May seems like such a long time ago now, but a few things have prompted me recently to look back on the campaign of earlier in the year and peer forward into the future.
Then…
The result of this year’s election was such an encouragement. Thank you everyone who placed their confidence in me! Whilst I would really have loved to have beaten Labour into second place, I was very pleased with the 469 votes that Oakwood residents blessed me with. As my technically minded husband likes to point out thats 50% increase on the 316 votes of 2016 – anyone would be happy with that type of improvement!
Since…
July saw a very successful Oakwood Festival take place on the park. There were lots of community groups represented and charities fundraising for their cause. Myself and a very small team of people worked very hard to bring the event to fruition and, having started with nothing in the coffers, we now have a nice little amount to invest in next years event – hopefully making it bigger and better.
I am well into the swing of my role as District Commissioner for Chaddesden and Oakwood District Girlguiding. I have met lots of girls and supported the leaders in different ways. I am now running a Rainbow group as well as assisting at Brownies. We have held a District event at Parkview School to celebrate the 75th Birthday of our affiliated group the Trefoil Guild and we are looking forward to our next event to celebrate Thinking Day in 2019. We have been fundraising to support one of our young members attend the World Scout Jamboree in Virginia, USA next year and we are working hard to introduce the new Girlguiding programme that was launched over the summer.
I am still supporting the endeavours of Oakwood Resident’s Association as they try to improve the local community for everyone – one of the current initiatives being to make Oakwood a dementia friendly community.
Springwood Church finally became independent from Woodlands Church in Allestree at the start of October and some of the projects I am involved in this term are the ‘Who let the Dad’s out?’, which is running at the Community Centre on a Saturday morning every other month, and also the Light party which is taking place at half term.
Now…
Looking back the 2018 campaign was a huge amount of work and expense (£300 from my own pocket) and this has to be considered when deciding whether to stand again in 2019. I don’t have the cogs of a party machine working in the background, the data about which houses vote on which side at my disposal or a team of people who will come out just to support a party they believe in regardless of the candidate. My whole campaign relies on the grace and favour of friends and family – people that believe in me, and my values, and want to see a change from party politics in the city. Everyone leads such busy lives that it seems unfair to ask people to give up their free time to help champion my cause.
That said I still believe passionately that the people of Derby should be represented with an independent voice. I strikes me that what is missing from politics these days is the value of people – policies can be put in place with no consideration for the impact on people (just on the finances); consultations are run to get the views of the people and then the results are ignored; long serving councillors can be ruthlessly deselected for no apparent reason…
And so it seems that my name will be on the ballot paper next year… watch this space…
Alex Dann - Independent Candidate for Oakwood Councillor 