Green AGM, Barrage, Open Homes and more

Hey I've missed write ups to a fair few recent meetings over last week here...infact had planned to do some today but a powercut in some of the houses here in Bread Street all day means you will only get a brief bit...

Photos; more of the snow over last few days

The local Green Party's AGM last week - see more here - I got re-elected as Press Officer - my eighth year and possibly my last as formulating letters and all looses it's appeal a little - yes still passionate about the issues but it eats lots of time - for example in this last few days I've responded to a fair few items like the Severn Barrage consultation (see here), helped publicise a call for green jobs (see here), publicised the next Coffee House discussions (see here) and have 4 further items in the pipeline.

When doing my Press Officers report for last year I counted I'd sent out 120 news releases and some 80 letters - plus 644 blog entries - all in the last 12 months. Of course not all of them were my work!!

Anyhow while most of the letters got printed the press covered less than half of the news releases - however hopefully many will get picked up in web searches and folk will be able to see the sort of issues we are discussing and working on....the AGM was indeed a good evening and v positive - yes I know we always say that but it was and a real nice feel...let's hope we will be able to work together on making more electoral gains later this year.


Scrutiny meetings - well I had one meeting last week with Head of Regeneration at the Council and this week with head of Planning - this will feed into the evening meeting next week with other councillors so I wont go into any stuff here.

Eco-Renovation Open Homes - well two more recent meetings and confirmation we have funding to go-ahead - this year for a paid coordinator - she has now been appointed - Helen Royall, Transition Stroud's coordinator and a Cainscross Parish Councillor - she will be excellent - it wont cover all her time but at least it will mean the project will go-ahead again.

Last year I was Coordinator and it took many days of unpaid work - indeed already for next year I've had half a dozen meetings and completed several funding applications....it feels good to pass the bulk of it over to Helen! I am still on the steering group and will still be v much involved.