Speed dating at High School??

I wasn't at all sure what I'd let myself in for this morning - 'political speed dating' at Stroud High School. What is that?

Well I was introduced to the concept in the Schools' main hall - a cheesy pop video of DJ Dee Mocracy described to the 40 girls and the 10 councillors present what would happen. Councillors would be sitting at a table, 3 girls would then sit and have 3 mins to ask us questions, they would then move to an empty table for 3 mins before meeting another councillor for another 3 mins and so it went on - councillors having an hour of non-stop questions - when the girls were at their empty table they scored each visit to a councillor on how well they answered the question, their approachability and more - scary or what? Results not out yet - will add them here if I dare!

(Update 30th Jan: no results out so suspect too embarassing to publish?)

After an hour of that, we had a break before another 40 or so girls were let loose with another set of questions.

It was a great opportunity to talk a little about local democracy, communities and of course green issues - it was so very inspiring to here how passionate many of the children were about the issue of climate change. Infact it was a huge boost to my own hopes about the future - and a boost to renew my own committment to tackling climate change. We can do this, but we need more people to take it seriously - it is slowly happening...let us not hope it is too slow.