New ground petition

Quoted from BIGChris

you must have been in the SW too long!

when you posted that it was too late I thought you meant it was too late!!!

Silly me

Arp!  

I work in political campaigning so I have a few ideas about how we can influence Grimsby’s politicians. Firstly this is not an issue like crime, tax, the NHS etc which involves ideology, they are going to vote on basically electoral advantageous – i.e. where are the votes in this.

But it is a little more complicated than this, because some votes are more important than other votes.  In Grimsby’s example (These numbers are hypothetical) there may be 750 voters in Park Ward that are opposed to the new stadium. Across NE Lincs there may be say 3,000 voters who are for  the stadium and whose votes can be influenced by this issue. So 4 to 1 in favour of the stadium, you would think would indicate to local politicians that they should be supportive. Except that across NE Lincs 15 wards that only works at 200 voters per ward. The 200 probably won’t be big enough to decide an Election, whereas 750 votes in Park would be big enough to decide the election. The electoral advantage would be to decide to vote against a stadium.

The second big problem, is that the type of person who is going to be against the stadium is probably your blue rinse brigade, the one thing about the older voters is that they vote (and on mass). Politicians look after this group of people it’s why pensions have gone up year after year as pensioners vote, whereas student fees have gone up year on year as students don’t vote.

So my first big piece of advice is that if you want a new stadium, make sure you go out and vote on May 22nd. One scary thing most people don’t know is that political parties know whether people have voted or not. When you vote and you hand over your polling card to the clerk at your polling station, the clerk draws a line through your name (so you can’t vote twice) on the register of electors that is infront of him or her. Politicians have access to this.  They put this information into a database So a politician at a few clicks of a button can see whether you vote or not. And trust me politicians do look at this and make judgement calls on whether to help/do something for an individual based on their voting record.
The goal then has to make our local politicians think that there are a huge number of votes in their patch up for grabs, and they could be swept from office if they don’t vote for the stadium.

My first suggestion is posters, Councillors are irrationally fearful of a good poster campaign. While they are delivering leaflets, going out around the ward if they keep seeing posters it visually re-enforces a message. Posters also make politicians think there is more support out there than in reality there really is. At the last local elections, an opposition party had spent their time signing up poster sites and they got our Councillor convinced he was going to lose. In reality he romped home, much to his surprise on polling day. So we need to get a poster to everyone who signs the petition, or at least one that people can download and stick in their window – Something like on “May22nd I’m voting for a new stadium” would be a good tag line. (We’ve got an advantage that our club colours are black and white!)

Secondly, the petition is a really good idea, but I’m fearful that it’s a bit too online. It needs to be more community based, so petition sheets need to be in newsagents, libraries, pubs, cafe’s, hairdressers, anywhere in fact where people congregate. Get a freepost address and leave an envelope with the landlord, newsagent etc and ask them to post it back. This will get the volume of numbers necessary. At the moment the online petition has got only 500 more signers than defreitas’s petition. It needs to get up to 25,000 at least. Also make sure there is a space for email addresses (and put a big arrow next to email bit with the words “We can only let you know about the campaign if you leave your email address”) It would need to have the data protection wording. By harvesting emails, you can engage with a large group of people pretty much for free. There does need to be a data entry job here of putting the details. You could either set up an access database or alternatively just use Excel.

Thirdly, politicians hold advice surgeries (well most do) make sure we get a fair few people attending these advice surgeries in the run up to any particular vote. If they are seeing person after person telling them the same thing then this may well sway them.

We’ve got one really big advantage that we must not waste and that is there are two highly marginal Parliamentary constituencies in North East Lincs. Grimsby was won by just under 300 votes by Labour, It’s a top UKIP target and the Tories may need to win it if they want to be in Government post 2015. If Labour want to win the next election, they must win Cleethorpes. While it is a Council decision, do not underestimate the power MPs have in influencing local Councillors decisions. Therefore it’s important that anybody who cares about this writes to their local MP. If lots of people are telling the MP the same thing then they are likely to be influenced one way or another. You can find out who your MP is at http://www.theyworkforyou.com. But google your MP and don’t use theyworkforyou directly to contact them. Email/write to them at whatever address is listed on their website (and get friends/families to do this as well). You can do this as well for the Cleethorpes Labour candidate. I don’t know who has been selected for any of the parties for Grimsby, but at the moment it’s worthwhile emailing Austin Mitchell. Also make sure you email your MP and not the Grimsby MP, as MPs can only do work for their own constituents. These letters need to be polite, simply stating you are for the stadium and you wondered what their position is.

In terms of online activity, there needs to be a campaign facebook page, a twitter account and a website. This will allow good communication about campaigning activities but also will allow people to find out a click of a button who is supportive of the campaign and who is not.

One final point, is that Councillors are human, so do not slag them off as it may well be counterproductive. Don ‘t forget they are also friends with other Councillors. Andrew Defreitas may be an exception though as I don’t think he is persuadable!

With Hull making the FA cup final, and knowing the backing they had by their council to get the KC stadium built, this would be a good time to start pushing this petition around on Facebook and really push it out there. I've noticed after talking about today compared to talking about it a week ago, the interest in the matter has grown. So I say take advantage of the sudden interest and get it out there. UTM.

I think the trust, the club and or the campaign should get in touch with horse forth mariner. He talks an awful lot of good sense

Should be over 3500 by the end of the day

Quoted from forza ivano

I think the trust, the club and or the campaign should get in touch with horse forth mariner. He talks an awful lot of good sense

Should be over 3500 by the end of the day

Already been in touch.

Could do with a few more helpers with leaflet delivery this week. A couple of hours or so? E-mail enquiries@marinerstrust.co.uk

Incidentally we will publish a list of  which standing councillors have indicated they are for, against or simply not responded prior to Thursdays elections