Arranging a by-election meeting in the Hemingford Abbotts pub and persuading Mark Rainer to agree better arrangements for canvassing to involve more colleagues.
Earlier in the day my efforts had been to get out with Sam twice for some exercise and training and then with the family for lunch.
With Derek this evening to share his grief and family agonies over a close relative dying slowly of cancer.
I soon established in the course of a few telephone calls this morning that Mark Rainer was struggling with his election campaign. The first canvas of the remainder of the ward was unfavourable but then we usually leave the worst bits to last, and they may well have felt deserted until now.
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Mark was not using the efforts of agent Ron Heinrich and fellow-organiser Stuart Littlewood and is the type of character who wants to do everything himself. I arranged a meeting at his house for early in the evening having previously briefed Ron and Derek Giles to come.
This went very well, and I successfully prised some of the work away from him so that he will concentrate on canvassing and the third leaflet and Ron on recruiting the organisation for polling day and getting more poster sites. We ended up together at the pub in Hemingford Abbots after a tour of the village and could see that we were losing the first phase of the poster battle.
At least today's re-canvassing of formerly-out electors had been more positive and the first analysis of "re-canvassed undecideds" was very encouraging indeed. Earlier in the day my efforts had been to get out with Sam twice for some exercise and training and then with the family for lunch.
I tried to deal with some other matters but was still very tired. I was glad to be out with Derek this evening and to share his grief and family agonies over a close relative dying slowly of cancer. To bed latish after some drinks in the pub and ready to sleep well.