Category Archives: Events

Alex Foster

WED: Green Lib Dems annual conference

By Alex Foster | Fri 5th June 2009 - 10:25 pm

News reaches the Voice of the Green Lib Dem’s annual conference, unfortunately just a little too late to promote it in time for the early registration rates:

SESSIONS INCLUDE: “The Great Nuclear Debate”; “Greening Your Council”; “Transition Towns”; “Eco Housing”; “Green Campaigning Workshop”

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS: Simon Hughes MP; Chris Huhne MP; Heather Kidd PPC; Donnachadh McCarthy, Media Environmentalist; Lembit Opik MP

PRICES HELD AT 2008 RATES – BOOK NOW TO ENSURE A PLACE

Registrations received after 5th June

GLD members £22 (for both days) £14 (single day rate)

Non members £28 (for both days) £18 (single day rate)

Conference fees include lunch. A separate Saturday evening

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The Voice

Walk with Brian for equality

By The Voice | Sun 12th April 2009 - 3:06 pm

An email drops into The Voice’s inbox from Brighton & Hove Lib Dems, which we are very happy to share:

Liberal Democrats in Brighton and Hove are calling on colleagues from across the South East to join Brian Paddick as he leads the Stonewall Equality Walk. The annual 10km walk takes place on Sunday 3rd May from 1pm meeting at the Royal Pavilion grounds. Last year Lib Dem campaigners raised over £1,200 for Stonewall.

Lib Dem Council Group Leader Paul Elgood said: ‘Come to Brighton and help support Brian as he leads the Stonewall Equality Walk. It’ll be an enjoyable day for

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Alex Foster

ALDC’s “Local Solutions” conference – book now!

By Alex Foster | Tue 31st March 2009 - 11:01 am

An email arrived yesterday reminding me that today, 31st March, is the last opportunity to register for early bird rates for ALDC’s Local Solutions conference in June.

Last year, LDV made recordings of the plenary sessions – still available here, here and here – if you want a flavour of the day. We intend to be there in June – and our aim will be to ask councillors across the UK to write more for LDV on how Lib Dems are making a difference on the ground.

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Alex Foster

On being a councillor

By Alex Foster | Tue 31st March 2009 - 8:49 am

Last night, I joined Steve Hitchins and Laura Willoughby at Birmingham Council House for a training event all about encouraging local parties and council groups to recruit a new generation of councillors.

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Helen Duffett

New voting system proposed: Majority Judgement.

By Helen Duffett | Tue 17th March 2009 - 4:09 pm

Do the voting systems of the world’s democracies elect the candidates the electorate really wants? Voting theorists Michel Balinski and Rida Laraki say that often they don’t, and that this raises serious questions about legitimacy to rule.

Voting Power and Procedures is presenting a series of lectures this week at the London School of Economics by Professors Balinski and Laraki, who will introduce their new voting system, Majority Judgement.

From the Voting Power and Procedures press release:

“From political and corporate elections to wine and figure skating competitions (and Strictly Come Dancing), the speakers claim their system succeeds where others fail.

Lecture 1:

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The Voice

Stephen Kearney and Julia Olsen on Community Organising

By The Voice | Tue 2nd December 2008 - 9:17 pm

Bermondsey and Old Southwark Liberal Democrats invite you to hear Community Organisers Stephen Kearney (Henley by-election candidate) and Julia Olsen speak following their AGM. The AGM is at 7pm for 7.30pm and Stephen and Julia speak at 8pm. The AGM is for members only, but all are welcome to attend the talk afterwards.

From Bermondsey and Old Southwark Liberal Democrats:

Stephen Kearney and Julia Olsen are both members of the Liberal Democrats. During the late 1980s, they set up a charity that creates networks of individuals who take a role in changing the way public services are delivered and changing the priorities

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Helen Duffett

Inspiration for Liberal Democrat women

By Helen Duffett | Mon 29th September 2008 - 1:53 pm

On 27th September the latest “Inspiration Day” was held in London by the Campaign for Gender Balance. These are friendly and informal events, designed to give female members the opportunity to learn more about becoming more active in the Liberal Democrats.

More than fifty women attended Saturday’s session, which included advice on becoming an MP, a Councillor, or a member of one of the Party’s committees. Training on key skills was given and everyone had a chance to contribute and to ask questions.

Commenting afterwards, Layla from Acton said, “I hope …

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Labour and the Lib Dems

By Gavin Whenman | Sun 14th September 2008 - 5:58 pm

To the Marriott Highcliff Hotel for CentreForum and the Fabian Society’s lunchtime fringe: Labour and the Lib Dems: Allies or enemies? Squeezing myself between John Piennar and Rita Chakrabarti, it was standing room only as I watched Stephen Williams, David Lammy, Vince Cable and Charles Clarke argue their respective points.

Nabbing the free orange juice (it’s apparently politer to say “complementary”, but not once did the juice say how nice I’m looking) as I arrived, Stephen Williams was finishing his opening remarks and so I cannot regale you with the nuanced argument he made. Suffice to say, his overwhelming intelligence was …

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Alex Foster

LDV conference events flyer

By Alex Foster | Mon 8th September 2008 - 11:24 am

I think we may have mentioned once or twice already that we have the odd event or two at conference.

Just to help you keep us in your mind, LDV’s resident PagePlus Monkey has now produced a handy flyer for you to print out and put with your conference papers before heading down to Bournemouth on Friday night or Saturday morning – or even making a special trip just to drink with us on Monday evening.

The flyer even includes a helpful map showing the venue of our chosen pub in relation to the conference centre, thanks to our friends …

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Alex Foster

Events on Facebook

By Alex Foster | Thu 4th September 2008 - 6:14 pm

As you may remember, we’re running a few events at conference – we first blogged about them here.

Well now, thanks to the miracle of Facebook, you can let us know whether you’re coming. Two of our events, Liberal Drinks and the Blog Award Ceremony now have funky event pages on Facebook, all neatly populated with hundreds of non-attending invitees, fancy pictures nicked from Stock Exchange.

Conference itself has a Facebook event too, and many individual associations are setting up events for their fringes, like this Delga AGM.

If you’d like to highlight an event at …

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Alex Foster

Building Liberal Communities 3

By Alex Foster | Tue 17th June 2008 - 9:14 am

Continuing our series of podcasts from the ALDC / LGA Lib Dem Group conference last Saturday (part 1 / part 2) we bring you a recording of the final session of the day.

Cllr Sue Anderson, Birmingham City Council cabinet member for health and adult services talks of her work; and Julia Goldsworthy MP lets us know what she’s currently working on in her role as Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

Also posted in Local government and Podcasts | Tagged | 1 Comment
Alex Foster

Building Liberal Communities 2

By Alex Foster | Mon 16th June 2008 - 9:45 am

As we heard yesterday, the party held a local government conference in Birmingham over the weekend.

Today’s podcast contains the keynote speakers from the lunchtime session. The star-studded panel included Cllr John Commons, Mayor Dorothy Thornhill, Shadow Environment Secretary Prof Steve Webb MP and Shadow Home Secretary Chris Huhne MP.

As you’d imagine, both Steve Webb and Chris Huhne give entertaining and useful accounts of their work recently.  Webb talks about his campaign for 80% and Huhne gives more details about the battle for 42 days, and tells us what he really thinks about David Davis.

Also posted in Local government and Podcasts | 1 Comment
Alex Foster

Building Liberal Communities

By Alex Foster | Sun 15th June 2008 - 9:40 pm

Lib Dem Voice went to the combined ALDC and LGA conference yesterday – and had a marvellous time. It’s a shame the event seems to have gone largely unremarked on the blogs. Maybe our councillor corps are still licking their nibs whilst deciding what to type.

So you can judge for yourself what a time was had by all, LDV is bringing you three podcasts of the event, recorded from the floor in the large hall where the plenary sessions where held. Because of the day’s diary, with many different events scheduled at the same time as the …

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Alex Foster

Preview: Building Liberal Communities

By Alex Foster | Thu 12th June 2008 - 10:54 am

This Saturday, the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors are holding their second annual local government conference at Birmingham’s ICC.

Find out more on their website.  There was a real buzz about this event last year, so we are all looking forward to the event again this year. The programme is jam-packed with sessions, with many events happening simultaneously.

We here at LDV will have a stall at the conference.  We’ll be reporting live during the day, and I will have my trusty recorder.  I’ll be taping several sessions and podcasting them later for any of our readers or users of the …

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Duncan Brack

Event alert: Survival and Revival, 1945–1979 (14th June)

By Duncan Brack | Fri 23rd May 2008 - 8:19 pm

In the politics of recent times, there has been only one miracle, that is the survival of the Liberal Party’. (Roger Fulford, The Liberal Case, 1959)

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Torrington by-election, when Mark Bonham Carter won the Devon seat, only to lose it again in the following year’s general election. So what? you may say – Liberals winning by-elections is surely nothing new.

But in 1958 it was. Torrington was the first by-election gain the party had managed for 29 years. By the early 1950s the party had become almost extinct – it had lost seats …

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Alex Foster

Liverpool drinks – the answer

By Alex Foster | Wed 5th March 2008 - 11:10 am

Following our earlier discussion with Colin Eldridge, the answer to our drinks question was an unequivocal vote for Rigbys,

Therefore, our Liberal Drinks in Liverpool will be after the conference rally, which finishes at 7.30pm, in Rigby’s, 23-25 Dale Street, Liverpool L2 2EZ.

The meeting may well be curtailed early as people decamp to the LGA Lib Dem Group reception to see the outcome of the Lib Dem Council Group of the Year awards.

In previous years, we’ve identified ourselves by being the group with the conference name-badges on.

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Alex Foster

Liverpool Drinks?

By Alex Foster | Tue 26th February 2008 - 10:11 am

In Autumn conferences past, bloggers have met together for a special “Liberal Drinks” during the conference week.

A few of us on the LDV team have been wondering whether to organise a get-together at Liverpool’s Spring conference.  It is always a little trickier to manage at Spring because conference is shorter and so many events are packed into less time.

Still, we’re wondering about running the usual, informal gathering at a good pub with nice beer, probably on the Friday night.  It could be a chance to meet up with old friends and new, and put faces to URLs.

There are a few …

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Alex Foster

Round of Liberal Drinks

By Alex Foster | Mon 18th February 2008 - 7:31 pm

libdrinks.jpgA message from James Graham in the Facebook Liberal Drinks group points out there are a whole host of Liberal Drinks events scheduled in the coming month.

Popping over to the Liberal Drinks page on Flock Together gives the following list:

Organising a Liberal Drinks has got to be one of the simpler and more rewarding Lib Dem events to get together, particularly if you like a beer and a chat. There’s …

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