Credit Katy Gordon

I have attended hundreds of extremely useful Liberal Democrat training sessions over the years. Virtually all of them have been very good, but the ones which have been most helpful have been those run by Women Liberal Democrats. I’ve been to several “inspiration days” now and always learn something new or meet fabulous new people who become great colleagues.

My most recent session took place in Glasgow last Saturday. The idea of these sessions is to give women members an idea of the wide range of options open to them within the party, to lay out all the roles they can  play on a kind of virtual Smorgasbord and invite them to take their pick.

I was really pleased to see so many new faces there. Don’t let anyone tell you that people aren’t becoming involved in the party these days. We had a wide age range from young women still at school to those approaching retirement.

The day starts with introductions and many of the sessions involve working in groups and discussing things rather than sitting and listening. Candy Piercy came up to run this session and as always kept things lively, interesting and motivating. We talked about the benefits of being a Liberal Democrat member and all the things you can do from choosing the leader to making policy to being an agent to attending Conference and standing for Council or Parliament.

After a delicious lunch – I was in heaven because there were vol-au-vents which I hadn’t had since about 1972 – we did some communication skills exercises which were great fun. Jo Swinson MP then came and talked to us about her life as an MP and how she had been motivated to get more involved in the party by a similar event for young activists, which led to her going to Conference for the first time. Jo has always devoted a great deal of time to helping and supporting women and young people and it was great that she could be there.

We even had time to support Liberal Youth’s Bears for Belarus campaign.

There is another event to be held in Leeds on 1st September and there are still places available. If you want to attend, please email Aqila Choudhry at [email protected] by Tuesday 28th August.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings