Well, I made it! Elected fourth out of fifteen to the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party, and I’m really thrilled (and a touch exhausted!).
At risk of being terribly dull and predictable, there are some people I have to thank. Ross Higgins and Keith Martin most of all – they acted as campaign managers, voter whips, canvassers extraordinaire and election agents, and I’m extremely grateful to them. My sister Sadhbh was immense this weekend – a new member of the Labour Party, she didn’t stop canvassing from the time we arrived until polls closed. Paul Daly, Claire Moss, Niamh Hayes, Jonathan McDade, Daniel Stanford, Carl Fox and Padraig DeBurca were all centrally involved in this campaign, and I appreciate all the help.
I’d also like to thank Cllr. Paddy Bourke, Cllr. Lettie McCarthy and Cllr. Seanie Lonergan for publicly supporting me, as well of all those who did so privately for one reason or another.
The first NEC meeting of the new committee will take place on December 1st. The first pledge which I will be fulfilling will be the dissemination of reports of NEC meetings to all interested members. Anyone interested in receiving this report can contact me at neil.ward@votelabour.ie
11,000 words, 10 weeks, 24/28 (can’t remember now!) branch/constituency meetings, 2 leaflet print-runs, two separate letters, hundreds of phonecalls and countless emails later, I’ve made it! This blog will probably be shut down completely soon, but I’ll be making one more post in the next few days, outlining some of my concerns with the process of NEC elections, and hopefully some proposals for how the method of election could be updated.
For now, I’m just happy, relieved and exhausted!!
Neil,
Congratulations!!!
Closing the blog though?? See Ann Black in the UK – Labour NEC member who has a website.
http://www.annblack.com/homepage.htm
Suzy
Thanks Suzy!
Well, this was an election blog, so it will probably be closing down alright.
I have committed to preparing reports on all NEC meetings, and distributing them to all interested members. I’ll be doing this primarily by email, and also posting them on the internal online members’ forum.
However, I’m unsure about public distribution of such reports. Deserves a think over it though!!
Even if this does close, I’ll be starting up another blog very soon, on which I’ll continue posting Labour-related stories, as well as more general political comment.
Thanks again,
Neil