Okay, so I stood as a candidate in the local elections here. It’s been a really intense experience and I’ve walked hundreds of thousands of steps and knocked on just short of a thousand doors in the last couple of weeks.

Trouble is; my weakness in life is a complete lack of patience. Having to wait around and not do anything active now is driving me round the bend. Can’t even concentrate on work. Arrrgh!

Rachel

Which party are you standing for?

Get down the pub and start writing your victory speech.
Prepare for Office!

got a go pro?

iolo – Greens

VIctory Speech? – I’ve already been looking at prices for a duck house…

knocked on just short of a thousand doors

Ouch! How are your hands?

Ouch! How are your hands?

well, posting the eve-of-poll leaflets has left me with a bruise on the back of my hand resembling that left by my canula last time I was in hospital…

this you?

bruneep – yes. (and that website is bloody awful – locally, we’ll do our own next time and not use the centrally supplied tools)

From tomorrow you could be under scrutiny, so if I were you I’d be out there doing whatever you don’t want to get caught doing for the next 5 years just in case!

Good Luck, wish I had a STW’er to vote for 😉

Top marks for the humble brag!

Bon chance!

Good luck! Any indication of how your ward is going?

You need to put the intra-messaging cat amongst the data-pigeons, objectivising extra-communication to and from the web/Pleb. Maintain your traction in New Age techno-idealism

er, your profile doesnt mention mountainbikes
and i wouldnt mention you come from yorkshire, its not your fault

post up pics of your rivals and we will slate them for you.

(slightly seriously – how many votes do you need minimum)

Good on you for having the gumption to get involved.

Good Luck!!

Can’t you do some tie-dying or something 😉

Good luck by the way

There’s nowt wrong with Yorkshire! If anything, that should add some down to earth credibility to Rachel’s reputation.

let me guess your one of them willard

Not really, but my dad was.

Anybody else a candidate …?

On here? I very much doubt it!
Good luck!

after ‘we’ devolute the scots, the yorkies will be next.

only happy spending other folks money hashtagsmiley

bruneep – yes. (and that website is bloody awful – locally, we’ll do our own next time and not use the centrally supplied tools)

How can a party expect the electorate to give them the power to run the country when they can’t even organise a half remotely decent website?

I’ll be buggered if I can find anything that in any way looks like being a proposed policy or manifesto on that site. Surely if you want some votes the first thing you’d do at the start of your campaign is stuck some policies up on the homepage of your site?

Smells a bit of incompetence to me…

the first thing you’d do at the start of your campaign is stuck some policies up

but UKIP have done completely the opposite and reaped the media benefits, plausible deniability i think they call it

that website is at least better than the designed-by-the-blind leaflet UKIP put through my door. Not only is it in yellow ink on purple paper, every single bit of text is in comic sans.

Allthegear – sorry but ‘Old Gaywood’ made me laugh, childish I know but hey ho. You should sign off you posts with that rather than Rachel…….

Oh and good luck.

Actually, it became clear to us that in our district that web is not a primary communications medium. Leaflets and door knocking are far, far more effective and that’s what we have been doing, with very, very good feedback.

It’s all a case of knowing your audience. The web isn’t everything.

Rachel

Not only is it in yellow ink on purple paper, every single bit of text is in comic sans.

Its sort of appropriate really

@allthegear, am I correct in recalling you are a Subaru WRX expert ?

Don’t know about expert but I did have a couple of Subarus in the past, yes. And two Alfas, if you’re counting…

Rachel

Ooh. Where’s JeremyJambalaya going with this line of questioning..

Actually, it became clear to us that in our district that web is not a primary communications medium. Leaflets and door knocking are far, far more effective and that’s what we have been doing, with very, very good feedback.

It’s all a case of knowing your audience. The web isn’t everything.

Maybe, but surely just a little bit of common sense would tell you that you should have at least something on the site about what you believe in/want to achieve. That’s the whole point of politics!

I mean someone went to the effort of creating bios of all your candidates…seems a bit self indulgent not to bother doing anything else!

Djanbo – yep, you’re right. This is the first year we have made a serious attempt at multiple local seats and a parliamentary one. We have made many mistakes and intend to learn lots from all of them.

Much of it comes down to time – we have done a lot with very few active members but nothing like what we could do with dozens.

Next time, we will be a stronger force, certainly. We might not even bother with a website at all here. And that’s coming from a web developer by profession.

Rachel

I mean someone went to the effort of creating bios of all your candidates…seems a bit self indulgent not to bother doing anything else!

Or, if you’re going to bother doing something, then do it properly. 🙂

Exactly

DezB – Member
Ooh. Where’s JeremyJambalaya going with this line of questioning..

Lol I think he’s going for the greed creds of driving WRX’s 😉

Petrolhead greens is good for the irony

Strange how certain people on the forum try to pick people apart, rather than appreciating the bravery it takes to stand in the 1st place.

Hang in there Rachel, don’t let the buggers get you down.

+1 for Jivehoneyjive

Dont worry about Jambalya he lost all credibility with his statements on VAT 😆

Strange how certain people on the forum try to pick people apart, rather than appreciating the bravery it takes to stand in the 1st place.

I think it’s a reasonable criticism, not “picking people apart” – if you’ve got a party website, at least include a link to the policies. Particularly if one of your candidates is an expert web developer 🙂

But good luck anyway!

Don’t worry, we totally recognise that the website is poor. But, as people are not looking at it anyway, there wasn’t much point putting effort into it. Better to put the small amount of effort available into more effective media.

And anyway, it made a pleasant change to do some print media designs. I had almost forgotten how to do them but they went down really well!

Rachel