You know that feeling when you suddenly find you're co-coordinating a large portion of an election campaign and really have no idea what you're doing but you're going to give it your best shot any way? No. Neither did I. Do now.

That was my facebook status just 6 days ago!

Just under a fortnight ago we elected our candidate, Leisa Taylor, and had a really productive meeting looking at our hopes and concerns for the election.

I wasn’t sure how the meeting was going to pan out, especially looking at our Hopes and Fears, an idea I borrowed from our Women's March on London Huddle. Turned out it was a really good way to get a feel for our branches motivations for running in the election. It was also great to see that we are all very much on the same page.

We got a great overview of the issues that we may face and the actions we need to take to ensure that we avoid them and them, or at least do our best to navigate through them.

Our first excitement was discovering that the required 10 sponsorship names could not come from anyone in the county but rather from people in the Rainbow Hill ward. Leisa worked tirelessly and spent the day getting the required signatures. (Hooray!) whilst the rest of the team cheered her on from the virtual sidelines.

For my part I did a lot of reading.

The challenge for me has been to pull together the many threads and issues into something trackable whilst using only freely available and easily accessible tools! 

I think we're getting there with a combination of cloud storage and free project managers!

This weekend I have been focused on discovering our volunteer availability. As data manager I'm well placed to group and contact members and volunteers. But not everyone is contactable 24/7 and some people actually value their quiet weekends!

My other big challenge has been to organise our walk routes for canvassing. I'd been dreading this part as I have little ground-knowledge of this particular part of Worcester. But you know, I've been slowly coming to the realization that it's okay not to know what you're doing when you start. You just start. Put one foot in front of the other, solve the first puzzle and move on to the next. 

So, I gritted my teeth and started. Now we have a week's worth of routes good to go. 

I know I'll feel better once we've seen how our first week of canvassing goes.

Leisa and two others took the first step this evening and tomorrow will be my first time canvassing. I'm nervous but also excited to crack this new life challenge!

If you'd like to get involved too, please get in touch!

Written by Jemma McCarron