A mind-boggling day first keying in canvassing date and then planning the pre-election day training and preparations with functional briefs for all involved. This whilst rehabilitating two of our candidates with their personal and business problems! The culmination of all these issues was a huge action list to result in the best-planned election day ever! I still found time to go roller skating with my daughters.
I did not get to bed until about 1.00am after all of my exertions and excitement today. Then I was awoken early before 7.00am by the bright sunlight forcing its way around the curtains and also by the loud cries of our visiting peacock. Just time to shave, shower and dress before our traditional fried breakfast and then I reverted to election work after looking around the conservatory and garden. A little time on my journal first thing and then I completed the keying in of the Eaton Socon canvassing data before Linda came round to help me to key in the Priory Park data after lunch. Whilst she was occupying the machine with this, I occupied myself with listing out the action items that we had to do between us for the election and it was hair-raising. I was faced with the problem of getting my colleagues to act on many of them when they were tired after the exhaustions of the week and wanting to rest on the Lord's Day!
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It consisted of the pre-election training and briefing of organisers, candidates, tellers, knockers-up and counting agents which task had to be achieved by unearthing and editing the written functional briefs produced for previous elections; The acquisition from John Matthewman of the latest version of EARS software, ink bubble cartridges and a back-up battery for the portable Amstrad computer that I might well have to use on the day; the organisation and arrangement of the two principle committee rooms that we were to use and agreement to secure access to them on eve-of-poll so as to be properly set up. In the meanwhile, I was to monitor the completion of the third FOCUS leaflet drop taking place this Sunday morning whilst still trying to compose and lay out the "Please Vote today" leaflets and get them printed and available for early-morning delivery on Polling Day. Both wards were not only missing certain of their poster-boards, but also needed the remainder of those accepted to be erected in place and I had to get them to do this otherwise we would be seen to be visually running out of steam.
In order to plan and organise all this, it seemed to be increasingly necessary to produce a summary sheet with all the names and addresses of the key personnel and arrange them into a structure and disposition on Polling Day. Then also to use the canvassing data to ensure that we had taken advantage of them to the full in distributing them between wards in relationship to need. As well as all this, I was still working on the task of rehabilitating two of our Eaton Socon candidates who had been taken out of the campaign; one with a broken marriage and the other with a broken business and these were worrying problems to overcome if we were to get them elected. Then there were the action items that I envisaged for Polling day itself: The actual delivery of the morning leaflet to a list of known supporters, reminding them not to forget to vote. The monitoring and communication with the tellers at the polling station to make sure they were noting the numbers properly and then the communication of those numbers to the Committee Rooms and effective use of them to eliminate the voters from our supporters list so that we could "knock-up" the remainder.
I had to make arrangements to ensure that there was supervision in place to review and implement Polling Day priorities and that this supervision also maintained statistics and communicated them to me so that I could decide which ward was being the most successful and which would need the most help as the day progressed. The arrangements for Polling Day could not be left at that as I also had to ensure that we had trained and briefed counting agents ready to perform the operations that we needed to do at the count. We would want to take and note sample tallies of our support from the first overall number count of ballot slip to gauge the result and prepare for the next stage which would be the overview of those tables where the count was closest so as to ensure that none of the Tory bundles had less than the nominal bundle (or more in the case of ours). This would also enable us to begin to gauge the outcome of the contest so that we could start discussions with the other sides and prepare our press policy for revealing the results.
Nor was the planning and organisation to end there. After the election, we would have to conduct a negotiation to decide upon the post of Mayor, keep press announcements limited to our pleasure and thanks over the result and organise a press conference early the following week to announce our policy and plans to deflect the more enquiring journalists and avoid uncoordinated announcements. There would have to be Liberal Democrat meetings to agree the group leadership on the Town Council, as well as the spokesmanship, organisation, communication, and priorities for the future. With an enlarged Huntingdonshire District Council group, I would have to arrange to do the same things. Then there would be the need to send thank-you letters to all of the participants in the campaign and to arrange a Thank-You party thereafter both to ensure that the workers are not left out the post-election celebrations and to provide the means of securing their even closer help and support in the future.
This question of developing and growing the organisation would be most important to underpin the successes achieved and would need to be accompanied by the recruitment of more members and planning of future election objectives. Such was the extent of all these matters to plan that my mind was boggling with the needs of time and resource to do it all when Diana suggested that I join the girls and her in going roller-skating at the new Ernulf sports hall and I accepted. Even then, I was taking especial care in skating with the girls as it would have been all too easy to fall and injure myself at a key time in the campaign. Back home for tea and then a busy evening of telephone calls to organise the range of action items that I had just worked out. I ran round my colleagues copying them on the list of actions as well and then settled down to sleep, quite tense and a little annoyed that this was all being left to me.
Tuesday 30th April 1991 Some action items that need to be done which are shown as (Priory and Eaton)
Pre-election
Media contact and arrangements (overview by David)
Release correction and re-circulation (Percy)
National media fax help (Percy)
Phone Calls/chases to media (Percy)
Training and briefing (assistance from Percy & David)
Summary sheets/details of helpers (David)
Maps/Instructions for participants (David)
Organisers (David)
Candidates (Michael and Derek)
Tellers (Sally and Sandie)
Knockers-up (Committee Room Managers)
Counting Agents (David)
Candidate Welfare (assisted by David)
Judi O'Callaghan (Derek)
Tony Carmedy (Derek)
EARS / computer
Priory updating (John and Linda)
Eatons updating (David)
New software release (Percy)
Documentation (Percy)
Printer Loan ( Percy)
Print out Shuttleworths (David)
Set-up/location for Polling Day (John and David)
Committee Room set-up
Wednesday eve (John and David)
Please Vote Today leaflet arrangements
printing (Percy)
delivery (Sally and Sandie)
breakfast (David)
Flagboard organisation
Last erections/maintenance (Brian and Tony)
Polling Day
Please Vote today (Sally and Sandie)
Telling
Start of telling (Michael & Derek)
Telling changes of guard/monitoring (Michael & Derek)
Ferrying back numbers (Michael and Derek)
Committee Room Organisation (C/room managers)
Data entry/number crossing (John M. and Lynda)
Knockers-up
Polling Day priorities
Maintaining statistics
The Count ( All)
Organisation of Counting agents
Collation of information/intelligence
Estimation of progress and outside contact
Strategy (David)
collation data & intelligence
disposition of resources
Disputes/contacts with outside bodies
Press/Media relations (and Percy)
Publicity (Percy)
pre-preparing of local/national press
Results to Cowley Street/ASLDC
Initial Radio, Press and TV coverage
Co-ordination of Cambs publicity and profile
Poster board result pasting
Post Election activity
Management (overview Michael/Percy/David)
Town Council negotiation/Mayor (Michael/Sally)
Tuesday morning Press Conference on result & implications (Percy)
LibDem Group Meetings
St Neots Town Council (Michael)
leadership
spokesmanship
organisation
communication
priorities
Hunts District Council (David)
Thank You letters (via computer for database)
Committee Rooms
Activists
Canvassers
Tellers
Counters etc
Thank You FOCUS (early June FOCUS combined) (All)
Membership recruitment (Percy)
Organisational development (Percy)
Future Election Planning (Strategy Committee)