The Rock Blog

On Sunday 13th April 2008 members from Conservative Future (CF) joined with other organisations to support the “Day for Darfur 5″ protest at the Sudanese Embassy in London; a protest against the crisis in Darfur with particular focus on the affect that the situation is having on the children of Darfur.

Speakers at the event included Andrew Mitchell MP, the Conservative International Development spokesman.

Anastasia Beaumont-Bott, CF National Management Executive member comments on the importance of the day:

“The situation in Darfur is now at a critical crisis point and action is needed.

“Over the last five years, the problem and conflict between the Sudanese government and the people of Darfur has escalated, slowly becoming more violent and more dangerous. But perhaps what is the most worrying is that the children of Darfur are being born in to this reality, growing up in this reality and accepting this reality as the “norm”.”

Michael Rock, Chairman of Conservative Future comments on CF’s support of the day:

“As CF National Chairman, my main objectives include increasing the appeal in what we do as an organisation and to increase our influence on political issues. I think it is essential that we become involved with the wider political community, particularly on important, prominent single issues.

“I hope, that Conservative Future’s involvement in the protest goes some way in stimulating a faster and firmer international response. This is not the time for well intentioned words; Conservative Future is now involved in, and supports, decisive action.”

www.conservativefuture.com
www.globefordarfur.org

Throughout the London Mayoral campaign CF members have made a real contribution to its success.

With the race entering the final stages we have been asked to help make the final push to aid Boris in his fight with Ken “Leaving-soon”. To that end, we are going to be holding two National Days for CF members from all over the country to come and campaign alongside the man himself – come along and Back Boris!

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The first National Day, on Saturday, April 19th, will be run in a slightly different format; we will be campaigning in four areas* of London:

1) HILLINGDON (Herts & CF London North West members)
– Meet Hillingdon tube station (10:30am)

2) HIGHGATE (CF London Uni members & CF members from outside London)
– Meet Kentish Town tube station (10:00am)

3) HAVERING (CF London North East members)
– Meet Hornchurch tube station (11:30am)

4) CROYDON CENTRAL (CF London South members)
– Meet East Croydon train station (10:00am)

*5) There is also an LGB Tory ‘Back Boris’ event:
– BFI Southbank (11:00am)

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Although we will be split into five groups during the day, we will all meet up together to finish the day (6:00pm onwards) at the SILVER CROSS pub, Whitehall. Map to pub: http://tinyurl.com/67k48j

Facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=15679491065

The second national day will be on the following Saturday, April 26th 2008. More details to follow!

The whole NME have been working very hard since the election; today saw the first full meeting of the National Management Executive at CCHQ - future meetings will be taking place around the country.

As it was the first meeting we had a lot to discuss (pointed out by the fact the meeting ran for nearly 4 hours!) and plan. We made great ground, including sorting out the vacant Area Chairman positions, and are firmly ready to push ahead!

More details to come…

Click here for information on your NME.

During the CF elections I wrote in support of Boris Johnson 4 London Mayor and a pledge to have a national day to aid Boris in his campaign to get rid of Ken ‘Leaving-soon’. To that end, before we fully regionalise the national days, we will be holding 2 full days for CF members all over the country to come down and help Boris - both days will be a chance for you to campaign alongside the man himself!

It is vital that we get Boris elected on May 1st - part of the flow towards returning our Party to power. Full details on those two days to come soon - in the meantime watch Boris officially launching his campaign.

Through out the election campaign, all candidates agreed that CF needed change. The healthiest debate centred about how to achieve this. I personally argued that we needed to engage with the wider political community and the new executive have already begun that process. Becoming an organisation that appeals to a broader range of political activists, and becoming more accessible is the first step towards rebuilding Conservative Future so that we can expand in a whole new direction.

To that end, we are pleased to announce that we are official supporters of “Day for Darfur 5”, a protest against the crisis in Darfur with particular focus on the affect that the situation is having on the children of Darfur.

When David Cameron visited the region last year, he did so because the humanitarian crisis is affecting millions of individuals and we should be doing more to alleviate the suffering. It is unacceptable to stand aside whilst government back militia attack innocent civilians.

We hope you can join us, Conservative Future and Andrew Mitchell MP, Shadow International Development Secretary, in London on Sunday, April 13th. For more information please contact Anastasia Beaumont-Bott on 07719797344

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=10682459754

The new executive are working hard on our plans for the year and one of our first priorities is to fill all the vacancies for Area Chairman roles. This position is going to become the most important role in our organisation.

In future, the Area Chairman will take the lead on: organising National Days, organising regional meetings, supporting branches and providing feedback to the NME and CCHQ. The Area Chairman will spearhead CF, not the NME who are going to act as a support service and as facilitators.

For more information on standing to become an Area Chairman please visit the Conservative Future website.

www.conservativefuture.com

This also ties in with my plans to make the CF website the main information point for the organisation - this blog will give information relating to my role and how my plans & jobs progress through the year.

I knew the first few weeks post-election would be busy but I had not quite expected the deluge to start before I had been elected!

Prior to Spring Forum, I met with many people involved with the Party and CCHQ. I’ve had to establish and negotiate the targets the new executive need to meet.

In Gateshead, I had the chance to meet CFers from Newcastle, York, Cheshire and Scotland. I was particularly pleased to meet so many members who had supported me and offer my thanks to them!

The National Convention was absorbing, with Caroline Spelman and William Hague giving speeches. I was introduced to the members, albeit from the balcony! I missed the opportunity to promote the CF event the next day but it was very well attended, with a tremendous range of attendees.

The CF social event had a great turnout, with members arriving from the TFA and TRG events then going on to the CWF event. Having lived in the North-East, it was great to go back and see such a strong Tory presence.

Looking forward to Birmingham already!

On Budget day this year we organised for CF members to go down and help the Party. Members dressed as “Darlings” were outside HM Treasury in protest at the amount of debt this Labour Government has saddled Britain with.

Apparently, not only the Rock can break the state!

Thank you to everyone who has supported me, voted for me and encouraged me during my election campaign, it is a genuine honour and pleasure to be your National Chairman Elect!

Conservative Future is about to change, for the better. The new executive is already working behind the scenes to make sure the next year involves more members, attracts a broader base of supporters and becomes more influential in mainstream politics. These are entirely achievable but will take a huge amount of work.

I am fortunate to have been elected with a strong NME, full of highly capable individuals who I think will work exceptionally well together. I also think we offer a real variety in terms of political interests, personalities and background. I have been very fortunate that we have a good national coverage too, this will be a great year of re-uniting CF and building a truly national organisation.

Thank you again, for all your support, I hope it continues throughout my term as National Chairman of Conservative Future.

Onwards and upwards!

I would like to thank everyone who has supported and helped me during my campaign for National Chairman of Conservative Future. It’s been an honour and a privilege to be welcomed to so many events and have such a great response, mostly(!), to my plans. I sincerely hope I can keep in touch with everyone I’ve met and hopefully help you all to improve CF!

Whilst it has been hard work, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the entire campaign. We seem to forget during elections that CF should be fun! CF is a social organisation - you join to learn about politics, but also to socialise and how fun with your peers. Although I want to make serious changes to improve CF I have had great fun during the campaign - “Come up with a slogan that Rocks” being a good example. I include a link which many members may enjoy!

And, of course, I hope I win so we can start to build CF into a bigger, better and bolder organisation. I think my campaign has offered the best analysis of CF’s present state, the best solutions and the best approach to running an election campaign: honest, open and clean.

If any other candidate wins, I have always said I will offer them my support and my manifesto is theirs to implement. Best of luck to all the candidates for Tuesday and I hope whoever is elected, delivers success and improvement to CF.

This is essentially a ‘wrapping-up’ post for the campaign. No matter what the outcome is, I owe an enormous amount to the following people who have been involved in my team for what has been nearly eight months:

Richard Jackson
Martin Hewitt
Sophia Rock
Without a doubt, three of the finest, most patient, most supportive and talented individuals I have ever known and ever will know. None of you will ever know how grateful I am, thank you.

Ed Hallam
Laura-Rose Saunders
Considering I didn’t know either Ed or Laura before my campaign started, I am still overawed at the effort they have put in to help me. Once again, I am indebted to you both.

Starbuck Coleman
Patrick Sullivan
Owen Meredith
Paul Rogers
Tim Aker
Nick Vaughan
Amanda O’Brien
Chris Ford
Mehreen Malik
Sam Billett
Bethany Lightley
As friends, you have all helped me through some of the trickier moments!

Everyone who changed their Facebook profiles to my badge, joined my groups and have sent messages of support!

The list I posted of supporters really is a roll call of individuals who are an immense credit to CF, the Party and themselves. I, once again, offer my thanks to all the Branch and Area Chairs, the University Presidents and members who have made the last six months a blast. I will offer you all any support I can, whenever it is needed. You are all brilliant!

Finally, anyone who has voted for me, listened to me, hosted an event I’ve attended or randomly asked me questions then I offer you my thanks! It’s been a tremendous experience and I hope the result doesn’t undermine your efforts and support. I am thankful for every moment of time you have given over to my campaign.

As fitting, we are celebrating on Tuesday, regardless of the result! I invite you all to celebrate the end of the elections at Potion on Malet Street (from 6pm), then to a UCL Question Time event then back to Potion. If I just went to one event, it would be an entirely inappropriate end to the Rock4CF campaign!

Many thanks and best wishes for the future,
Michael David Rock

The video footage from the Tooting hustings is now online.

You can watch my performance here.

The Party have today launched recruitment campaign across the whole country - “You can get it if you really want” (with a video being launched exclusively on Facebook). I think this is a brilliant idea and not before time. With the news that Michael Vaughn was putting the video together I was hoping for a kind of cross between David Cameron and Big Chris taking on Gordon Brown…alas this did not happen! But it did deliver a message of aspiration, which Labour seem to have completely forgotten about and is at the heart of conservatism.

I am not egotistical enough to think the Party have copied my plans, but this is exactly what I have been talking about for the last 6 months, we need to break down boundaries to membership and expand Conservative Future drastically. A ‘friends of the Conservatives’ is a very good way of doing this.

I have a similar plan for national membership - open up CF membership nationally (whilst local branches can set their own fee price) so that people can join for free. I know a lot of members that had apprehensions about getting involved with the Tories - once they were in though they have all loved it and never looked back. We can do this all over the country and drastically increase the size of Conservative Future within a few years.

CF should also be the organisation that is leading and helping the Party through the internet revolution. A proper ’supporters’ page, similar to the one setup for this campaign, for CF would be one of the first moves I would implement.

Let’s lead, not follow, the Party into power - vote Rock4CF!

Obviously all higher education branches are located within a constituency and most will have ‘links’ to a close association. The type of help the local association gives differs from money and rooms to nothing at all!

To improve membership retention, it is vital that we create a link between the branch and the association so that members have somewhere to go when they leave higher education and ‘Student Life’. This will involve the Area Chairman needing to make contact the local associations and finding out what help can be given.

At UCL, we send CF members an email when they leave with information about the local association and how to get involved. To often, graduates fall into a vacuum once they leave university and that is both a weakness of CF and the Party. We need to improve communication and engagement with the wider Conservative body.

Alumni clubs and events are often a good way to form bonds local associations with the student body, particularly if the alumni stay in the local area! Often at university level, the step up to association level is not appealing as more often than not association members tend to be on the ‘maturer’ side! Familiar faces are always helpful when approaching a different organisation.

Finally, it is also important that we build a stronger sense of purpose and identity for CF so we don’t suffer from a drain of talent and experience. We need to offer more appealing events to members, address their social needs and choose more relevant locations and functions for the local membership. We should be building a network of friends and contacts within CF and enjoy our time as the present Future!

Throughout my travels around the country I have met many great CF members - working hard every day for our organisation. This is especially true with the Chairmen running branches and Areas. I am very proud to have many of them supporting my bid to become Conservative Future National Chairman (more to come):

Sam Billett - Cities of London & Westminster
Paul Hughes - Dorset
Amanda O’Brien - Deputy Chairman Essex
Mohammed Ali Azeem - City Future Steering Committee
Chris Birks - North East Derbyshire
Serene John-Richards - Tooting
Nathan Cavin - Bristol
Victoria Chamberlain - Deputy Chair and Treasurer for Islington CF
David James Sadler - Saffron Walden
Tim Crockford - Birmingham City

Starbuck Coleman - University College London
Harry Rowe - Loughborough
David Bonner - Lancaster
Marc Stokings - Kent
Rob Goldie - Imperial College London
Amanda O’Brien - Deputy Chairman Essex
Colin Moore - King’s College London
James Deighton - Leicester
Paul Church - London School of Economics
David Bonner - Lancaster
Paul Wells - UEA
Steven Bainbridge - Newcastle
Eleanor Downey - Bristol

Matt Lewis - Staffordshire
Oliver Cooper - London North West
Edward Keene - Nottinghamshire
Hamish Stewart -Deputy Chairman, Nottinghamshire
Laura-Rose Saunders - Deputy Chairman, Bristol & Gloucestershire

Christopher ‘Japers’ Mullan - President-Elect of KCL Student Union
Tobias Lehman - CF Scotland, National Chairman

We are fortunate that many ‘like minded’ organisations have worked with CF members in the past: running training in all areas of political activity, providing opportunities to travel abroad to see other political groups and having a Speakers Panel so that high class speakers can be obtained.

We should utilise their expertise: outsource it to these groups. This will provided professional training to our members and avoid incidents such as the failed Working Life conference last year.

The needs of each member will always vary. Therefore we should offer as much support and opportunities as possible. From my knowledge of the breadth and depth of talent within CF, I imagine courses ranging from media training to canvassing skills to campaign management will all be popular.

Once we improve the information network, we can advertise all events to all of our members. It should be possible to offer regional training, once we establish interest levels. Area Chairs should give feedback to the NME so we develop a history and recommendations list for future CF members.

Ben Howlett is a Councillor in Essex & works in the office of Syed Kamall MEP.

I was chatting to an elderly Conservative activist the other week in North London about the MEP that I work for, Syed Kamall MEP. I explained to her what he does and what he does for London. After talking to her for about ten minutes, I handed her one of Syed’s business cards, she glanced at the card, looked up and then down again. She asked, in a particularly confused voice, “so…so your Syed Kamall are you?” I explained to the particularly bemused lady that I am not an MEP, but that I worked for Syed. I ended up chatting to her for around 20 minutes about everything from Thailand to which letter box is best for leaflet distribution. It is a person like this that makes London Conservatives a fantastic place to work.

I heard about Syed whilst I was President of Durham University Conservative Association from Martin Callaghan MEP. He explained that if I intended to move to London, send an email to his colleague Syed Kamall. I sent a cheeky email asking if I could run his campaign for his reselection as MEP, Syed was interested although he didn’t want anyone in particular to run his campaign. I was offered a job working across London informing people what Syed does and what the role of the MEP is in London. I have been working for Syed since July 2007.

It has been tough trying to juggle an MPhil degree at Cambridge University, being a Councillor in Essex and also working for Syed in London, I feel as though I am a nomad sometimes. Nevertheless, I have a brilliant job and I absolutely love it, Syed is honestly one of the best people to work for in the Conservative Party. He works so hard for London and shows such enthusiasm for the job all year around. With a young family, commuting to Europe and still having time to go to coffee mornings as well as campaigning, you have to commend him for the amount of work he does. Anything I can do to help him in London I try to do and it is simply a great job.

Confusion is something that I am there to help to dispel. Syed does much on a daily basis to reduce the confusion of Londoners about the role of the MEP. Whatever an individual’s belief regarding the EU, an MEP’s role is integral to the European legislative process.

As a complete people person, I relish in the opportunity to attend any event, meet new people and inform them of the great job that Syed does. I have met so many people across London, not just in the higher echelons of the London Conservative Party; I have met so many activists who work for the party on the ground. I have met and enjoyed conversations with party activists aged from 14 to 103. These people are simply fantastic. Few other organisations can offer such a wide range of talent.

I hope that gives you a short insight into what it is like to work for an MEP and why I am doing what I do.

Click here for information about “CF members that Rock!”

We have only 1 week to go in the CF elections - given I started my campaign back in July it has been a long race! The most important thing every CF member needs to do is vote to restore power to the members - vote Rock4CF!

Conservative Future can be so much bigger, better & bolder - we need to regionalise and return the running of our organisation back to you, the members. Under my Chairmanship the Area Chairman will be the key people running a ‘local’ Conservative Future.

I was asked at the Nottingham hustings what I would like to see most at the end of my Chairmanship: I would like to see every Area Chairman role contested. This would mean my regionalisation will have worked and we had restored the Conservatism in Conservative Future!

So please have a look at my Business Plan & the policies (CF Conference, CF membership plans, Regionalisation, National Days, CF website, CF Protests, Social action, Democracy in Action tours, CF Consultants, Working Life, National Convention & Back Boris).

You can also view my campaign video, send my message to your friends & change your Facebook profile picture to the Rock logo!

Let’s make Conservative Future bigger, better & bolder!

I don’t live in London so don’t have a vote in the upcoming Mayor of London elections. However, as I studied and work in London, I have seen first hand some of the problems that ‘Red’ Ken has created, exacerbated and not solved. Don’t even get me started on TFL!

The first time I went out canvassing for Boris was at Oxford Circus during the morning rush hour, where I dished out leaflets and the tremendously popular Oyster card holders (if you travel frequently in London, you basically don’t have a choice except to have an Oyster card…don’t get me started…!) It’s a great way to get the message across that the Conservatives are engaged in London issues.

I think Boris is the only Conservative who can outdo Ken in terms of personality and character. Whatever you think of Ken, I’m really not a fan in the slightest, he does connect with Londoners and has a high media profile. Boris can match that and is a great choice for the Conservatives, having the ability to engage people not usually involved in politics through sheer force of personality. I have been fortunate enough to hear Boris’ plans at some of his hustings and events. The substance is there to match the style. I am confident Boris can win and I know a huge amount of supporters and CF activists are helping with the campaign, particularly from the CLWCF branch and across the capital.

If elected, we will co-ordinate a campaign day to help Boris in his campaign. Depending on resources, we could make it a regional day or a national day. My instinct is to keep it as a regional event (for Area 6) but knowing the popularity of Boris amongst students, it might well be advertised across the country, depending on the feedback we get from the AC’s!

Rock4CF and Boris4London!

Lucinda Wilson is a Conservative Future member from Surrey.

Volunteering to help the Back Boris campaign is something I started doing a while before I became an active Conservative Future member. I have found it immensely enjoyable and extremely varied, you never know quite what to expect. From leafleting at train stations, to manning a stall at a university, even wearing a sandwich board outside city hall and being photographed in China Town giving out chocolate coins and welcoming in Chinese New Year.

The team is extremely friendly and always grateful for any time you can spare. The work often involves early starts, trying to catch commuters at peak times by the tube stations, and then evenings, when you try to get people on the journey home. There are social events organised for the volunteers as well, drinks at Boris HQ are a regular occurrence and we are always pumped full of coffee and breakfast if an early start is required.

The hardest thing to begin with for me was the sheer rudeness of people, some of whom don’t just refuse what you are offering them; they make insulting remarks about Boris and the campaign. Some have even made personal remarks about myself and my obvious political beliefs, being proudly displayed across my person on my Back Boris t shirt. As the weeks pass by I find myself becoming immune to the mutterings of passers by, I realised that if someone offered me a Red Ken oyster card holder in the street (not that such a thing exists) I would probably think something along their lines, but hopefully have the decorum to politely refuse.

I have now been made a Boris Team Leader, involving going to Boris HQ to collect the equipment (i.e. flyers etc) for the Action Event beforehand, leading a small team to flyer etc and being the contact on the ground for the event.

I give up my free time for Boris for the same reason I campaign for CF, because I want to see Boris as Mayor of London and a Conservative government in power. Watch out Ken, Barbie’s coming to get you!

Click here for information about “CF members that Rock!”