The Rock Blog

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!”

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!”

Chris Birks is the branch Chairman for North East Derbyshire CF.

I have had the enormous pleasure of leading the North East Derbyshire Conservative Future for a few years now and we have already made some significant changes and more importantly some big steps forward. We all get stuck into routines and think we know the best way to run Conservative Future branches. However the people that run some of these branches and groups are very reserved in what they think they can achieve and how being active could really benefit the branch and local young Conservative supporters.

When I joined the Conservatives back in 2005, we were halfway through fighting an election we all knew deep down we could not win. After that election we had to change and with the election of David Cameron as our leader, that significant change came, however I still think some of our branches haven’t welcomed that change. I pride myself on being a local conservative who loves knocking on doors, leafleting and listening to local residents concerns. Local people love to have someone to moan at and have their problems heard by anyone, especially if you are in a position to change things.

North East Derbyshire is a Labour dominated area and we have a very small grouping on the District Council, so my main target for 2008 was to launch a campaign to get all of our CF members above the age of 18 to stand as candidates in next years County Council elections and so far, with our CF members and association members we almost have a full set. Getting out there is the most important thing we can do. Write letters to local papers, email your local and regional newsrooms and radio stations to challenge council decisions and uncover their disgusting acts.

Also having a strong and powerful executive is the key to any CF branch and group. If you have an executive who have clear set out responsibilities and they know what their key roles are then your branch will function properly and effectively. Always attend local association meetings to make sure the thoughts and views are made aware to the association and to speak up for young people’s views and concerns. However, the only thing that branches face is a very poorly set out structure with no-one really responsible for individual groups and branches.

The only candidate focusing on the members concerns and the candidate dedicated to renewing our links with branches and groups is Michael. To succeed we need to be strong, effective and bold in our campaigns and efforts. Go knock on Labour voters doors, stand in the middle of market places and hand out leaflets, go and uncover some dirty laundry from the local council and don’t be afraid to challenge councillors on the big issues which local people really care about. Vote for Michael, change the way we think and act as a National Organisation and get out there, bang on some doors and change the way people see Conservatives both locally and nationally.

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

Eamonn Hurley-Flynn is the ‘Caerulean’ editor (monthly publication from UCL CF).

When the impartial observer examines the current state of Conservative Future it outwardly appears as though its importance is steadily dwindling – numbers are declining, campaigning activity is scattered and to some extent it can still be viewed as the last refuge of the young ‘Tory Boy.’ ‘Young Conservatives’ claimed membership numbers at their height of 250,000. This is clearly a stark and initially worrying contrast to the current 15,000 of Conservative Future. Many people would suggest that these numbers are indicative of a terminal decline for such youth organisations but there are a number of issues that need to be addressed before any conclusions are to be drawn.

Firstly, although Young Conservatives claimed 250,000 members, a large proportion of them were not there when it came to campaigning and other such activities. The numbers that turned out were undoubtedly far higher than the entire body of CF today but nevertheless they were not all out there when they could have been. This makes for interesting analysis. What seems to be the case is that, despite increasing voter apathy amongst the general youth population, a far higher proportion of the current CF members are willing to go out campaigning, provided that there is sufficient organisation of campaign days. This puts out a far more positive message than the Young Conservatives used to do. With the appropriate management, CF needn’t have the hedonistic, reckless image which turned out to be the source of Young Conservatives demise throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

Read the rest of this entry »

David Coleman is the new Area Chairman for Surrey.

I have recently been elected as CF Area Chairman for Surrey and I am really enjoying it and look forward to the many months ahead. But before I start about my view of this role, I will quickly talk about my history with CF.

I first joined the branch in my local area of Spelthorne and the membership was pretty small and the first impression I got was that Conservative Future were minor groups that meet in pubs every so often. However this view changed when I started to campaign to help elect members of Conservative Future as County Councillors in Spelthorne who helped me learn more about what CF does nationally and it was not long before I was invited to a event at CCHQ were I meet Mark Clarke while he was standing for the national chairman and was introduced to the Surrey CF chairman and I started to help out by setting up a Facebook group and working on the website.

After a while doing this I believed that I had learnt enough and had gained enough confidence to move upwards in Conservative Future and decided to stand as Surrey chairman after Andy Mountney decided to step down. I was given a lot of support from Andy alongside others like Michael Rock, Richard Jackson and members from across the country which I had met from campaigns and socials. I found this support very helpful during my campaign and I believe that this kind of support and communication between members will do a lot of good to keep CF as a positive organization that will help to get David Cameron into Number 10.

Okay so that is basically a short history of how I got started with Conservative Future and now I would like to talk about my views of the role. I believe that my role as area chairman is essentially to win and keep parliament/council seats and to increase our membership, as I found it more difficult to get involved and learn about CF then it should be. I believe that local chairmen need to give talks in schools and colleges about the benefits of getting involved with a political young movement and to advertise CF on the street and at fairs etc, like Anastasia Beaumont-Bott recently did in Horsham with Francis Maude. So I really want to get out and find the young conservatives who want to get involved with CF but not sure how to go about it, because they are out there.

Finally I believe Conservative Future will continue to develop with more members and there will always be the active members who will give up their time to help campaign, and I believe that if their dedication is always recognised then they will keep campaigning.

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

Chris Ford is a CF member who works as a researcher in Parliament.

Working as a researcher for an MP is a strange experience. Much of the work constitutes mundane office work in corridors that could easily be found in any generic office building in the city. And yet, you can go for a coffee in the morning and wind up chatting with IDS in the elevator about the weather before crossing Central Lobby to the Terrace Café. It is, perhaps, this mix of the extraordinary and the routine that makes Parliament such an interesting place to work.

In addition to everyday office duties there is the obligatory diary juggling, trying to organise tours, and fitting in select committee hearings around Ministerial Meetings. There’s always some research that needs to be done on one topic or another but the most important task is undoubtedly dealing with constituent correspondence. A back bencher can receive up to thirty letters a day that all require individual, researched answers. This can certainly be a strain particularly if, as is often the case, there is only one staff member in Westminster. Hours are long (in my case they have been known to reach 70 a week) and the pay is dismal in comparison to what one might expect in the private sector. With this in mind, I am sure you’re asking why anyone would want to become a researcher in the first place. It’s a good question but thankfully it’s easily answered.

Working for an MP was my first full time job after dabbling in different political positions after university and, while the work is demanding, it is also immensely rewarding. It’s the small victories that make the work worthwhile like making sure a constituent gets the pension payments they deserve or battling to keep a theatre open. There are frustrations too when events occur that you simply can’t get involved in no matter how you want to but this is, unfortunately, the nature of modern politics.

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

Luca Manfredi is a CF member currently studying at McGill University in Canada.

Perhaps the greatest testimony to the intellectual power and invincibility of conservatism is our inability to confine it within a rigid ideological and policy framework. The natural political expression of individual freedom is like a multi-faceted gem: different every time you look at it yet blindingly beautiful, solid and reliable. The British Conservative Party closing in on the centre and the Conservative Party of Canada dragging the centre to the right are two good examples of these different approaches.

Coming to Canada with my UK Conservative baggage was to prove more challenging than I thought. Firstly, I settled possibly in the most tory-hostile province: Quebec. Being a right-winger here is nothing short of a mark of infamy. At the same time the provincial sort-of-conservative party - Action Democratique du Quebec - dons a populist costume and wobbles on policy, and Conservative McGill out of 30000 enrolled students recruits barely 30 members. However my biggest surprise was the federal Party and its leader, Stephen Harper.

The Conservative Party of Canada is a much harder bone to chew on than one might perceive. They have managed two years as a minority government enacting strongly Tory policies, of which the cut in federal VAT, security certificates and paying off Canada’s debt are prime examples. Helped by an opposition in disarray the CPC can afford to be very steadfast in its torification of the Great White North and Mr Harper can portray himself as a strict leader, hard-fisted when necessary. If the British Tories may sound like a warm-hearted cousin the CPC is the caring but strict father.

Another distinctive characteristic of canuck Tories is their lack of love for David Cameron. They see him as a “Red Tory”, quite an unflattering way to be described on this side of the Atlantic. Most of this can be ascribed to unawareness of life in Britain first and foremost, as the end of Thatcherism seems to be taking its time sinking into the mind of my local blue brethren. I have to credit them, however, with an excellent ability to listen and understand other mindsets once they are explained to them.

Cameron’s incrementalism might not sound appealing, but when manifested to the best of my oratory abilities it is not contested as hotly and vehemently as it was only a few minutes earlier.

At the end of the day a Party is not just its leader or its structure but its members and activists. Few have welcomed me in Canada with the same enthusiasm of some of my newly found Conservative colleagues, eager to get me involved. Mostly this comprises volunteering and think-tank events as well as Party business not requiring official membership as I can’t join until I get my permanent residency.

Toryism in Montreal is a home away from home. Despite the own rules and mindset, despite the local stigma and the exiguous numbers this is a welcoming community ready to take on new blood in the quest for a Tory Quebec and a Tory majority in Ottawa.

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

Edward Hallam is the Campaign Director for Cities of London & Westminster CF.

Social Action is the great idea behind modern Conservatism, and one that the Cities of London & Westminster CF has fully embraced. Recent examples of our work would be supporting the Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal in November 2007, where just a handful of activists were able to raise well over £3000, making a huge difference to the lives of British heroes and their families.

We have also supported the Surprise Supplies initiative, sending morale-boosting parcels to British troops on active service in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2008 we will again support these causes, and also go well beyond them. Currently we’re setting up a steering group with a local estate to provide events for the young people there, ranging from entertainment, to helping foster interest in politics, and the provision of sexual health awareness workshops through our local Conservative council and NHS Trust.

Throughout our Social Action projects, we have discovered the same themes recurring. Local groups are always grateful for our help. We are able to show that Conservatives care, not just at election time, but all the time. We are able to build relations with local people that benefit both them and ourselves. Even in areas where we might not be in power, it enables Conservatives to advance their values and bring Conservative changes which builds support for us, and demonstrates what it is we stand for.

There may not at first sight be many votes in it for us, but in an age where the political class is deeply distrusted serving our local communities helps to reengaged the disenchanted and show our sincere, progressive approach to solving Britain’s problems in the twenty-first century.

We have found that Social Action allows us to work with and engage people who would never normally work with Conservatives, or never become involved in politics at all. As Conservatives we suffer from a lot of negative media, ignorance and preconceptions. Finding new ways to spread our ideas is pivotal to overcoming this, recruiting new members – and voters. In the end, people will trust and respect us for doing, not pontificating. Our actions will speak louder than our words.

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

Richard Jackson is a CF member from Herefordshire & runs the website for the University College London Conservative Society.

Do you know a CF member who does not use the internet? More than one person who is not on Facebook? In most cases the answers to these questions will be no. We are in the technology age and the main Party has risen to the challenge with a superb website, WebCameron and Facebook applications, plus many other tools.

The UCL Conservative Society has had a functioning website (www.uclconservatives.co.uk) now for over 5 years. Before Facebook 95% of society communication was done through the website – with a Facebook group this is now probably down at around 50%. A website is vital for us to share event information, provide contact details, and to recruit members. Every CF branch should have a website – I do wonder sometimes why they don’t!

When Michael started working with CFBranch to help branches setup websites it was an important first step to radically improving communication capabilities for branches.

Just over a year ago we launched a new website with a blog – I had hoped that it could be a ‘forum’ for the discussion of political issues in, or outside, of UCL. Alas this did not work out completely and now it has, more or less, reverted back to an information source. There is still debate and it does give us a channel through to attack the left wing groups at the University.

The website has been a great tool for us and, if you run a branch make sure you get one setup. It is an amazing way to communicate ideas and news cheaply and easily!

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

Laura-Rose Saunders is the Deputy Area Chairman for Bristol & Gloucestershire. 

There’s nothing quite like a good campaign day; congregating inhumanly early on a Saturday morning with the local Conservatives all of whom seem to be at least 3 times older than you and can remember ‘the good old days when that nice Mr. Churchill was in office’, preparing to deliver a pile of leaflets the same size as your brother while the rain steadily falls and you stand there secretly wishing that you were tucked up in bed with your teddy and your cat.

However while this may appear to be the stereotypical campaigning situation I can confidentially reassure you that this is not always the case. In my time in CF I have been out and about in a wide variety of areas doing a whole range of things from collecting signatures for a local petition to canvassing and even touring London on the ‘Boris battle bus’ and I can tell you there is nothing like it in the world.

One of my favourite things about Campaigning is that you never know what’s going to happen or who you are going to meet. For example over the summer I helped out in the Cheltenham By-election and while out canvassing one street met a white witch who delightedly informed us that there was no chance of us losing as she had placed a spell on the Lib Dem candidate so that he would lose!

These days campaigning does not just take place on the doorstep with the locals discussing key issues like crime, tax and education it has moved on. In my room at Uni I have a fine collection of free t-shirts including ‘Chose Coote’, ‘Conservative Green Action day’ and the classic Back Boris style ‘Jesse Norman 4 Hereford’ t-shirt.

The internet is also a fantastic tool for broad casting your message take for example the ‘Rock 4 CF’ campaign. Blogs everywhere have the logo, numerous people have changed their profile pictures to the logo and I can’t go to a CF event and not bump into someone who is sporting one of the bright green ‘Rock 4 CF’ badges.

The five pieces of advice I would give to anyone planning to go on a Campaigning Day would be this: Wear comfy shoes, ALWAYS take chocolate, bring an umbrella, go with a friend and above all else smile! If it looks like you’re having fun, and appear happy and approachable then people will be more willing to help you and hear you out.

There is only one way to prove whether or not I am lying, and that’s to go and have a go. Conservative offices everywhere will be delighted to have you involved and you’ll also have unique experience that you can only acquire from a Conservative Party Campaign day.

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

Oliver Cooper is the new Area Chairman for London North West & President of the University College London Libertarian Society.

It is fair to say that none of the major political parties quite lives up to its name. Labour is clearly no longer a representation of labourers’ interests, the Liberal Democrats have been downright illiberal in their economic opinions, whilst the Conservatives have been probably the most reforming party in this country’s history.

That’s mostly because the Conservative Party membership is not formed exclusively by conservatives any more than Labour is formed by labourers. Since the Conservative Party’s foundation, we have always accepted a wide range of political views and embraced people holding all centre-right persuasion: fiscal conservatives; social traditionalists; Unionists; and the group to which I belong, libertarians.

Libertarianism, including classical liberalism, is the belief in small government, low taxes, and civil liberties, and has as a long history within the Party. Sir Robert Peel, whose 1832 Tamworth Manifesto marks the birth of the modern Conservative Party, was a noted classical liberal.

Today, there are many prominent Conservatives that proudly call themselves libertarians. Alan Duncan’s book Saturn’s Children ranks as one of the most libertarian books ever written in the UK, and Douglas Carswell, founder of Direct Democracy, spoke to the UCL Libertarian Society last term. Two of the highest-profile MEPs, Daniel Hannan and Syed Kamall, are also prominent libertarians.

The number of libertarians in high office within the Party is testimony to the wide range of opportunities available to young, budding Milton or Rosa Friedmans, both in this country and abroad, in the form of seminar course, think tanks, pressure groups, and student societies.

The United States has a long history of running libertarian seminar courses and retreats at which young libertarians can meet, learn, and discuss their ideas. British libertarians have been slower to adopt this model, but we have now, and – unsurprisingly – it’s spearheaded by Conservatives. Freedom Week, held in Cambridge every year, is run Jean-Paul Floru, a councillor and European Parliament candidate, and has helped generate interest in university libertarian activism across the UK.

By contrast, one trend that America learned from the Old World is that of think tanks, which are disproportionately libertarian in outlook. The UK’s first independent think tank was the IEA, a libertarian organisation that pioneered Thatcherism before Thatcher came to power. Other classical liberal groups include the Adam Smith Institute, Civitas, the Globalisation Institute, and Reform. Libertarian pressure groups also loom large in centre-right and Conservative politics, and the Freedom Association and the Taxpayers’ Alliance are two organisations that are rarely out of the newspapers for long.

This is mirrored at universities across the UK, where libertarians are well-represented. In addition to the Libertarian Society at UCL, there are Libertarian Societies at Cambridge and Nottingham, and Hayek Societies at LSE and Oxford, which all influence student politics more than any other non-party political societies, and work in tandem with the Conservatives to achieve their shared aims.

In recent times, libertarianism has re-established itself as a core part of the Conservative philosophy, and rightly so. For libertarians within the party, there are now countless opportunities to get involved and get ahead. That goes doubly for CF members, for whom there are now more outlets than ever for their enthusiasm for liberty.

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

Tatiana Makoni is a CF member from University College London Conservative Society.

A keen CF member I have never felt the inclination to become a politician. Instead my involvement within the party is that of supportive observation, precisely the reason why I was eager to experience both the Spring Forum and Main party conference last year.

Spring Forum - Nottingham

As a first-timer I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, and I confess rather thought it would be bustling with wannabe councillors and MPs desperately trying to network. Instead it was relaxed with several speeches made by an array of people from the major Party celebrities to ordinary citizens concerned about their local areas. The topics were varied, and as long as you found yourself in one with which you could identify (I personally stumbled into one or two where five minutes in I was gagging for an escape route), it was a highly stimulating way to pass an hour.

Various dinners were held the evenings, but being typical students, the obvious solution was to seek curry houses and dodgy 80s clubs with revolving dance-floors.

Party Conference - Blackpool

The Main Conference was naturally far grander, and set in Blackpool with its year-round Christmas lights and welcoming “Conservative trams”! The seminars were seminars, yet one was far more likely to find oneself seated amongst Party celebrities, as a friend and I were when it suddenly dawned on us that the backs of the heads we were staring at during a speech belonged to William Hague and George Osborne!

There were also numerous stalls gaining support for their causes by giving away great freebies, and others selling everything from jewellery to rabbit pelts. Socially, the Main Conference was also far better; as fun as the Spring Forum was, we didn’t really meet anyone new, and the entertainment was provided by the fracases within our own group. However, all age groups were fairly represented at the Conference, and there was no need to go in search of nightlife, as all the action was to be found in the garden of the Imperial Hotel!

Anyone under the impression that Conservatives are old and stuffy would be stunned to witness the merriness once the wine got flowing! The last night was particularly fun, encompassing disco dancing, a mad conga-line which some MPs were persuaded to join, and some unforgiving hangovers the next morning!

I hate to be predictable, but in my humble opinion the highlights of both events were the closing speeches (OTT dramatic entrances aside), particularly the Main Conference speech sans notes. They summed up what we were really there for by telling us what we came to hear and assuring us of imminent change. The rest was good fun, but the closing speeches were the piéces de resistance. To anyone interested in going this year, do! It’s a great experience, but for goodness sake, go with people who know how to have a laugh!

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

Stuart Davenport is Councillor for Dunchurch and Knightlow ward in Warwickshire. 

According to research by the LGA the average age of a Councillor in the UK is 56. This in itself is a figure to put off most people of CF age. However, when an opportunity to represent your own ward comes along it is very difficult to say no. This is what happened to me in February 2007 and after a fraught election campaign I became the duly elected member for Dunchurch and Knightlow ward.

Throughout the election campaign I saw CF at it’s strongest: in campaign mode. Putting aside differences, leaving ambition at home and uniting in the shared cause of Conservatism. A team of 10 CFers launched an offensive in my ward that made everyone sit up and take note. Blue rosettes, a diverse mix of people and a sense of humour that was infectious! I have no doubt days like this played an important role in my victory.

Yet the old stigma of ‘Young Conservatives’ still rears it’s ugly head sometimes. Henry Kissinger once said: ‘University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small’ and in a way he was right. Out with national and local elections CF often seems hell bent on squabbling like children. For someone like me with no Parliamentary ambitions I sometimes get cross: the people destined to represent me in the Commons will surely get there whether they are in CF or not?

Council life is hard but enjoyable. Juicy issues are outnumbered by prosaic ones, however being given the duty of representing other people is a tremendous honour! If you have the time and the commitment I would wholeheartedly recommend it.

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

Resources are key to any organisation and Conservative Future is very lucky that we have an incredible resource: our members. A voluntary group, like us, relies on its members to lead the organisation and move us towards power. I believe fully that our activists are the strength of CF and want to return the power to them - this is the backbone of my campaign and want to make every effort to highlight and support you in the, normally, un-rewarded work that you do.
 
That is why I am starting a guest blogging section on the Rock Blog to highlight the varied work that CF members do all over the country. Called “CF members that Rock!” it is a chance for normal CF members to have a platform to highlight the work they get up to, the experiences they have and the knowledge they have learnt. It is a sort of step forward from the CF Copywriters.
 
If elected I would make this a mainstay of the CF National website - our members deserve credit for the work they do and this would be part of that. It would also fill a hole on the training front: experienced members passing on knowledge to newer members. This is key to strengthening our organisation and helping to keep it a formidable force in youth politics.
 
Over the coming weeks various CF members, from around the UK, will be posting there experiences on this blog. I hope you read, learn and comment on the material in these posts.

If you would like to contribute to “CF members that Rock!” please email me: michael@rock4cf.com