Friday 6th May 11

Another busy day, mainly at the count and then a train journey.

The counting of votes was due to take place today, and what is now 'Energise' but I and everyone else in York calls Oaklands Sports Centre.  The entrance ticket said 9.30 but there were so many people wanting to get in, and having to get their round-the -neck tags saying 'Candidate' or 'Counting Agent' or 'Guest', that the count didn't really get going until nearly 10am.

The first job was to separate the Referendum grey coloured papers from the white Council Election papers, and this wasn't really a process which allowed any of the party workers to get any information.  This happens at the next stage, where individual ballot boxes, which are numbered, have their ballot papers counted and put in bundles of 50, and this number tallied with the number of people who came into the polling station to vote.  At this stage, it is possible to do a count of the numbers of ticks or crosses on the ballot paper and see what the voting patterns were in specific geographical areas, as each ballot box serves a part of the ward.  This is easiest in areas with just one Councillor, ie one vote.  However, it gets more difficult where there are two or three Councillors and you are allowed up to that number of votes.  So in Hull Road Ward, where there are two Councillors, there were two crosses on most ballots, and it was less easy to see what the outcome of the poll would be.  

So, although some of our party activists were busy scribbling down as many of the details they could during this initial count, I couldn't follow it and there wasn't a party activist giving instructions about what to do.  So I just watched the person counting and counted as well, to check they were getting it right!  I really didn't need to do this as each bundle of 50 is recounted by another person and initialled by them as well.  The referendum ballots were counted too, and bundled up into 50s, and this second lot of counting extended the whole business considerably.  At about 10am, Kirsten England, the Chief Executive of the City of York Council said she thought they'd be able to finish the job in a couple of hours, but the first result wasn't announced til 4pm!

So, after the numbers of ballots were tallied with the people who turned up to vote, the Council seat ballots from each ward were sorted into those papers where the voter had voted for both or all three of the same party, and mixed or single votes.  The 'block votes' were then counted and checked, and each candidate had their votes noted.  Then the mixed and single votes papers were dealt with, by a pair of counters, one reading out the names on the ballot, one by one, and the other with a tally sheet with all the candidates' names on and rows of very small boxes to the right of their names for putting a tiny line through or a cross in, rows of 10 and columns of 5, so each big box when full would add up to 50 votes.  This part of the operation was very important to watch, especially with one of the counters, who by chance happened to be a Council officer whom I really don't get on with as they've been rude, unhelpful and unprofessional with me in the past.  Several people noticed that this person was making mistakes, and complained, so when done, this operation was checked by  another group of counters.  All this took MUCH longer than initially planned, or desired.

However, the results started coming in, and one of the most exciting was in Acomb Ward, where the Lib Dem leader of the council, whom I think is a dinosaur who ought to have been put out to grass long ago, and his second in command, whom I think has been weak politically but is a nice guy whom I'm fond of, lost their seats.  The cheer from the gathered opposition was huge, my cheer was only for the passing of Steve Galloway, not Andrew Waller.  When the Hull Road Ward results came in, I wasn't elected either.  That's politics. 

The other interesting result was that in another ward to the west of York, Anna Semlyen was voted in.  She's been a Green supporter for a long time but was incensed by the unilateral decision by Steve Galloway to say no to a city-wide 20 mile an hour limit in built-up areas, and joined the Labour Party, and has been elected.  I now predict a few years of exciting politics.... I predict that Anna will 'make waves' and put a lot of energy into what she wants to do; I hope she remembers that she's representing the citizens in her ward and a good Councillor gets to know the area (if they don't live there, which she doesn't) and the people there.  I wish her, and the other new Councillors, and the re-elected ones, a good four years, and hope they can move the City of York to a more sustainable, lower carbon, fairer, more equal society.  One day I hope to get elected, in MY ward, for the party I've agreed with for all my adult life, and be a really hard-working Councillor.  Maybe next time?  It is, as always, up to the local voters.

As soon as our results were announced, I got my stuff and cycled briskly off, as at 6.24 I had to be on a train to Bristol.  I got back at 5 and Sue was talking to Gill on the doorstep, having collected an 'emergency' bag of dried fruit for her latest long drive.  I hadn't got any time to chat as I had less than hour to get myself ready and packed and off to the station.  This I of course I managed to do.

The train left on time and all the way to Birmingham I started working though over 100 unread emails from one of the lists I subscribe to, and once read, I deleted most of them.  However, there were still about 60 left, which I thought I might get through between Birmingham and Bristol.  But, no, I met a really nice chap on the platform waiting for the Bristol train, which was 40 minutes late, and we talked about Credit Unions, high street loan companies, how to conduct successful relationships, and much much more.  He got off at Parkway and I at Temple Meads 5 minutes later.  My friend Loony was waiting for me, and as the train was late, we'd missed the bus so we had to get a taxi.  She's got a new flat recently and is having a housewarming  party tomorrow, which is one reason why she's invited me down, to provide some entertainment.

Thursday 14th October 10 Hull Road Ward By-Election

I was up early and ready to go and stand in a polling station. But, I didn't actually get out til after 9, and they'd been open since 7am...  So, I went to vote, walked down with my friend Debbie, and then I stayed there and did the 'door smiler' role, not taking numbers as the Green Party isn't targeting this ward and therefore isn't trying to get every last Green supporter out.  But Labour and Lib Dem were working really hard, door knocking and there was even a leaflet saying 'today's the day, please get out and vote'. I popped in on the Tang Hall Lane polling station to thank the staff there, as it's a quite boring day and I think they do a great job... and as it's a thankless task, I like to buck the trend.

I came home for an early lunch and then loaded the trailer with a job-lot of squashed soya milk cartons and went to see Ginnie who was at the polling station at St Nicks.  They had been very quiet, apparently just 7 voters in over 2 hours.  It was obvious there would be a low turnout.

I cycled on to Hazel Court- there's a back way out of St Nicks which I use to go to and from James St occasionally, and I put my cartons in the recycling container with minimal hassle... one of the chaps there said I could use the 'pedestrians' recycling bins down at the entrance, but I told him that bikes were now allowed up at the top as Yorwaste had seen sense and realised that even car drivers walked around at the top, so cyclists weren't a special case re 'Health and Safety', and the 'no cyclists' sign had been removed.  I told him I really wanted to use the top, like any other normal person in a vehicle.

Then I went on into town.  I put in a Fiddlesticks cheque and had one made out for the  City of York Council for Council Tax.  Went to the bank and got cash out, to make up the balance for the Council.  I was able to pay it all in at 9 St Leonard's and I met my old friend Trish who was doing something similar.  We're now paid up til next spring.  From here I went to the station to buy some train tickets for a gig in Bristol I've been invited to do, in November.

And then home, via the Abundance raised bed, where there were three black sacks of annual plants which had been weeded out.  Unfortunately, some of the perennials and biennial plants had been moved, not sure why, and were looking very sorry for themselves.  Biennials should be left where they have grown in their first year, as disturbing the roots at this time of year means they won't thrive next year, and there's a good chance they will die over winter.  I picked up a box of compostables at Country Fresh and two sacks at Freshways.

I than had an hour or so at home before I was due to go to Vanbrugh College and speak at the 'Activist Cafe' event.  York Rotters had been invited but said they couldn't go, so I said I'd do it instead.  I was due on at 5pm.  I explained about the situation of my having been instrumental in starting York Rotters but currently unable to represent them in front of groups of people, so I was talking to them as just John the Composter, but that this gave me more freedom to mention compost toilets and how to compost cooked food on an ordinary compost heap, subjects completely banned as a York Rotter.  So the talk went well and there were some good questions at the end.  I overshot my 30 minute slot by nearly 10 minutes, but they were fired up to start a campaign to persuade the University to start composting the food waste from the canteens and residential blocks.

I came home via a new logpile and had tea, a baked sweet potato and a thin nutloaf thing Gill had created.  I'd found two Parasol musrooms in the woods on Windmill Lane, and I fried these in olive oil on the woodstove, and they were a good flavoured garnish on the nutloaf...  At 9pm I set out for the count at Archbishop Holgates School, popping in to say thank you to the bored polling station staff there.  Soon after 10pm the ballot boxes arrived and my agent Andy Chase, and two election buddies (not sure that this is their official title!) Ginnie and Andy D'Agorne arrived, and the count got underway.

It was in three sections.  First the number of ballots cast were counted.  1468 out of a total possible of 7992, meaning a rubbish turnout of 18.3%.  Shame on the voters of Hull Road Ward for so much apathy.

Then the ballot papers were sorted into the different candidates voted for.  It was absolutely clear that the Labour chap, Mick Hoban, was going to win.  I went to chat with him and it turned out he works for the Forestry Commission and seemed like a really nice guy.  He said he had admired my logpiles and we chatted about assorted wildlife, and pollarding and coppicing, and a potential project he had thought about quite near here.  My guess is that we'll meet again and talk trees some more. 

Finally, the ballots for each candidate were counted into piles of 50.  I was relieved to see I'd got more than the racist BNP.  There were 3 spoilt ballots which all candidates had to agree were not filled in properly.  The results were as follows:

BNP 42 votes, 2.9%
Green 84 votes 5.7%
Dim Leb 183 votes 12.5%
Tory 296 votes 20.1%
Labour 860 votes 58.6%

So, as expected, the Greens were behind the 3 main parties and ahead of the fascists.  I was pleased with this.

I came home at 11.30 and had a bottle of perry as a little celebration.  I sent out an email to the Green Party to thank those who had helped, and documeted the day.

Friday 7th May 10 Election Count

A very memorable day!!!

I had an exciting night at the election count at Oaklands Sports Centre, now rebranded as 'Energize'. Firstly there was a wait as the count wasn't going to start until all the ballot boxes were in. There were two counts, York Central and York Outer, with the hall split into two halves. Sometime after midnight the first boxes were tipped out onto the tables, starting with number 1, and then working through to the low 60s with the Central count, as this was the constituency I was interested in, as the Greens didn't stand in York Outer.

The first job was to check whether the number of ballot papers matched the tally on the sheets taken by the officials in the polling stations. So the ballots were sorted into bundles of 50 for easy counting. This allowed us to look at particular polling disrticts to see what the balance was, so as the ballots were unfolded and put on the pile, I noted whether it was UKIP (hardly any) Hugh Bayley the sitting Labour MP (lots) our man Andy Chase, (just a few) the racist BNP (even fewer) Christian Vassie for the Lib Dems (quite a few but not as many as Labour), Eddie Vee the Loony Elvis Impersonator (virtually none) and Susan Wade Weeks the 'Greenest Tory in the land' (similar numbers to the Lib Dems). I used the 'four-bar gate with a fifth cross-bar' method of tallying. This initial tally told us that Hugh Bayley would retain the seat. It also 'worked' as on one table, a counter put 51 in one pile by accident, and the ballots were rejected as it didn't match the numbers on the sheet. The wads of 50 were recounted and the error found.

All the ballot boxes and postal votes were counted before the second stage of the process. This was where the bundles of 50 were sorted into the 7 candidates. Here, the observers' job was to watch very carefully to see that the right ballot papers were going into the correct pile. It is easy to make a mistake, faced with thousands of forms to sort. I pointed out several errors, where a sorter put a ballot paper in the wrong pile, so close and astute observation is really important. At this stage, the spoilt ballot papers are weeded out. There were a few with no mark whatsoever, and a few with a cross against more than one candidate, or all of them! Some ballots had the mark in the area of their candidate, but not in the box where it should be... for instance, one had the number on the left circled rather than a cross or tick in the box on the right. There were waved at the officer who was collecting the piles of ballots, and she decided whether it was a valid vote, or needed to be seen by the candidates for a decision. There were also quite a few ballots I saw with messages to the candidates, including one with the 'CRASS' anarchy logo scrawled across, and another saying 'I cannot vote for any of you'', and another with a lot of pictograms of male genitalia against the 3 main parties and the UKIP and BNP (not the Greens though!!!) and several others. These are put in a 'spoilt ballot' pile and the candidates check them to see they are indeed spoilt. There were a few with 'difficult to decide' marks, where perhaps the voter first put the cross in the wrong place and scrubbed it out and put it in the intended place. These are shown to the candidates and they decide if it is a spoilt ballot or 'belongs' to one candidate. There are usually over 100 spoilt ballots in an election of this size.

After all the ballots for each candidate are put together, they are put back on the table and counted into bundles of 50, for the final count. The counter makes a bundle of 50, and then swaps with their colleague who also counts it, so each bundle is counted twice. During this counting, usually with a rubber thimble, any incorrectly placed ballots might also be spotted, as all the crosses should be in the same place.

Finally, the bundles of 50 are all put together under the candidate's name and it is easy to count them for the final result. All this took about 5 hours, and the announcement was just before 5am.

The results were Bayley 18,573; Wade Weeks 12,122; Vassie 11,694; Chase 1,669; BNP 1,171; UKIP 1,100 and Eddie Vee just 154. There was a 61% turnout.

After the results were announced Bayley did his acceptance speech, with lots of thank yous for the staff, his team, his wife and lots of others, and all the other candidates spoke briefly.

Then we were done. I cycled home and got in just before 6am. I put the telly on and had a bowl of cereal. Within the hour, the result from Brighton Pavillion came in, and the news I'd been waiting to hear for some time... that Caroline Lucas had won the seat... our first Green Member of Parliament!!! A historic day, a joyous day. The interweb lit up with messages of joy and congratulations. I was quite emotional.

I also started getting messages of birthday congratulation, as it's my birthday today. I couldn't have wished for a better present than Caroline's win.

I stayed up til the boys came down before going to school, and then retired to bed. However, there was a phone call at 11 which woke me up (the car hire company, worse luck!), and I then stayed up til about 2.30 when I went to bed for another two and a half hours.

I did a very short stint in the garden but there was another phone call which brought me back in. But it was a booking for the summer Fair for the Madhyamaka Centre, which was nice.

Gill made a pizza and baked a butternut squash. A nice birthday tea. She also made a cake for the St Nicks 10th Anniversary tomorrow and a pile of buns, each with '10' in icing on the top.

A very memorable and enjoyable day.

Thursday 6th May 10, Election Day

Gill got me up at 7 as I'd agreed to go and stand outside a polling station at 8am. I got there at 7.45 as it only too me 15 minutes to cycle across Low Moor and over Millennium Bridge to St Chad's Church Hall. The Green Party 'door smiler' told me that in the first 40 minutes of voting, there had been 80 voters! I took the Green rosette and did 2 hours of 'door smiling'. We don't take poll numbers, as this is to find people who have promised to vote for a party, but then haven't turned up at the polling station, so that in the last couple of hours of the poll, the party activists can go and ask the voter if they have voted, and even invite them to have a ride in a car to the polling station. The Green Party stand outside polling stations mainly to remind people that we have a candidate... and with the hope that by doing so, we might get a few more votes!

After this, I went to see Pauline. I changed into my usual scruffy clothes there (I was tidy for the polling station!) and had a coffee and chat, then sawed up some scrap wood for her.

I called in on Country Fresh on the way home and bought some fruit and veg, and picked up a small sack of biodegradables. Freshways also only had a small sack.

After lunch I picked up a prescription for Gill and voted. The polling station was busy.

Then I had a few quiet hours, before the children came home, did a bit of paperwork, and then at 4 went down to town again for my annual check-up at the optician. I have Glaucoma in the family so I have a 10% chance of getting this, so I have my eyes checked regularly.

On the way into town, though, I had an accident, a collision with a car which stopped suddenly in front of me. I was on a left-turning corner and a car on the outside of me started to pull in to the left, which would have trapped me. Now I could have applied my brakes sharply and stopped, or I could have accelerated away from the danger. I chose the latter... but the car in front then stopped suddenly and I went into the back of it, scratching the paintwork. I banged my groin on my crossbar and my tri-bars were pushed up, but the bike wasn't damaged. The passenger in the cat was quite upset though... shocked, and I calmed her down and explained what had happened and gave her my contact details, as the accident was partly my fault. She told me it was a hire car and she'd bought extra insurance for it, so I don't know whether I'll get the bill or not.

Fortunately, my eyesight is fine, so far! Maybe I could do with a 'road-sense judgement' test!!!

Came home via Country Fresh where Rich gave me a lot of dryable fruit and I gave him some dried fruit as a thank you.

I had tea soon after coming home (linguini and a tomato/veg thing) and did some more writing.

Soon after 9 I got myself ready to cycle over to Acomb to attend the count. I won't be back until the wee early hours, and will probably stay up to see the outcome of the election.

Friday 4th May 07, Election Count day

Got up early to try to write a letter but didn't get very far. As soon as Gill came back from the 'school run' (on her bike of course!) I cycled over to Acomb where the count was taking place. The count was in a large sports hall, with all the workers in the centre and the candidates and agents and observers around the outside, watching what was going on. It's quite an exciting process in some ways, and very boring in others, but I enjoy being there and participating in it.

The ballot papers were first sorted into block votes and split votes, these where there were two or three councillors to be voted in. Where someone had voted for both or all 3 of one party's candidates, they were placed in piles for counting. Where a voter had voted for 2 or 3 different parties, these were gone thruogh one by one and the names of the candidate voted for read out and a second election worker marked them off on a special sheet.

When all these figures were added up and ready to be announced, the candidates and agents were asked to come into a corner together and look at the disputed and spoiled ballots, and they were either agreed as good or spoiled or not filled in.

One of the first to be called was Bishopthorpe, where John Galvin (Conservative) had been voted out of last election, and soon after that, I had collared him and asked him if he would be the chair of York Credit Union Study Group. In this role I had got to know him quite well, and had grown to respect and like him, not his party politics, John as a person. So i was happy that this time he was elected back ono the council, the first of 8 Tory councillors, all new after a Tory-free term. Labour did quite well, and the Lib-Dems didn't, as they have generally been viewed as having cocked up badly this term. Fortunately the Fishergate Greens both got elected, Andy D'Agorne for a second term and Dave Taylor for his first, replacing Mark Hill.

We did quite well in some other wards, including increasing our share in my ward, Hull Road, where Andrew Collingwood and I got about 15%. Two Labour councillors got in here.

I went to see the media students during the count and after my result was announced, i think they enjoyed the process and were glad to have got involved, or at least observed it.

I cycled home via my usual compostables collection route and got hiome in time to go and get the boys. Felt quite deflated and down, as not getting in always leaves me feeling like this, even if I don't expect to get in. Also, as the phone still wasn't working, so I was unable to ring from home or do my emails. Gill spent much of the day trying to get it fixed, by going to the public call box round the corner and having to deal with automated messages...

In the evening I went round to a friend's house and used their phone to download emails and let people know what had happened, re electoral stuff and lack of phone stuff.