A very successful District Council Polling Day, organising our helpers at the polling stations and committee rooms and thankfully moving away "Cambridge Cable", who had decided to set up shop right outside Sally's house and were about to dig up the road!
I had to clear the computer room to get some room but there sat Louise and later Ross McKay which surprised me. and, when Louise stormed off and burst into tears as a result! As the feedback came in, I was reviewing the figures from Priory (which was getting our supporters out quite well) and from Buckden where Derek and Terry's team were really cooking and gelling with a willing band of helpers.
By late afternoon a good system was in place everywhere else and I realised that Louise had not been around her own three polling stations so, feeling bad about leaving her to it earlier, I made a point of taking her to all three in turn so that she could go in and thank the polling officers.
The results soon came and we had retained Sally's Priory Park by a mile, Percy's Offords comfortably and beaten Tory Terry Hayward out of sight. Poor Louise did well in a non-target seat but, as expected, did not come very close to winning.
LibDem Jane Brine beating Tory Council Chairman, Joyce Day in Sawtry and this was added-to later when I found out that dissident St Ives activists Ron Heinrich and Stuart Littlewood had got Charles Looker in for us in Godmanchester. Our seats were therefore up from 8 to 11, the Tories down from 39 to 36 and Labour the same at 4
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I was awake early this morning, fully fit and recovered from yesterday's aberration; realising all of the things that ought to be done early in order to make the day as successful as possible. I checked that Derek had organised the third party target letters for Buckden and then called Louise early and helped her produce some leaflets ‘squeezing the Tories’ and then got Brian Guinee to run off the delivery lists ready for her arrival there.
This done, an early walk for Sam and then dressed ready to go and check on the Polling Stations in our target campaigns to ensure all was in order. I checked first on Offord Cluny hall and then, seeing Percy was on his way to Great Paxton, drove next to Buckden where I was able to help get our tellers into the proper routine. I had to trim back the enthusiasm of Derek and Terry Clough in arranging to wear rosettes and parking dressed cars in the vicinity of the Polling Station, but I was too late to stop the Tories complaining and causing the arrival of the Chief Returning Officer, Tony Gee. In fact, I had to get the Offord’s Tory candidate, Richard Normington, to cover his badge at Offord’s early on.
To the Buckden committee room, where I got their computer right ready for the entry of the first numbers and made them quite sure of how to operate it and keep their running totals and then on to Priory, collecting more telling slips on the way. The scene at Priory was still quite disorganised and the first problem was "Cambridge Cable", who had decided to set up shop right outside Sally's house and were about to dig up the road. My first task, which I succeeded in doing remarkably well, was to get them to pack up and move further down the road so that our operations were not unduly disrupted. At least the "Please Vote Today" slips had gone out in Priory and The Offords and the committee room catering and facilities were working well.
But there sat Louise and later Ross McKay which surprised me. I had to clear the computer room to get some room and, when Louise stormed off and burst into tears as a result, I could only concentrate on the two campaign computers until I had them up, running and being used but then went back to find out what was wrong. It seems that she and Ross McKay had another misunderstanding such that, after an initial delivery of target letters and today slips, they lost one another and ended up looking for each other for the next two hours! Sally settled her down and then we got others to help deliver everything so that, by the time we were knocking up later, they had all been attended to.
By the middle of the day, I was monitoring all of the campaigns and getting to terms with the problems of running the disparate strands of The Offord’s from Priory. What with the traffic road humps and distances involved, just getting the numbers back was a challenge let alone getting our knockers-up back in good time to ensure their lists were not outdated. I was reviewing the figures from Priory (which was getting itself out quite well) and from Buckden where Derek and Terry's team were really cooking and gelling with a willing band of helpers.
The weather broke at lunch time and the rain began to fall steadily such that the tellers were having trouble and as many knockers-up as possible were needed to get out the vote. By late afternoon a good system was in place everywhere else and I realised that Louise had not been around her own three polling stations so, feeling bad about leaving her to it earlier, I made a point of taking her to all three in turn so that she could go in and thank the polling officers and I could pump the Labour tellers for information about the turnout and activity.
Then the late-afternoon and evening rush got underway, and it was a mad scramble until the finish. Despite this, I kept the pressure on and number of knockers-up out high to get out as many of our votes to the polling stations as possible. I just got back over to Buckden for the close and agreed that they could stand down at around 8.45pm when they had got substantially all our supporters and were out knocking up in all walks.
I went home to change and prepare for the count, picking up a message from the Cambridge Evening News reporter, Julian Makey, that he was covering the story later. On to the count where we were even more organised than ever with my pre-prepared sample slips being used to good effect. It soon emerged that we were in for another successful night as samples showed us well ahead in all of our target wards.
The results soon came and we had retained Sally's Priory Park by a mile, Percy's Offords comfortably and beaten Tory Terry Hayward out of sight. Poor Louise did well but, as expected, did not come very close to winning and then I got everyone to go back to Sally's whilst I doubled back to Paxton to print up the results slips for everyone to paste up on their posterboards. I picked up the call from Julian Makey who gave me the news of LibDem Jane Brine beating Tory Council Chairman, Joyce Day in Sawtry and this was added-to later when I found out that dissident St Ives activists Ron Henreich and Stuart Littlewood had got Charles Looker in for us in Godmanchester.
Our seats were therefore up from 8 to 11, the Tories down from 39 to 36 and Labour the same at 4. As the others went home and pasted up their results, I relaxed at home after a hard week and watched the rest of the country's results before phrasing our Press Statement. LibDems had a splendid day overall, mirroring our performance around the country.