Bristol & Gloucestershire Conservative Future

The archive pages of this website will be used to feature some of the highlights from Conservative Future in Bristol and Gloucestershire.

Comments and Captions by CF Area Chairman, Nick Webb or Deputy Chair & Web Manager, Laura-Rose Saunders.

February 9th various members of CF take part in Charlotte Leslie's Campaign day in Bristol North West.

February 7th Glocestershire CF Pub quiz at Gloucester Conservative club. Huge sucess and great fun.

January 29th Nick Attended BUCA AGM

January 27th CF HustingsCF Bristol and Gloucestershire were lucky enough to hold one of the non-London based hustings. Chaired by John Moorcraft, speeches from Nick and Charlotte Leslie PPC for Bristol North-West and attended by National Chairman Candidates Michael Rock, Matthew Richardson and Daryl Williams, and NME Candidates Steven Ricketts, Owen Meredith, Matt Lewis, Anastasia Beaumont-Bott, Christian May and Patrick Sullivan. See http://www.nicolaswebb.com/ for pictures from the Hustings and more detailled reviews.

January 26th Keynsham Campaign day
Nick and a few other members travelled down to help out Jacob Rees-Mogg with his campaign day.

January 19th Cheltenham Campaign day
Bristol and Gloucestershire CF members were out in force with PPC for Cheltenham Mark Coote. The day was spent out and about delivering leaflets. Some of the hardier members were out the whole time some of the er slightly less hardy toke the rain as a sign to mean 'Tea break'. All in all another successful day.

January 3rd 2008 - Planning Ahead
Bristol & Glos CF members met in Charlton Kings, Cheltenham to discuss plans for 2008 CF events and emphasise the importance of the forthcoming local elections.

December 14th 2007– Cheltenham CF Christmas Drinks
Mark Coote PPC for Cheltenham joined members of CF Gloucestershire for drinks at the Beehive pub Cheltenham. The event was a chance to review the past year's successes and failures and gave a great opportunity to make some solid plans for the future of CF Gloucestershire and in Conservative Campaigns in the future.

December 8th 2007 – Away day in Hereford

Nick Webb, Laura-Rose Saunders, Michael Rock and Nathan Cavin join Jesse Norman PPC out and about Campaigning.

Members of Bristol and Glouecstershire CF braved the fierce winds and torrential rain to help Jesse Norman PPC for Hereford and CF Patron collect signatures for the 'Save our Post Offices' Campaign. The aim of the day was not to promote Jesse but merely to make residents aware of the situation with the post offices and aware of the fact that their Tory PPC is doing something to rectify the situation.

November 29th 2007– Jesse Norman is Guest Speaker at Gloucester CF event

Jesse Norman was our guest speaker at Gloucestershire CF this month, members met up in Gloucester Conservative Club in the Blue room under the careful eyes of Maggie and Churchill. Jesse gave a brief speech on why he decided to take a more active interest in politics then toke questions, however rather than simply answerring with his own opinions he turned the questions round and asked each CF member what their ideas and solutions would be if it was their problem to solve. Was nice to hear CF express their views and opinions as well as the geust speaker.

31^st October – Damien Green MP addresses BUCA

Bristol University Conservative Association was pleased to welcome Damian Green the Shadow secretary for Immigration for his talk on why vote conservative. Although it seems obvious these event s are useful as we can spread the conservative message and explain what modern conservatism is all about.

The evening started at 6pm, with a short speech, but soon went on to a question and answer session with many interesting topics being discussed, from immigration and refugees, to the growing burden of taxation on students as well conservative health and education policies.

The evening finished with a free food and drinks provided by BUCA and the politics continued all the way to the pub.

October 4 th 2007– Mark Harper MP at Gloucestershire CF

Mark Harper MP with Deputy Area Chairman Laura-Rose Saunders

Mark Harper MP for the Forest of Dean was the guest speaker at the Beehive pub in Cheltenham. Mark spoke about his experiences in politics and the highs and lows of his career then allowed members to ask him questions on any topic they so chose. Topics included Military service, NHS reforms, Saving the Post Offices and the benefits system. We were also pleased to invite Mark to be a Patron of Bristol and Gloucestershire CF and we are delighted to say that he accepted.

4^th & 5^th October – BUCA Freshers' Fair

The election fever showed at BUCA stall this year where the Bristol University Conservative Association signed up over 100 members, the largest the society has been for many years.

Charlotte Leslie, the candidate for Bristol North West, was also present listening to the student issues first hand and recruiting for her election campaign which seemed imminent in those early October days.

BUCA also handed out voting registration forms to ensure that students were able to register for the elections and not robbed of their votes by the petty bureaucracy at the council.

While our rock from the conference went down well with the students the main message we got from the two days was an utter disillusionment with Labour and how impressed everyone was with Cameron's speech. Even the Labour and Lib-Dems grudgingly admitted it was a good speech.

28^th September – UWE Freshers Fair

This time every year sees the University Year recommence with old students returning and new students arriving. As a way to welcome the new students or 'Freshers' to University life a 'Freshers' Fayre' is held to show students that there is in fact more to life than studying, books, and lectures and also to give them the opportunity to try something new for the first time.

Bristol and Gloucestershire CF had a stand at the University of Gloucestershire Freshers' Fayre to encourage new students to get involved with politics. The stand was not hard to miss not only because of the numerous blue 'Conservative' balloons and posters of members at various different events but also as it was the only politically orientated stand there.

Apart from recruiting potential members Student Surveys were handed out as a way of finding out which issues that affect student life and the issues students feel passionately about. Around 40 of these were returned and provided useful information about local and national issues. A couple of issues mentioned were 'English Vote for English issues', 'Troops out of Iraq by the start of next year' and slightly less seriously 'an outlaw on Burberry and Chavism'.

This was a very worthwhile day and on behalf of everyone at Bristol and Gloucestershire CF I would like to thank Simon Probert, Hazel Smith, Samantha Hunt, Cllr Antonia Noble, Cllr Anne-Marie Gregory, Gordon Taylor, David Anderton, James Skinner, John McGlade and Nick Webb for all their hard work.

July 2007 - CF helps distribute drinking water in Gloucestershire following the floods

Due to the recent death of the Conservative County Councillor for Warden hill, Lansdown and Park wards August 16th 2007 will see a by-election held, the Conservative Candidate is Antonia Noble. The past few weeks have seen various different CF members out and about in Cheltenham helping Antonia leaflet drop, canvass and generally helping out with the campaign.

Last Saturday was the first of two main action days, despite the torrential rain and flooding the day before, CF members and Mark Coote PPC were not detured and were out in force canvassing and handing out leaflets, postal vote forms and, to the more hardy Tory residences, 'Vote Antonia' posters.

This by-election is important for two reasons. One, we would love to see Antonia get elected and become a County Councillor and two, any votes gained here help put Mark in a better position to win in Cheltenham. At present he needs around 600 more supporters before he'll go from PPC to MP.

We had a good first meeting of the newly merged Glos CF branch. It was great to see CF members who'd not met each other before chatting, sometimes about politics, with new people and the Gloucester PPC.

The formal side of the evening saw James, Annie, John, Laura, Simon, Hazel, Gordon, Manpreet and Owen appointed to the Glos CF Executive. Five out of the six Gloucestershire constituencies are represented among that number.

Thanks to all those who made it and also to those who took the time to let me know they were unable to attend I'm sure you'll catch up with the group soon. We've got a strong team in place to take Glos CF forward and I'm sure many, if not all of that group, will have the chance to progress through the party.

Local CF members joined Gloucester PPC Richard Graham in painting the cafe area at the Phoenix Centre in Matson. The centre provides educational opportunities for people with mild mental health problems and learning difficulties. Here are a couple pictures of my paint splattered CF team in action.

A relaxed evening arranged by David Anderton which saw Gordon overcome the disadvantage of having me on his team to win.

April 2007 - Local CF members and Royal Agricultural College Students Meet Up

Following this meeting we were able to plan ahead to forming a royal Agricultural College CF branch and ensure good links between the local CF members and the college branch.

Mark Harper MP, Shadow Defence Minister, and Carys Parry (Regional Campaign Director) spoke of the process in becoming an MP and also a Councillor. They provided candid advice on the process of applying for a place on the approved candidates list and the skills and attributes those selecting will look for. After the talk there were a lot of questions both on the processes and also for Mark on defence issues. I think everyone there found the event very useful. Here are a couple photos from the event in Bristol.

Richard Graham, our candidate for Gloucester, led a team of four CF members in painting a room at the Family Haven centre in the town.

29th Feb 2007 - Geoffrey Clifton Brown MP was the special guest at Cirencester CF event.

16^th Feb 2007 – Charlotte Leslie was our guest at Westbury on Trym, Bristol CF event