Many thanks to Geoff for creating a great blog for Julian Sturdy, the Conservative parliamentary candidate for York Outer. He is also on facebook and twitter.
Despite the brilliance of these social media tools, they are no substitute for face to face interaction with local communities and getting down to the grassroots which I really enjoy, meeting as many people as possible. Julian realises this too and regularly campaigns in his area on local issues.
I shall be filming him tomorrow in action with a neat video camera loaned to my by 18 Doughty Street and I hope to use it for some citizen journalist posts once I get the hang of it.
In fact, if you check out the 18 DS site, you can see an excellent video made by a would-be Labour contender for York Outer featuring James Alexander. Paul Blanchard, who is also keen to be the constituency’s Labour contestant, has signed up as a facebook friend of Julian’s and suggested they meet up for lunch. It’s so refreshingly civilised.
*I’m afraid my computer has been tortuously slow today and this post has taken me two hours to write, it keeps downloading files and making updates and whirring noises in the background. As the USB connecter has packed up, and exhaustive attempts by professionals have failed to repair it, I have been forced to buy a new computer which will be delivered next week. I couldn’t resist this slim and powerful model by Dell, especially as they have looked after me so brilliantly in the past ….
So Elle, what do you think of the launch of the London Mayoral Campaign bid by Boris “the most famous conservative”
And what do you think of the ‘new’ eleven plus test, all those who fail Maths & English will have to repeat the school year …
I’m not so much worried about eleven year olds being bullied or mocked by ten year olds, but rather the eleven year olds who fail maths and english becoming bullies and tormenting ten year olds. Not an easy one, those who have less ability or more ‘distractions’ generally need more tutoring, but are often the least keen. You’d think we have enough students and classrooms to have group B (and even group C) according to ability. The education system is complex, but everyone should get the same general education whilst realising some learn at different speeds – so that when they reach O levels they are funneled according to the student’s academic interest on a subject or ‘vocation’ rather than on what curriculae the school offers.
And what about Cameron’s conservative offer of a £6000 grant for students with learning difficulties, will this also apply to those who fail their eleven pluses?
Oh no Ellee, you’ll have to deal with Vista now. I hope it goes well because I’ve heard there are quite a few difficulties with Vista and getting one’s current hardware like printers, scanners and cameras and webcams operating.
Good luck with your videotaping
How come you write nice things about all these people and those Doughty Street people loan you stuff? No one ever does anything nice for me…Maybe I should become a Tory Parliamentary Candidate? Would you help me in this ?
Q9, good luck to Boris I say, he would make a great mayor.
I think if our young people had teachers who had to worry less about targets and could focus more on teaching, the results would reflect that.
Mutleydog, of course I’ll help you if you get selected, that’s the hard part. If you want to be a citizen’s journalist, you should contact 18 Doughty Street and see if they have a camera still available.
I look forward to your “citizen journalism ” posts, Ellee. I sympathise re the computer problems!
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