nourishing obscurity

I had to think out whether to do these updates here or not, as most news is now carried by the Albion Alliance site.  So this is mainly for my own readers who pop in on their rounds and not for the UK as a whole.

Yesterday was good, that’s for sure.  The teething troubles were overcome and some real anomalies needed to be addressed.  We’re now in the less exciting phase of the second wave signatories, after the initial rush and when the novelty has begun to wear off.

At the same time, the email writing and phoning has begun in earnest and in my case, I’m getting about a 20% return rate.  The higher up the ladder in UK politics, the less return we’re getting, which is to be expected.  That’s why this began as a grassroots affair.

Blogging and visiting have suffered for three days but I’ll be back into this and I’m only allowing a certain amount of the day on the Albion stuff, in an attempt to keep things in perspective.

To an extent, I’m being looked at for the lead whereas what it really needs is for it to follow an established pattern – signatories to get going and write to anyone they can think of, whether inside the blogosphere or outside [I have six people with no internet connection interested] and how to count their signatures is a problem.  I simply can’t get out on the street yet and ask but from what I saw yesterday, when it was explained clearly to them, they saw it and wanted to be part of this push.

We’re going to be forced to go on the street from time to time in as many towns as possible but money is our thing – we don’t have any for glossy literature.  What can we do?  Print some basic leaflets with one paragraph and an email address?  Which?  Mine?  Every firm has this issue – the cold telecalling and advertising.

We’re not a party and we don’t have those resources.  We will put up a paypal but that is only going to cover admin costs and a little over.  Somewhere along the line, the signatories will need to get moving themselves to make this work and it can’t all be done in one day.

I am proceeding on the basis that if this thing is worth fighting for, no amount of exhortation on my part is going to get you to either do more or do less.  In the end, it’s down to how deeply you feel about this country as it is and whether you think the Albion Alliance is a useful mechanism for coordinating these efforts.

The press release next week will have to be worded well and it might have some effect, it might not.  We have the contact addresses now so we just have to word it succinctly and well.  You know how you yourselves feel about leaflet hander-outers on the street so that’s maybe not a good way to go.

Against this is that Christmas is coming and the winter belt tightening, all of which drive this sort of issue from many people’s minds.

The advice to us so far has been most constructive and we need to work it into the gameplan.  Thanks to all who’ve taken an interest.

‘Nuff for now.

Filed under: Politics & economics, Society & human issues