A Night to Remember: Tenterden Annual Dinner 2010

I warn you in advance that this post is going to have a distinctly personal edge.

I was invited to be one of the key speakers at the Tenterden at liberal Democrat Annual Dinner 2010 last year at the AGM. Barry Wright, our local party president requested that I talk about social networking and its use in politics and campaigning.

To my benefit, Shepway Liberal Democrat KCC Councillor Tim Prater had linked to an article via Twitter entitled Top 10 Reasons to use Social Media which gave me a starting point!

Getting There
However, I had to actually get to the dinner first. If you'd asked me prior to leaving yesterday, I would have said that driving to Tenterden was no problem.

I collected the other key speaker, Parliamentary Candidate Chris Took, and we set off in the dark with a relatively vague idea of where the restaurant The Station was.

It seems that my biggest mistake was attempting to turn round after I missed the restaurant! My rather lovely car hit a kerb and got lodged with the front wheels up in the air. because of my disability, I drive an automatic and this is also a front wheel drive. Moving the car proved to be very difficult! it was further hindered by the fact I've collected 4,000 freshly printed leaflets that afternoon that were in my boot! we ground to a halt at quarter past seven, the dinner was at half past seven, we finally arrived to a round of applause at half past eight!

The Dinner

The Station Restaurant is a wonderful cafe bar based at Tenterden Station, part of the Kent and East Sussex Railway and is staffed almost entirely by volunteers. Their service and food was impeccable and I would recommend anyone go there, irrespective of your interest in steam trains!

The Speech
Explaining social media to people that are not computer literate is a difficult subject to the best of times!

I began by revealing that myself and my partner tend to sit at either end of our three seater sofa with a laptop each and talk to each other on various networking sites. We do get ridiculed for this, but it is a growing trend in couples in their 20s. As I said to the audience, if myself and Dan are doing this and we are in our late 20s, imagine how teenagers are utilising social networking to communicate.

I then addressed Moores Law. while this concept applies to computer hardware, it can also be applied to social media and Internet software. Things are moving so quickly within digital technology and it is important to maintain a level of understanding and a level of strategic development within this market.

When I joined the Ashford Liberal Democrats last year, I largely took up the role of managing our Internet media. This included setting up a Face Book group (Ashford Liberal Democrat), a twitter accountband keeping actively involved with the local community online.

I tend to use social networking in campaigning not only to maintain communications, but also a former publication to get the message of our campaigns, news and policies to a wider audience.

When I knew I would be attending the Tenterden Annual Dinner, I could post that on Twitter, which informed 200 odd people. I could then post a link on the Ashford Face Book sites, which would inform a further 6000 people. I can then take the information and send out to every single Ashford community group Face Book site, from the Remembering Ashford The Way It Was to the Ashford R&B appreciation Society. By doing this I can probably hit an additional 5000 people.

Having such phenomenal power to communicate with so many people by doing something that is essentially free and takes a few minutes is a superb position to be in.

The Liberal Democrats suffer from being ignored by the major press and put on the back pages and latter paragraphs. However, by having a presence elsewhere, we can get our message across.

I also spoke about the various demographics that use Internet communications. While yes, the majority of people online are young, I have seen an increasing trend in older people and pensioners taking up the Internet. Not only do fantastic campaigns by Age UK assist in "getting people online", but these people often have more time to access the Internet for whatever reason.

There is also an interesting growth in people with disabilities using the Internet for further communication. A user of voice recognition software myself, I appreciate that the Internet is utilised by a variety of people who have difficulty communicating in other ways. For people with mobility difficulties, it may be their prime source of community as they are unable to get out and about as freely as other people. In that respect, I think the Internet is fantastic.

I also raised the issue of social media allowing campaigning and communications to remain local and personal. If I have something to say about Ashford, I can add a hash tag on Twitter, or I can make sure that I target specific groups. one brilliant example with face book that I utilised with the ability to see when people having celebrations. Therefore I knew that it was Barry Wright's birthday and brought along a card. By being aware of local issues and having a continuous stream of promotions and events, it has enabled the Liberal Democrats, not only in Ashford, but also across the country to become more involved with the local communities and raise their own profiles.

There is a wealth of ideas through which you can use Internet campaigning. Simply for acquiring signatures on petitions, raising money for charity events or providing people with posters that they can present themselves to advertise your events that they're interested in, it is a world that we need to be involved in in order to move politics into the 21st century.

The End

Chris Took provided a wonderful speech engineered to "whip the local group into a frenzy" with a great deal of focus on preparing for his second election as a PPC and raising the profile of Ashford Liberal Democrats across the entire constituency.

All in all a very successful evening, even if it did start somewhat badly in relation to my poor car!