Walking Sam before and after managing our St Ives troops into battle for the Hemingford Abbots & Hilton By-election. This involved early morning deliveries and explaining the operation and use of Ears to the St Ives helpers and working late to collect my equipment and to correlate the statistics and prepare things against the morning before I could afford to go to bed.
We had a fairly mild but quite showery and wet day but by the end of it, by my figures, we had got out over 80% of our vote and over 70% of the electorate as a whole.
Another full day of activity as I marched our St Ives area troops into battle in a very tight campaign for polling day. It started with the die-hards getting up early to deliver reminders to all our supporters before the polls opened at 7.00am.
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I was also up early checking on progress and drove over to see the polls open and our tellers started upon their tasks just to make sure things were all right. Then home for breakfast and to walk Sam as he was going to be left for most of the day. I returned to get the computer systems fired up and underway and took time explaining the operation and use of Ears to the St Ives helpers so that they could use it effectively in future campaigns.
I had some trouble interpreting the data of the new Ears version that was a worry but eventually got it sorted out to our satisfaction. Then came the cultural problems in getting activists to break the habits of a lifetime. It was very difficult to get the helpers out in the morning for the knock up of the elderly and even the afternoon was hard going. I got candidate, agent and operator knocking up at one stage to make up for the lack of day-time helpers and then, come the evening, the helpers arrived in an excessive deluge!
It was hard getting our St Ives colleagues going at it, and the Tories were also putting up a very strong organisation against us, but it was a great learning and training experience. The unfortunate factor was that the count was not to be held until the next morning and so the evening ended in anti-climax. I stayed at Hilton egging on the helpers to knock up until close of poll and then, gathering up the data there, drove over to Hemingford Abbots to collect my equipment and head off home.
Then I still had to reassemble my computer, correlate the statistics and prepare things against the morning before I could afford to go to bed. Between all this activity, I also got back in late afternoon to take Sam for a short walk, gulp some sandwiches and tea and then shave and change for the evening session.
I found Diana hosting a tea party with her sister-in-law and cousins. Earlier, she went to St Neots shopping and looked around the market. No longer does she go to Weightwatchers on Thursdays as it did not get her any slimmer in the end. We had a fairly mild but quite showery and wet day but by the end of it, by my figures, we had got out over 80% of our vote and over 70% of the electorate as a whole