  • updating emails when they bounce - tracking people down when they change jobs etc.

Lib Dem achievements in government

A Lewisham Lib Dem member has put together this impressive list of Lib Dem achievements in government:

  • Every basic rate taxpayer paying £200 less in annual income tax from April.
  • Nobody earning less than £10,000 paying any income tax at all by 2015.
  • Earnings link for state pensions restored, with “triple lock” – pensions rise in line with earnings, inflation or 2.5% annually, whichever is highest
  • Complicated means-tested state pension replaced with simple flat rate pension
  • End of Post Office closure programme. Invested £1.34bn to modernise the network, working with banks and councils to provide their services in branches.
  • Pupil Premium payments to schools with disadvantaged children – an extra £3.8m for Lewisham’s schools this year, doubling next year
  • Reduction in nuclear warhead stockpile by around 20%, review into options for replacing Trident with no replacement this Parliament
  • An end to holding children in detention centres
  • Abolished law forcing people to retire at 65 Introducing a groceries adjudicator, to ensure supermarkets play fair and stick to a tough new code of practice
  • Protected science budget and launched chain of Technology Innovation Centres Posties and other
  • Royal Mail employees receiving shares in Royal Mail
  • The biggest rail expansion programme since Victorian times
  • Grant to give up to £5000 off the purchase price of an electric, plug-in hybrid or hydrogen-fuelled car and rapid expansion of charging point network
  • Making it easier for councils to introduce 20mph zones and car-free zones, and to remove unnecessary road signs
  • Creating a Green Investment Bank to lend £18bn for investment in green infrastructure projects – Advisory Board now appointed
  • Reversed Labour’s planned cut of cold weather payments to pensioners from £25 to £8.50 per week, and preserving cash spending on Housing Benefit (at around £22bn) throughout Parliament
  • Introduced legislation for home owners to improve energy efficiency of their homes with no upfront cost – all costs to be met from reduced bills (“Green Deal”)
  • Creating jobs in low carbon goods and services: 1 million jobs in this area now, Green Deal will create another quarter of million
  • Reversing loss of social homes under Labour: exceeding initial targets and now on course to build 170,000 new social homes in next four years
  • About to announce details of first ever Empty Homes Strategy, to tackle the scandal of 300,000 homes empty for more than 6 months
  • Cracking down on tax dodging: on course to raise £2bn this year
  • Reduced tax advantage for the rich of being paid in shares rather than cash, by increasing capital gains tax for higher rate taxpayers
  • Giving councils an incentive to build new homes and support business growth in their area
  • Cancelled Labour’s compulsory ID card scheme, sent National Identity Register computers to be shredded, scrapped controversial ContactPoint database
  • Giving community groups a right to bid to run council services and supporting them to bid when important council and private assets come up for sale
  • Giving neighbourhoods a role in planning for their area
  • Reducing pre-charge detention limit from 28 days to 14 days Introduced legislation to delete DNA samples and fingerprints of hundreds of thousands of innocent people from police databases
  • Ended oppressive, draconian regime of control orders, replacing them with measures that do not make normal life impossible for suspects
  • Agreed legal requirement for carbon emissions in 2025 to be 50% lower than 1990 levels – most ambitious requirement in the world \
  • Cracking down on human trafficking – opted into EU directive
  • Boosted profitability of business by cutting corporation tax Scrapping Section 44 powers, which have been used to stop and search hundreds of thousands of innocent people
  • Removing out-of-date convictions for consensual homosexual acts
  • Protecting thousands of motorists from rogue wheel clamping firms
  • Ending fingerprinting of children in schools without parental consent
  • Repealing powers to hold serious and complex fraud trials without a jury
  • Protecting millions of householders from town hall snoopers checking their bins or school catchment area
  • Restricting powers of government, councils and other public bodies to enter people’s homes
  • Restoring a sense of proportion to vetting and barring, freeing up millions of people working or volunteering with children or vulnerable adults from onerous state checks
  • Making universities charging highest tuition fees work harder to recruit students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
  • Blocking proposed cap on international student numbers

Inspiring Lib Dems part 4 - Jennifer Blake - the former gang leader who turned her life around

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I met Jennifer Blake yesterday, at the launch of her campaign to be elected as a councillor in Peckham.

Her life story is inspiring, and best told in her own words*:

“I started as a good Peckham girl.


When I was 13, I started at Peckham Girls School and the trouble started - just as it does for too many teenagers in our neighbourhood.


I rebelled against my parents, ran away from home, and when I was eventually caught I was put in the Davies Street Children’s Home.


By this point, I had become a gang leader. This led me to be sent out of London and placed in a home in Kent.


When I was 18, I came back to the city, and was given a flat on the North Peckham Estate, where as a single mother, I had my first child.


I still got caught up in the wrong things and continued to do wrong. I thought it was the only way to survive, and attend to my son’s needs.


Through all of this, terrible things happened. I was a victim of rape, kidnap and domestic violence - making all the wrong choices and seeing suicide as the only way out.


Too many young people in Peckhamfall into lives like mine when I was young. I know what it’s like and how we stop it.


And, fortunately for me, everything changed in 2004, when I dedicated my life to God.


With the help of my family, friends and the Church, I didn’t just want to save myself from the life I’d left behind, but I wanted to make sure that other young people didn’t go through what I’ve been through.


I set up a charity based on Peckham Road, called the Safe’N’Sound Youth Project, working with young people involved with criminal activities - and getting them to quite the gangs and put down guns.


I’ve turned my life around. Through Safe’N’Sound I’ve turned the lives of young people around. I can turn Peckham around. If I’m elected as your new councillor, I will stand up for our area. I will work with our community to tackle issues like housing and crime. I will always put residents first.


I’m sure you’ll agree that Jennifer Blake would be a superb councillor for Peckham. She is out every day campaigning at the moment. If you’d like to help her then email jennifer4peckham@gmail.com, or you can donate money to her campaign by clicking ‘donate’ below.


*I’ve slightly edited story in a couple of places to make it a little shorter. Legally since she’s a candidate I should mention that her agent is James Barber, and that they can both be contacted care of 4 Market Place, London, SE16 3UQ.

 

Inspiring Lib Dems part 3: Alex Berhanu ex political prisoner standing for election in Peckham

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Alex Berhanu has shown his commitment to making the world throughout his life, whether it’s fighting for freedom in Ethiopia, saving 59 people from dying at sea, or working to make Peckham a better place.
 
Alex was born in Ethiopia, where he trained as a teacher in the 1970s. During the Ethiopian Red Terror of 1977, the communist miltary dictatorship arrested Alex because he was from educated and from minority tribe. During the time that Alex was held in prison he was tortured and kept in terrible conditions, while the regime murdered 10,000s of people.
 
Alex then organised a secret school, managing to smuggle books and letters in and out of jail, despite the threat of execution if he was discovered. Eventually after 5 years, pressure from Amnesty International led to his release. After living in Ethiopia for another 10 years Alex was forced to flee again to escape more persecution.
 
Once Alex reached the UK he became a maths teacher, moving round the UK from Stratford upon Avon, to Dudley, and then to Peckham, where he has taught for the last 11 years. As you’d expect Alex hasn’t just changed his world through his teaching, and he’s a school governor, vice-chair of his estate’s tenant organisation and involved in the local King’s College hospital, as well as a host of charity work that includes marathons and sponsored fasts.

In 2007 Alex was instrumental in saving the lives of 59 migrants lost at sea off the coast of Libya. His half-brother phoned him from a leaking boat that was off the Libyan coast asking for help. Alex quickly alerted the Falmouth coastguard, who got the Italian navy to find the boat and bring all 59 to safety.

Alex has been involved with the Liberal Democrats for many years now, and next week is standing for election in Southwark’s The Lane ward, covering Alex’s home area of Peckham.

If you’d like to help this inspiring ex-shephard get elected then you can email Alex on alexberhanu58@googlemail.com or phone him on 07962 273 447

Update: Alex was not elected to Southwark council - but got a very creditable 471 votes in the election on 5th May 2011. If you would like to contribute £20 towards his campaign then click below.

 

Inspiring Lib Dems: Part 2 - John Russell, Forest Hill

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In Forest Hill, a former amateur boxer, David John started boxing club Double Jab for young kids in Forest Hill, to try and keep them out of trouble (Motto: 'Double jab, don't stab') It quickly became a success with over 100 young people attending every week and a long waiting list.

However it wasn't an instant success financially. Unsurprisingly young people don't have much money, and rents are high in London. That's when local Liberal Democrat Councillor John Russell got involved. He helped David to find professional support from local businesswoman Michele McClarren to turn Double Jab into a social enterprise. Michele helped Double Jab to raise funding from the local council's assembly in 2009, and to keep growing so that 30 young people a night were using the gym.

As David John says 'many of the young people who we work with would be on the streets with nothing to do, and would be getting into trouble if the gym was not here'


By 2010 Double Jab was recognised as a major success story locally, and had a star visit from Amir Khan early in 2010 (pictured above with John Russell and Michele McClaren). While visiting Amir said  "Clubs like this one keep kids out of trouble ... It’s wicked to see all these kids so enthusiastic - hopefully this gym can produce a world champion, there’s no reason why not."

Recently we've heard that Double Jab has secured a permanent home in New Cross and stable funding to ensure that it continues to be a success at diverting young people from crime.

And that's why we're working hard to get John Russell re-elected to
Lewisham council at the next elections.

Inspiring Lib Dems: Part 1 - George Allan, Islington

At yesterday's London Lib Dem conference I asked a room of people to tell me stories about Lib Dems who had inspired them. Here's one.

George Allan is Liberal Democrat councillor for Clerkenwell ward in Islington.

A while ago the power failed in one of the tower blocks in his ward. A 23 storey tall block.

 Like any good local councillor he quickly started putting pressure on the council's housing department to get the power up and running. The power cut had not only left the tower block without lifts, but without water either.

Unlike most councillors though, he went further. George quickly organised a human chain, lit by torches, to ferry water up the block to help elderly and infirm residents. Not easy, and not technically his responsibility - but absolutely the right thing to do.

For those people that he helped, George became a hero. 

And when I heard the story this Saturday I was reminded of why I spend so much of my spare time getting Liberal Democrats elected.