This is not normal: the Dominic Raab edition
By happy coincidence, soon after the publication of a very promising opinion poll result for the Liberal Democrats in Dominic Raab’s constituency I was off there for the latest of the mega-campaign briefing and training sessions being run around the country.
As with the Richmond one, attendance was stunningly good – with a packed room of mostly campaign novices introduced to canvassing for Monica Harding by the end of it.
It’s another great sign of how well the party’s pilot project to mobilise grassroots supporters is going – funnelling such people into local campaign activities in a way that the party has not managed in the past. That’s particularly important as for every one paid-up party member, there are on average another three campaign supporters on the party’s lists. It’s a huge potential pool of volunteer help.
All ready to go! pic.twitter.com/GESwePVSuT
— Mark Pack 🔶🎒 (@markpack) November 9, 2019
And we've already run out of chairs for this campaign briefing inside! Eek. pic.twitter.com/pqXrYseyJ6
— Mark Pack 🔶🎒 (@markpack) November 9, 2019
Thank you to everyone who came to our General Election campaign briefing. Inspiring talks from @LibDems HQ & @markpack This is the beginning of real change in #EsherandWalton. Time for a fresh start #RejectRaab #MakeItMonica
@LibDemNewswire @ElmbridgeLibDem @surreylive @AboutTD pic.twitter.com/l6p1jm1gvV— Monica Harding🔶 #LibDems (@monicabeharding) November 9, 2019
Now hearing from a lifelong Labour supporter about why he's campaigning with @libdems to ensure @monicabeharding beats Dominic Rabb. pic.twitter.com/NWVSy6df0s
— Mark Pack 🔶🎒 (@markpack) November 9, 2019
We also had a good stab at 'record number of Lib Dem posters held the right way up simultaneously'. pic.twitter.com/hL4LTH2XNH
— Mark Pack 🔶🎒 (@markpack) November 9, 2019
And then they were all gone campaigning… pic.twitter.com/UPzphfRUsq
— Mark Pack 🔶🎒 (@markpack) November 9, 2019
Next stop, Haringey…
With apologies to Matt Chorley for the headline.
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Great to see, we had a fantastic response up in Tatton today for a canvassing session.
Mark – where can I find the list of registered supporters for my patch? Isvit in Connect or Salesforce somewhere?
Yup they are in Salesforce and accessible via a Connect target pool too.
Do you really mean that the number of registered supporters in most constituencies is three times the number of members? In our constituency members exceed registered supporters by 8 to 1.
Hi David – the three to one ratio includes not only registered supporters but also the (much larger) number of people who have, for example, signed up to at least one of the party’s national campaigns – usually the anti-Brexit one. This bigger pool of petition signers, registered supporters, etc. is accessible via the target pools in Connect.
Mark –
You had a photo of folk holding posters the right way up.
At an LPO meeting in Manchester (LONG AGO!) to discuss the merger with the SDP there was a crowd of Young Libs in the gallery all holding up posters with single word ON upon them. It took a couple of minutes to realise they were holding them upside down!
John
PS I did eventually get an email enabling me to vote in our internal elections. What went wrong?
Hah, that’s a great poster story!
Re elections – glad you got to vote. We definitely need to have a proper post-mortem once they are over.
Extra chairs brought into the meeting – shades of Paddy’s campaigning in the early days, anyone who has read Paddy’s autobiog will smile at that one!
(Read the book to find out – but only after December 12th).
Great news.