So, in April my Champion Challenges were all about preparing for the mass lobby of Parliament with the Climate Coalition.
The easy challenges were pretty easy and thanks to LNER’s free WiFi for all, and the wonders of my Fairphone smartphone (a concession to motherhood when my daughter was born, which has, up to now, been primarily used to to arrange cake and caffeination sessions over WhatApp with fellow mums at 3am) I was able to tick those off on the way home from the meeting.
I started on the harder challenge on the way home too, with a round of e-mails, texts and WhatsApp shout outs whilst still energised from the kick off. I followed up with a notice in the parish bulletin and collaring parishioners over coffee, especially anyone with a reusable coffee cup. Sometimes I did that last one whilst breastfeeding…. Actually the harder challenge was pretty hard for the following reasons:
- I live in Newcastle upon Tyne – that’s about three hours from London on a direct train or around 5 hours on a coach. Flying is allegedly quicker (though I am unconvinced given time required for security and for journeying between airports and city centres), but would be patent madness for a climate lobby. Asking people to attend a lobby in London means asking anyone local to undertake a long day with a lot of travel. Having done day trips to London for work and other reasons I can attest it is pretty knackering. Many of the people I asked said it was beyond them.
- The 26th of June is a Wednesday. Wednesday is a good day for catching MPs in Parliament as there is a lot going on, including PMQs, which seems to be quite the spectator sport even though it appears to me to achieve almost exactly nothing productive. Wednesday is also a day when a lot is going on in other workplaces and schools; it’s a day your kids have to be somewhere on time, possibly with PE kit and a packed lunch, and your employer expects you at your desk/till/workstation or whatever unless you have used a portion of your limited annual leave to escape said obligation. The law says the kids can’t escape theirs at all. So to disappear from family and professional life for a day mid week turns out for many people to be a fairly enormous ask and one that is at least partially out of their hands.
- People are actually a bit shy about this stuff. They just are.
So, my target of five additional attendees from my efforts has yet to be met (if you want to help me out sign up and comment below). I have one extra attendee, three definitely writing to their MP or booking a local surgery appointment and a couple who were already going before I collared them.
To help with the distance, timing and shyness issues we’re going to invite local people to share a message for our MP, Nick Brown, via a scrapbook at the Heaton Festival on June 22nd and those of us able to go will pass it along.
Small Hands 