Hello and welcome to the very first WE For HWB newsletter! An introductory word first, so they will be shorter than this going forward, I promise :)

This monthly mailout is designed to keep the residents of Hatch Warren and Beggarwood up-to-date with everything that I, Stacy Hart, and the Basingstoke branch of the Women’s Equality Party (WE) are doing in and around the ward for the benefit of residents, and also to let you know about opportunities to meet us and ask any questions or raise any local issues.

Firstly, thank you so much again to those of you who voted for me in the local elections. I was thrilled and overwhelmed with my amazing vote share, and coming in third ahead of four other candidates from far older and more well-established parties. I have decided that I want to carry on working in the community for the benefit of residents and this newsletter is my way of engaging with the local community about how WE are doing that.

So without further ado…

I’ll be at the Portsmouth Arms this Wednesday 22nd June 7pm to 9pm. This is the return of the Ask Me Anything sessions I did in the run-up to the election and a chance for residents to come along for a chat of an evening if they wish.

WE Basingstoke‘s next big event is this coming Monday, 27th June, at 4pm at Winklebury Football Complex. WE are rallying support for our school sports equality campaign, in which we argue that funnelling kids into so-called 'boy' and 'girl' school sports based on their gender is limiting, damaging and wrong. You can see more about that campaign on the Facebook event page and the short video explaining the campaign in the discussion below it. The rally will only be an hour or so, absolutely *everyone* is welcome, and there will be free fun football games for kids of all ages and genders.  Change happens when we show up and make it so why not come on down, bring your family and demonstrate why Basingstoke schools need to be progressive leaders on this issue, for the sake of all our children!

I volunteered at the Beggarwood community cafe last week; this is a lovely way of meeting local residents and serving the community at the same time, because the cafe often relies on extra volunteer assistance. I hope to do one or two days a month and will try to give advance notice on our Facebook page @wepasingstoke so you can pop in and see me. Similarly I’ll be working the community lunch there on 6th July as I have every lunch since February. Come along and say hi!

Lastly, we are preparing for the upcoming meeting of the Licensing Committee at the Council on the 4th July. This follows an important piece of work that WE submitted to the committee, demonstrating why licensing rules need to be updated to better protect women and minoritised groups in licensed venues. Council meetings can be accessed live online as well as attended at the Council offices if you'd like to attend or tune in. You can read our submission to the Licensing Committee via linktr.ee/basingstoke if you’d like to know more: we really believe this change will help protect Basingstoke residents.

I’m here to listen to and learn from the residents of Hatch Warren and Beggarwood, so if there are ways you'd like to engage that I haven’t detailed here, please email [email protected], so WE can better serve the community. Maybe you and a couple of neighbours would like to hold a Picnic And Politics chat in your garden or a park one day, while we have the weather to do it? Any ideas welcome!

Please do tell your friends, neighbours and families about this new newsletter, so we can make it as accessible as possible. Thanks for coming on board and for reading.

Best wishes,

Stacy Hart