Political

Lib Dem tip #7: Keep an eye on the meter cupboards when delivering leaflets

Welcome to my series of tips and advice for Liberal Democrat members, which appeared first in the email bulletin run by London Region for party members.

Delivering political leaflets is such an apparently straightforward activity that, despite its importance in winning elections, you don’t see any training sessions or briefing materials in the party about how to do it.

But there’s more to smart and successful leaflet delivery than meets the untrained eye.

So here’s one tip to help make you a pro: keep an eye out on the number of meter cupboards and bells when you are out delivering. When you spot that there are more meter cupboards than bells at the front door, that’s a clue that there is almost certainly another flat around the side or back with its own door and letterbox that you also need to hunt out.

Likewise, keep an eye out on the house and flat numbers as you go. I have often picked up a clue from them about the need to look a little bit further in order to locate an extra letterbox.

For more on delivering leaflets, and why we need to deliver so many of them, see my 2017 election briefing video:

You can read the full set of tips for Lib Dem party members here and if you’re looking for something to listen to when delivering, why not try out one of these Liberal Democrat podcasts?

5 responses to “Lib Dem tip #7: Keep an eye on the meter cupboards when delivering leaflets”

  1. Yes. To seek out a difficult to find address when canvassing often provokes, ‘Well you’re the only people who have troubled to call’.

  2. I guess it’s another advantage of ‘not just appearing at election time’… better to have established this well in advance and then make sure it’s covered as notes on delivery route slips.

  3. One problem with house numbers. On the estate I live on only the “affordable” house roads have number 13. The three and four bed roads do not.

  4. Here in Manchester our single opposition councillor, former Lib Dem MP John Leech, opposed Manchester City Council’s controversial change to bin sizes last year, which saw every household’s large general waste bin replaced with new, smaller 125 litre grey bins, in a bid to improve recycling rates. We have just found out that Manchester now has the worst record for flytipping in the 10-borough Greater Manchester county.

    However, there is a silver lining for Lib Dem (and other) deliverers: every new grey bin was labelled clearly on top with a sticker clearly displaying the door number (and flat number where applicable). This makes it much easier to work out how many apartments there are in a specific building – particularly as some apartment buildings in poor repair have a confusing profusion of poorly labelled, unlabelled or mislabelled doorbells which may or may not be working.

    Additionally, where several homes in a row do not have a visible door number due to having uPVC doors, the bins can be the only way to tell which house number you’re at.

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