You don’t have to be a conference rep to go to conference

Neither a voting conference rep nor a suited lobbyist need you be to go to Liberal Democrat Party conference, yet amongst party members there is often an implicit assumption that federal party is something for other people rather than something for them.

This is particularly unfortunate when, as with this autumn, the conference venue (Brighton) is within easy travel distance of a large portion of the party’s membership. People can register to go to conference for just one day for £35 (£17 claimants) and get to sample the debates, the fringe and the atmosphere – and if you are within commuting distance all that without having to pay Brighton accommodation prices.

For a forward-thinking local party, this offers up a great opportunity to get people more involved in the party, to get trained, to get enthused and to get informed. In other words, not simply to think conference is for conference reps.

Your local party is of course a forward-thinking one too… so if it too is one within reasonable travel distance of Brighton and it hasn’t done so yet, why not make sure that all local party members are given an extra message encouraging them to register for a day?

In fact, why not get a group together to travel there and back on the same day, making the event more fun and helping to make newer people feel that more comfortable about going off to a new event full of strangers?