Big Hug for City of Leeds School

It's been a while

I keep meaning to post but I've really been so tired and needed to get back to my family for a while.

Not that I've stopped by any means.....

.....on Saturday I went to a hustings at Leeds Met and challenged the Labour MP, Hilary Benn on the National Challenge policy and the closure of schools in deprived areas.

On Sunday I answered all the emails I hadn't found time for before the election and made cards for some particularly lovely well-wishers who phoned me and left messages on election day.

On Monday I spent all day helping my son with his coursework for his A-levels - being autistic he finds it hard to understand what is being asked of him and needs someone there to help him organise himself or he gets frustrated - far harder work than standing in an election.
I had his statement review too; he's doing really well and everything is now set for his next school year.

On Tuesday I actually managed to get round to some housework.

On Wednesday I took my son to his card club, did the shopping, picked up all the stuff I left at Victoria's election day and then took over 3/4hour to get all of 500 yards from her house to the student union to collect him because I bumped into so many people wanting to wish me well and hoping I'm going to stand in the next election.

And today I joined the community choir at Little London Primary School and then went to steel pans at City of Leeds.


The choir was great.

When I arrived the hall was crawling with small children and everyone was getting orange juice and tea.

Before I knew it, though, the session had started and very quickly everyone joined in 'baking a cake' with all the sound effects; I think that was by far the best bit, great fun.
Then we did some breathing and voice exercises - riding a motorbike up and down hills was pretty chaotic but the kids obviously loved it.

And then we got down to the singing.

I really enjoyed myself; I love singing but have never had the confidence to join a 'real' choir, this was just so much fun and I felt completely at home, I'll definitely be back there next week.

There are more ways to win than just getting votes

I got 150 votes and came 4th - not bad for a complete unknown with just 4 weeks to establish herself.
I got 7% of the vote which I'm told is pretty acceptable, especially as the Lib Dems and Labour had hundreds of people on the street and I had my very small team who, however hard they worked, could not hope to compete with the sheer hours of campaigning that the main parties put in.

Gerry Harper, Labour, won with 1054 and the Lib Dems got just 671.

But who won wasn't really the point for me - every candidate declared against closing City of Leeds, almost all supported Royal Park (I'm not sure about the Conservatives as I never saw any election material from them) and I know that the importance of those issues was only because I was standing on them and all the parties knew that if they didn't support City and Royal Park they would lose votes to me.

And to cap it all, Gerry Harper said he would so his 'damnedest' to stop City from closing on camera!!!!!

Thanks to everyone who supported me in this campaign, especially my team who were truly wonderful.

Tomorrow's our big day

Life has been a little busy since Saturday but tomorrow is our big day.

The responses I've been getting from people as I've been canvassing have been great; I can hardly believe how many people have said they will vote for me though it isn't surprising that most people are thoroughly disillusioned with the three main parties at the moment.
The combination of neglect from the Lib Dems and Tories in local government (most see it as the Lib Dems here as all three of our councillors have been lib Dem for a while) and the complete farce we are seeing in central government with Labour further right than the Conservatives, the banking mess, the schools fiasco, the increasingly unpopular wars we should never have been involved in anyway, the expenses scandal and the widening gap between rich and poor, means that nobody has anything good to say about any of them, never mind giving them their votes.

My team has worked really hard and I am so proud to be part of it, whether we win or not we know we have put our all into this fight and deserve every vote we get.

See you all tomorrow bright and early!

The Friendship Bench

The Royal Park Public Meeting was well attended and a great success.
The presentation of the bid went very well and was much more interesting than Friday's presentation to the council which obviously had to concentrate more on technical details and finance.

As Sue Buckle spoke about the history of the school and the fight for the building I was struck by how important it was to tell the public about the image on the cover of the bid, projected on the screen behind her and I asked to speak at the end.

This image was of the Friendship Bench, built by children, parents and staff with a local artist in the final year of Royal Park's history as a school and still standing proud in the playground.

When I spoke, I told the meeting about helping to build the bench, and that my son had calculated the amount of concrete needed to build it. I pointed out my daughter's face and told them that I know the name of every child pictured on that bench, that they are all now teenagers and many are at City of Leeds.

I then explained that when it was built the children were told that if ever they felt lonely or needed someone to talk to, all they had to do was sit on the bench and they would find a friend. I went on to say how glad I was that this was the image they had chosen because the Royal Park community centre would be there for everyone, for help, advice and friendship.

It was a very emotional experience, the bench has become the symbol of Royal Park and carries its ethos from the old to the new. I feel very proud to be part of that.

The Royal Park Jamboree

The presentation of the Royal Park Bid at the Civic Hall today went well and those attending seemed very positive.

The team spoke brilliantly and answered all the questions put to them.

It was all a bit formal but Saturday's presentation to the public should be a really good event with all sorts of things going on for everybody from 0-100+

I aim to be there for as much of the day as I can manage

Royal Park Public Meeting
12-4 pm Saturday 13th february
All Hallows Church
24 Regent Terrace
Leeds LS6 1NP

Pressure from the dcsf

Gerry Harper, the Labour candidate who, incidentally, was the only candidate not to speak in favour of keeping City of Leeds open, has denied that central government, specifically the Labour Party, are putting pressure on Education Leeds and Leeds City Council to close City but I have seen the letters from Ed Balls and Vernon Coaker to Chris Edwards.

The one from Vernon Coaker appears to be in the public domain and can be accessed with a google search.

here is the link