We thought it might be interesting to write a bit about the background to a big event for us, such as last week's Cameron Direct and use it to say a public thank you to everyone involved with it.

Let’s just have a quick
recap of how the whole thing happened.  Guto had an email in the early stages of
the week before last offering a Cameron Direct.  Despite the fact that we already had a big programme of campaigning going on anyway, with two canvassing sessions and a 'Guto Direct' public meeting that week - we leapt at the chance. 

There
was much going on behind the scenes until eventually on Saturday morning
(31^st October), we were told the event was a “go”. Not least of this is the liason between four constituencies for other visits (eg Airbus), and getting the timing and venue satisfactory for both the Cameron Direct advance team and for security.  We then had Saturday until
Friday to tell a whole Constituency!  Wow ! 

Our focus was solely the
Cameron Direct Event. Fortunately, the Party Members' fundraising event
that we would normally have to arrange was given to North Wales Area to organise.Luckily the Cameron Direct Team had been confident enough
that the event would go ahead to organise 4,000 English only leaflets which
arrived with us in Conwy on Saturday morning.  By Monday those 4,000 leaflets
had been put through letterboxes and the phones had started to ring.  The
bi-lingual leaflets  arrived on Tuesday,  our drivers  (Tony and Peter)  were ready to
distribute them and everyone did their bit.  Sadly the North Wales Weekly
News/Daily Post did not print the press release that Cameron’s office had
produced (No surprise there then!) so we were very much on our own, with only the publicity from the
Pioneer.

It was the most
interesting leafleting that we have ever been involved with.  David Cameron’s name
obviously does something for us!!!. We could actually track when and where the
leaflets had gone out by the telephone calls that I had from the public, in one case we could follow progress down a road so regularly were the phone calls coming in after the leaflets came through the door.  It was also a great test of our delivery network as it soon became apparent where the system had not worked so well!
Wednesday and Thursday in the office were manic!  As soon as I took one phone
call and put the phone down, I was picking it up again.  On Thursday night I had
to make the decision to go to voicemail in the office as it was clear
that I would be there all night!  Oh – and the email box was busy as well!

It was great to see so many people working together so well - it is amusing to see some of the barbed comments about individuals on other blogs and then see the exact opposite in real life.

The evening itself went fantastically well. David Cameron is so well suited to this type of event and performed magnificently. We have been delighted with the feedback from those who went and have heard about  it.

Also the Cameron Direct team
have complimented Aberconwy on their “organisation, enthusiasm and commitment”. 
We have also been praised for the “patience and courtesy” of the volunteers with
the film crew.  So all round – to everyone there must be a massive “THANK YOU”.
There are a few special
thanks that must be recorded – most especially to the young people that manned
the microphones at the event.  It was very hard work with not a lot of glory –
so thanks to Harriet, Alec  and Hannah and of course,
Sam.  Those lights were fierce, the job difficult and the whole task
thankless.  

But – we have put
Aberconwy on the map in a big way.  Front page on the Conservative website is
a much coveted position and the thanks of the Professional wing of the party in
such a positive way is a huge tick in the box.  Most importantly however, we
have shown that we are able to cope with any challenge put before us, however disruptive to day-to-day activities it is. And yes, we still went out canvassing and held a public meeting in Craig-Y-Don.

If I was an American team
coach I would probably say something like “Go Aberconwy, Go…..” but as we are
not American, I think the appropriate ending to this post is “Thank You All,
very much”. 

David Logan & Barbara Baldon