Let me put this bluntly. If we as a party don’t get our backsides into gear and fight the campaign of our lives over the next few months, the horror story that’s been unfolding in front of our eyes at the Tory Conference could be a reality. That could be our government. I don’t think any of us actually want that to happen, however annoyed we may be with various decisions taken by the Coalition Government. I certainly don’t want it to take a period of majority Tory Government for folk to realise that the Liberal Democrats actually did some good.

The party knows that it needs all its members engaged, inspired and committed and ready to ask unreasonable things of themselves in terms of commitment of both time and money in the months ahead. To that end, they have sent every member a 16 page Election Strategy Briefing in very official looking brown envelopes. The document explains the Dragon’s Den process which has been taking place with our strategic seats. I’ve been involved in that these past two years as a Scottish party state representative. It’s given me a good overview as to what has been going on in these important places. I have to say I was hugely impressed in the difference between this year and last year.  There has been a huge rise in activity on the ground. Don’t get me wrong, there needed to be, but it’s very heartening to see it. All those campaign teams that I and others put through their paces deserve huge amounts of applause, snuggles with labradors, chocolate, beer and appreciation.  The briefing goes on to explain what we are looking to achieve in the campaign and what we need to get our seats won. It looks at policy, the technology and how that all fits together with what we do on the ground. It’s a good read.

I’ve spent a bit of time this mornn playing with the Conference App this morning. Apple took its time to approve it, but it’s now downloadable from the App store and from wherever it is you get Android bits and pieces. (Update: As Jenny reminded me in the comments below, I should tell you where to look: Lib Dem Conf should do it.)

It works better than previous incarnations have. It allows you to create your own Conference schedule, adding in your own meetings. Mine already looks quite scary. My slight grips is that it doesn’t seem to list things in time order on the day. My Saturday starts with the Liberal Democrat Voice Awards and ends with the Safer Sex Work motion with the Presidential hustings in between It seems to list private appointments first, then fringe then agenda items.

It has maps of the venues, the whole agenda and directory and, as a separate item, the ministerial Q and As. I would like to express my great displeasure at whoever it was who decided to put Lynne Featherstone’s at the same time as Nick Clegg’s first session in the hall on Monday afternoon.

It will also be updated to have the Conference Extra, which has the amendments in it and all the questions to Committees. I’m hearing that there are a tonne of both, and the Conference Daily which has all the up to date news each day and things like the Emergency Motions ballot.

Jennie Rigg has raised concerns on Twitter about privacy, saying that the app wants permissions to access various parts of your smartphone before you can even download it, meaning that in theory your location would be tracked. If that’s important to you, you might want to check with the Conference people at HQ, who are usually pretty good at responding on the @LibDemConf twitter account if you raise things with them. Perhaps they might even like to comment on this article.