Christian Walker's monthly communication update

Best Wishes to you all for the New Year.

December

December as usual was a busy month for everyone especially in Conservative Future; this followed a busy three months with new branches being created in a number of marginal seats.  As well as addressing communication (my main focus) I have also concentrated on new marginal seats being able to attend events including ones in Torbay, Worcester, Stroud and Derby concluding with the CF Christmas Party in London.

Consultation

The Consultation website is nearing completion.  The consultation team, led by myself, were perhaps a little over confident in how much spare time we would have over the festive break – but it is heads down now...

When the website is complete I will be contacting all Area Chairman to ensure they have its details as well as more officially touching base with them during the second quarter under this leadership team. 

THE BIG DATA DATE – 9th MARCH 2007

During the autumn many area chairs sent in lists of members however sadly many experienced problems with accessing data from their local offices.  To ensure we have an up-to-date database we are asking for all Area Chairman to submit membership lists by Friday 9th March 2007. The leadership team will be on hand to support Area Chairman if they have any problems accessing data – we are realistically never going to record every name but we can certainly try!

Broader Membership

I am not talking about our member’s waist-line post Christmas dinner but about the types of member we have.  It is simple to win as a party we need to ‘represent’ the country we want to represent – CF continues to contribute to this with members from all walks of life but we need to be always conscious of not putting up any form of barriers including negativity.

The Christmas party was great – well done Karen – however it was only really accessible for people in London or those with flexible jobs, this is far from being a criticism.  I was lucky enough to have had this flexibility that day, to leave work early and travel for over three hours to make it before 8pm!  However for many members this is far from possible perhaps next year a second Christmas event out of London – a Saturday Christmas Lunch? 

In fact as a member of CF you can sometimes be derided and discouraged for not attending events or helping out at perceived “key events”. With the greater appeal we have for new members the more people we are going to have as members that have other commitments as well.

Rather than this being a potential issue it is a huge positive and while we need to continue to constantly cater for our current membership we also need to challenge the perceived stereotypes of being a conservative party member.  I now also lead a community action group following in many ways the spirit of David Cameron’s vision at the conference last year.  Through earning people’s respect and understanding their lives a little more before we thrust a blue leaflet in their hand saying we are great we will perhaps progress a little better.

Contact

Finally as usual please remember if you have a question or issue that needs resolving please do not hesitate to contact me or copy me in so I can follow things up and ensure enquires are dealt with – [email protected]