Wednesday, July 15, 2009

On the "dog and bone" for Norwich North Labour

Tonight we held a telecanvass session in the heart of the East End (Stratford High Street, Newham, E15) for Labour candidate Chris Ostrowski who is standing in next week’s Norwich North by-election.

Some of us were using the Labour Party “Virtual Phone Bank” (see pictures – showing training data only). This is an Internet resource available to all Labour Party members. You can make telecanvass calls on behalf of the Party to and from all over the UK.

All you need to do is log on at the Labour Party Members Net (you just need your party membership number) then once you have created an account - click on to the Virtual Phone Bank link. There is a straight foreword training and practice session then you can select which CLP you want and start ringing people.

You are given names, telephone numbers and a script. You just input the answers with your mouse. Many people nowadays have free telephone call packages– especially “off peak”. So you don’t even need to come into a call centre but you could ring from home.

Due to limited computers and laptops we also got members canvassing our Plaistow North ward as well.

I thought that the canvass went quite well. It is always hard to judge and this is a difficult time for the Party at the moment. But I found that the people I managed to speak to were on the whole pleased to be contacted and to be canvassed for their vote. There was overall positive Labour support and certainly no great appetite for any other opposition Party.

I am really fond of Norfolk and Norwich and have a lot of really good trade union members there who I hope will be supporting Chris.

The election is next week and we will have another central telecanvass session in the Stratford Party Rooms on Tuesday but we will be encouraging all West Ham members with access to also log on from home, get on their East End “dog and bone” and canvass for Chris in Norwich North.

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