How My Day Went

A good day for a number of reasons:

- The Coventry Telegraph had an article on Garden Organic Ryton's restaurant won in the "Best Organic Restaurant" category at the Organic Industry Awards by the Soil Association. Congratulations.

- I received a call from a woman in Earlsdon, requesting two posters, one for her, and one for her dad. She said that she had been impressed that I had canvassed her the year before. Worryingly, she wasn't on the electoral roll at her current address. She was on the roll at her old address (still in Earlsdon, thank goodness) and plans to now vote there. This also happened with our candidate in Radford, Dan Finnan (i.e. both of them had sent in change of address forms to the council for the electoral roll, but had got lost in the wash).

- Myself and three other Green Party candidates (Penny Walker, Cathy Wattebot, Gianluca Grimalda) met up for an arts+crafts session (making words -- reduce, reuse, recycle -- out of collected rubbish) and then did a photo for a press release, with our newly-made words, at Charterhouse Fields. We've sent out four press releases so far on:

a) urging folks not to sign BNP candidates papers
b) our election launch
c) on Bryn Tittle, our candidate in Cheylesmore (focusing on waste/incineration)
d) on Emma Biermann, our candidate in Wainbody (focusing on youth and democracy)

They'll be some coverage of a joint campaign (Campaign for Dark Skies, Coventry Friends of the Earth, Coventry Green Party) in this week's Coventry Times, on getting companies to turn off their office lights at night. We'll have a letter in this week's Times as well.

I suppose even if our other press releases don't lead to immediate coverage, the efforts will still get local media used to the idea that we're go-getters who will provide them with interesting copy.

- The final thing wasn't exactly good, but was, in a way, inspiring. My agent last year was Clive Rosher, and his wife, Maggie, passed away a few days into this year's campaign. It was her funeral today, at Canley Crematorium. The funeral had songs (The Internationale, We Shall Overcome) and many rememberances of her, her humour, her love of teaching, and parties that her and Clive threw. She had been active in CND for 40-some years and a stalwart supporter of Labour, including 30-some years on Coventry city council and a stint as Lady Mayoress. It was a bit odd, since I was there more as someone who knows Clive, but I felt that I came away with a much better sense of who Maggie had been.