Hat into the ring

highs and lows

Sad news on Saturday from a friend. Her baby was delivered at not quite 22 weeks, just a few weeks too early to have a chance at life. Earlier that day I'd read the lenghthy newspaper interview with Gordon Brown and the grief he had gone through at the death of his premature daughter in 2002. I'm thinking of setting up some sort of event to raise money for the fund set up by the Browns for research into premature births. Nick and I are so lucky; three healthy, bright children born with no problems.

And the high (and low) was going up hill and down dale on the Circiut of Bath Walk on Sunday. We all 5 set off from Odd Down and all made it to Lansdown. There the children decided 7 miles was enough! I carried on for one more "leg" of the walk, ending up at Bathampton Mill. Brilliant walk. Fantastic views of the city from Lansdown and from Solsbury Hill. Next year I'd like to do the whole circuit. For part of the walk I was with two guys who volunteer at Julian House and for part of it with a chap who works for Bath Building Society (he was doing the whole walk). I don't know how many people took part, but I hope it's raised a good sum for Julian House which does such excellent work supporting homeless people and helping them to get a foothold in society again.

how a councillor can be useful?

Went to Harvest Assembly at Paulton Junior yesterday morning. As the rep from Feed the Children didn't appear to speak to the children there was a change of plan and the Headteacher asked me to hand out school council badges to the newly elected School Councillors. Just shows that councillors can come in handy sometimes. There are 16 youngsters on the school council, all keen and eager. The school really encourages them, even giving them a small budget. They organise discos and sell stationery and use their money to buy playground equipment. It's the sort of set up which gives them a voice and shows how they can make a difference. Brilliant. We suspect the Feed the Children speaker may still be driving round Paulton in ever decreasing circles as signage to the school is almost non-existant. I'm taking that up with Exec member for Highways.

Met with members of Bath East Labour. Interesting discussions on Western Riverside and traffic in and around the city. Also heard about Bath Cyclists Campaign, pressing for better, safer cycling routes in the city itself. Aim to attend next meeting.

Spent yesterday sorting out the office move for Labour Group. A streamlined office for a streamlined Group! There's a meeting room next door which we'll be able to use when all 6 of us are together. Let's hope that after next local elections there are so many of us that we have to take over that room too.
Jobs for today include putting together a talk for Bath East Branch for Thursday, a paper for Bath Clp, a meeting to discuss Governors' Report to Parents for Cameley Primary, making soup and buying rabbit food. But all activity will cease for half an hour at 6.30pm. Hitch HIker's Guide to the Galaxy returns to Radio 4! A new series after more years than I like to count. At university we used to listen to it every Sunday morning, however fragile we were feeling after a Saturday night. Luckily for Nick and me our young enjoy the humour of it too. Anyone else out there a fan?

phone masts, stone mines and playing fields

Missed the council meeting itself on Thurs as migraine descended, but had managed to get some work done for Group before disappearing. Catching up with events on Friday I learnt that Council agreed to proceed with the main work on Combe Down Stone Mines, providing that terms and conditions can be agreed and that these must be agreed by councillors, not officers. Council is pressing for all phone masts to be subject to planning laws. This has to be right, the process should be open and public. Two good decisions. Followed by a bad one, or lack of one. Council has chosen not to grasp the nettle of "double taxation" (where areas with parish councils can end up paying twice for a service). Right at the beginning of Bath & N E Somerset's life it was realised that this was a problem. There was a chance last week to decide to do something about it, but a majority of councillors chose not to.
Visited a friend in hospital on Friday and used the Park & Ride bus to RUH for the first time. It's a good service and, looking at the car park at RUH, I was glad I'd used it.
Had to ferry young about yesterday. Girls to drama in morning ; they usually walk but Jen had guitar and amp to take. Then over to East Harptree to the Harptrees Festival. Jen and friend went to animation workshop then took part in talent show with another school friend, doing a Monty Python sketch. Some of the youngsters there were excellent and all were great for having the confidence to get up and do a turn. I was really impressed both by the performances I saw and by the work which had gone into putting on the whole two day festival; loads of activities. That's a community working.

culture change

Attended meeting of Culture Change working group at Bath & N E Somerset Council this morning. Quite a good discussion.
And, of course, there's debate on culture change of a national kind in Parliament today. Banning hunting with dogs. I believe it should be banned. Drag and bloodhound hunts already exist and these activities could be expanded. I understand that there are clear differences between drag hunting and hunting live quarry (it's not possible at present to mimic all the subtleties of live animals' scents and thus the unpredictably of hunting live quarry, for instance). But surely it is not beyond the wit of man or woman to work on this. The rural livelihoods involved could then be safeguarded to a large degree.

meeting the opposition

Went to the opening of two exhibitions at Victoria Gallery on Friday. The People's Show exhibits were great. 6 young people had trawled through the pictures in the gallery's store rooms and picked their favourites. Heaven only knows what other great stuff is hidden away there. The Guildhall could do with brightening up, maybe councillors should get a chance to pick one pic each? Or youngsters from each school in Bath & N E Somerset - that would probably bring more exciting pictures to light. Several LIb Dem councillors there and, of course Don Foster who was opening the shows. Colin (Darracott, LD cllr) kindly introduced me to Don. Good to be able to shake hands with a future opponent.
Sent letter re: Bristol Airport gaining transatlantic flight from next spring to Chron. Shall chase up to see if they're going to print.
Looks like pensions are going to be in the press locally and nationally. TUC will be calling on Gov to address pensions problems nationally. Locally the Avon Pension Fund has a large gap between what it has and what it needs. Will it lead to large Council Tax rises and cuts in services? If Tory Exec member for Resources has his way, yes.
Week of meetings ahead: Labour Group, School Governors, Village Hall, full Council. Hope to keep Friday clear to stay at home.

a week flies by

No brownie points for me as I've neglected the blog for a week. Time to get into a proper routine.

Children all back at school. With all three now at secondary school, the hours in the day where I don't have to worry about being at home (or being needed to do something else when I am at home) have increased. They're all out at 8.10am and not back till 4.10pm.

Council work is swinging back into action with meetings and with some residents' problems to help sort out.

On the Parliamentary Spokesperson front I'm now getting contacted by press for comments and am beginning to do some letter writing. Yesterday got my first invite to speak at a public meeting! A meeting of the Economics group of the Bath Royal LIterary and Scientific Institute with the subject of Bureaucracy. PLenty of time to prepare as not till 30 November. I'll try to get to a couple of their meetings before then to get a feel for them.

Over the course of the spring and summer the Royal Society of Arts has been running what they called the "Coffee House Challenge". The RSA is 250 yrs old this year and these debates have been an attempt to revive the coffee house tradition of wide ranging discussion. I have managed to miss all the debates up to now, but finally made it to the plenary session on Wednesday night. After hearing speakers we divided into groups around tables to discuss specific issues. OUr table was "advancing global citizenship". We were asked to come up with action points which could get going straight away. I was lucky enough to be on a table with two school students, two university students and one young woman who had just completed her degree, plus two RSA Fellows. Despite us older ones, this must have been the youngest table there. At the end all the tables reported their action points. The "encouraging enterprise" lot had an intriguing third point of fostering the creative (or even "hippy") part of Bath's community. Peter (one of the RSA Fellows on our table) later told me about a guy he'd met who sells local art and textiles from a bicycle propelled stall and that he'd immediately thought of him. I'm sure it's the same person I wrote about back at the beginning of this blog. So it's good to know that other people have similar ideas.

Hope to go to the opening of an exhibition at Victoria Art Gallery tonight. Don Foster is officially opening it, so maybe I should introduce myself! I think so.

domesticity

No blogging over the bank holiday w/end. Spent a lot of time in the garden, as Nick chopped down bits of trees and we had bonfires. Very autumnal. Perhaps that's why my thoughts have turned to....knitting! Well, the girls would like ponchos. I used to be a demon knitter, making up complex patterns. So I've ordered a couple of pattern books and may get the needles clicking again. Also inspired by the fact that a cafe I really like in Bath, Doolally's, has knitting and board game evenings on Mondays!

The young all return to school tomorrow. Daisy to secondary school for the first time. So for me it's back to political work. Farewell to summer.