Wednesday 15 October 2008

Hanging on in there!

Each day, as the clock ticks remorselessly round to 3pm, the butterflies start their daily exercise in my stomach. For 3pm is the time we get to hear who has been evicted from "I'm a Councillor...Get me out of here!"

So far, I've survived three evictions. Leaving us this week have been Gill Cartwright and Kate Davies for the Conservatives and Cyndi Hughes for Labour. Now, though, I'm up against the big two: Labour Cabinet members Chris McEwan and Jenny Chapman.

Jenny is the Chair of Newblood and really knowledgeable about youth issues. Chris is the portfolio holder for Children and Young People, so knows everything that's going on. He also has a block vote from the EV, where his daughter's at school!

Still, there's nothing Lib Dems like more than an election, and I've had a great time doing this. School visits and Question Times, live online chatrooms, interactive question and answer sessions. It's been really informative as well as great fun.

Go and have a look: www.bigvote.org.uk. Log on as a guest and scroll down to Darlington. There are dozens of answered questions on each person's page. Some are quite painful to read, particularly about bullying. Others are just hilarious. They all get an answer, though.

2 comments:

Mike said...

The site's being a bit flaky about guest access at the moment. Sometimes I get in, other times I get denied access.

Who got the boot today?

I've been enjoying reading the Q&As, though some of the kids don't seem to realize that you're all already councillors :)

What a shame it's not see easy for everyone to ask questions and recieve answers from all the councillors.

Mike Barker said...

We said goodbye to Kate today.

One of my questions from a student called Hannah today echoed your comment. Here's the question and my answer:

Q: i think it is great we're being given this chance to talk to you guys.why is it only happening now, and will there be other stuff like this?how do we contact you at othertimes of the year?

A: That's a really good question and you're the first person to ask it!
I think it's been great fun on here and I've found out loads about what you all think about and what you'd like to see happen in Darlington.
We were talking about this yesterday and saying there should be some new interactive space on the Council's website so that everyone can send in questions and ideas for the Council or individual Councillors to answer.

I think that would be a great idea.
But for now, if anyone wants to talk to a Councillor their phone numbers and email addresses are on the Darlington Borough Council website. We're easy to get hold of really!
Asked by: Hannah123