At your convenience

 

The next meeting of Sunniside History Society will be held on Wednesday 6th March at 7pm at Sunniside Social Club. The speaker is Richard Pears and he will be talking about the history of "The British Toilet". So be ready to take your seat. This is not a crap subject. Hopefully the meeting will be flushed with success. Etc......

Campaigning in Ryton

 

Ryton ward in Gateshead used to be Lib Dem held. Sadly, it went Labour in the Coalition years and before now we were not in a position to mount a strong campaign. But that is changing. We have a new candidate and a new determination to take on Labour in the ward. Steve Kelly has been adopted by the Lib Dems to take on Labour in the May local elections.

He had a meet-the-people event outside the Coop this morning so I went down to give him a hand. My job was to stand next to the main road holding one of our big diamond posters. I had five toots of support from passing drivers and one person shouted at me (I'm not sure it was complimentary!) All-in-all it was a good event and our profile in Ryton is starting to go back up. The challenging news for me is that in addition to managing election campaigns in Birtley and Whickham South and Sunniside, I am now looking after Ryton as well. Looks like a busy few months ahead.

Delivery complete in Sunniside

 

Focus on Sunniside has now been delivered. Hooray! The last patch went out over the weekend when one of our helpers took the Streetgate area. This patch has grown by 89 houses in recent years due to new house building. 

With my ward's Focus now fully delivered, I was able to spend some time in Saltwell over the weekend, helping to deliver our latest Focus there. I hear on the grapevine that Labour were out in Saltwell as well. There are hints of aspiring wannabee MPs hoping to get the selection for the new Gateshead Central and Whickham constituency. There are also hints that Labour may leave the selection of their candidate to the last minute, meaning the national party will parachute in one of their favourites. Given that nearly half the wards in this constituency are represented by Lib Dems, this one will be one to watch at the general election.