A New Hope

This is the next of a series of postcards which Anita Day, Parliamentary Spokesperson for Grantham and Stamford has written to members and supporters

I'm feeling rather happy at the moment, hence my reference to possibly my favourite film of all time in the title! Perhaps partly in response to Postcard #4, but more likely due to last week's progress in Sleaford, several people have contacted me and asked how they could get actively involved in campaigning for us in some form or another (and in one case, I bullied them… you know who you are, Sean!) So the net result is that South Lincs now has an active Campaign Team, comprising:
John Bland
Adam Brookes
Anita Day
Craig Drury
Ed Fordham
Fiona Sloss
Ian Smith
Sean Tighe,
plus Francis Pryor who has offered to help us by blogging etc! This is a fantastic achievement in a little over 48 hours, and I'm really grateful to everyone who has come forward already, and those who are still considering getting in touch. Please do… the more the merrier!

However, even if joining the team isn't for you at the moment, there are other ways in which we could really use your help:

• One of our first challenges will be the Town Council by-election in Market Deeping on 12 January. We have an excellent young candidate in Callum Robertson, and we intend to campaign to put the Lib Dems back on people's radars. But it raises the point that we often only find out about these parish, ward or town council by-elections by fluke, and then have insufficient time to do anything about them! Could I ask that you let me know if you hear about any local elections in your area where it might make sense for us to field a candidate? Even if we have little chance of a victory, at this stage just being seen to be campaigning will help our momentum.
• Similarly, a good source of info about local tradespeople, businesses and community groups - who we may be able to persuade to become advocates for us - are local parish & advertiser magazines. Could you please send/scan to me the ad pages from your local mags so that we can add them to our list of targets to contact? (I can give you my address if you need to send me anything by post).
• Finally, we intend to start a regular series of Lib Dem Pints in the New Year, with events held across our region every 2-4 weeks. These will be a great opportunity to get together regularly with like-minded Lib Dems over a drink, and put the world to rights! However we want these events to be truly inclusive of all our members, so I'd like to suggest that we agree to a small fee of £3 each (on top of the cost of our drinks) to support any members who might otherwise feel unable to attend on financial grounds (and with any surplus collected on the night being put towards the costs of local campaigning). And if you're unable to attend at all, you are very welcome to make a larger contribution, of course! ;-)
• Please look out for a note shortly about the first few dates for the diary, and try to come along and say Hi if you can!

Finally, did you happen to see the article in yesterday's Lincolnshire Business in which the NFU stated that crops in Lincolnshire fields could end up rotting in the ground if the migrant labour shortage caused by Brexit fears was not addressed by the government? http://lincsbusiness.co/2016/12/nfu-crops-rot-lincolnshire-fields-migrant-workers-kept/

A bitter irony, given the number of fields in this area which were sporting UKIP banners in the summer! It would be amusing… except that, of course, it isn't! L

Take care, and speak soon

Anita

07753 904676