Barnet Supporters’ Jailbreak?

This was an email I sent to some Barnet supporters earlier today, about the possibility of a fundraising event. Let me know what you think. You can email me at oliver.deed[at]gmail.com or leave a comment on here. Thanks.

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Some of you might be familiar with a fundraising event, used by many organisations, called ‘Jailbreak’. For those of you who are not, let me explain.

The idea is that you get as far away as possible from a destination (point x, let’s say) in a certain time period without spending any money. You have to blag lifts (from people you don’t know), trains, buses and as many modes of transport as possible without spending any money to get as far away from point x as possible. I’ve done this twice since attending University and managed on the first occasion to get from Guildford to Portsmouth and on the second to get to Paris. I’ve known people who got to Prague and Basel.

I’d like to propose we put a spin on this and do a Barnet FC version. On Saturday 11^th February, we play Swindon at home and on Tuesday 14^th February we play Plymouth away. For a spin how about this:

Starting at 5pm after the Swindon game, pairs of Barnet fans will set off from the Pavillion Bar to start ‘jailbreak’. Their job is to make it to Plymouth FC, prior to 7pm on Tuesday 14^th February. If successful each team will get 150 points as this task would be relatively easy on its own. In the intervening period between the games, the job of each team is to try and get photographed inside as many football league grounds as possible, with would be worth 10 points each. Each team will be given an item to be photographed with in order to confirm they did it in that time period! The teams would still have to make their way to these grounds by blagging transportation.

The team with the most points by 7pm, the day of the Plymouth game would win (prize to be worked out, if this is a goer). I chose Plymouth primarily as it is far enough away to make this a challenge.

Teams would raise money for a chosen charity – or if it is run by the Trust perhaps for Noah’s Ark Hospice? This could be a great opportunity to generate some good publicity for the Trust and the club.

I’d love to hear some comments, preferably ASAP as I’d like to start garnering interest amongst Barnet fans and speaking to potential sponsors to see if we could get some prizes for participants. This would be very simple to organise and lots of fun, I hope you agree.

Kind regards,

Olly

Labour Group call for council debate on Barnet FC

Release from the Barnet Labour group:

The Labour Group of councillors have submitted a motion to January’s Full Council meeting calling on Barnet’s Conservative administration to renew efforts to help Barnet Football Club stay in the borough.

The text of the motion from Cllr Alison Moore is:

“Council is deeply saddened by the announcement that Barnet Football Club may be leaving Barnet and recognises all the work that the Club does for the benefit of the local community and young people across the Borough.

Council asks that the Leader and Cabinet do everything they can to secure the Club’s future in Barnet for the good of the local community, and all the supporters.”

Leader of the Labour Group, Cllr Alison Moore said: “The Club does great work in the local community and to help young people, and it would be a very sad loss were it to leave the borough – particularly given that the council is slashing the youth service by 75 per cent.

“Labour councillors are ready and willing to work with the council administration to try and secure the future of the Club in Barnet, and I hope the council debate will be the start of some cross-party working to that end.”

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This is excellent news. It has always been my view that the council should work, cross-party, to secure a future for the club in Barnet. Hopefully this motion can generate the sort of cross-party co-operation we need to secure the football clubs long-term future in the borough. I can only encourage Barnet fans to attend the full council meeting at 7pm on Tuesday 24th January at the Town Hall in Hendon. Details about how to get there can be found here: http://www.barnet.gov.uk/getting-to-hendon-town-hall.pdf

12/01/2011

Iowa; the big winner?

The story of the night to emerge from Iowa was Rick Santorum’s strong second placed finish. I certainly didn’t expect that, having predicted that Ron Paul would push Mitt Romney to the wire, finish a close second trailed by Santorum in third. So the pundits have it that the big winner of the Iowa caucus is Santorum.

Being the young contrarian I am, I’d like to disagree with the narrative emanating from Fox News and others. The big winner of the night was President Obama. For the following reasons:

1. The result ensures that the GOP race will be a contest rather than a coronation for Romney. This can only be good for Obama as we’ll see a lot more attack ads directed at participants in the primary contest as opposed to the President. For a flavour of things to come, take a look at this. The more grisly the contest gets, the better for Obama.

2. Santorum is a religious bigot, who has pandered to the most unsavoury elements of the Tea Party wing of the Republican party. His views on abortion, gay rights and religious education are something to behold. The longer he is given the spotlight, the better as this can only serve to shed light on the GOP’s extremist element, damaging Mr Romney in the process. Romney will increasingly have to pander to this wing of the GOP as he tries to assert his conservative credentials. Win win for Obama who can attack this extremist nonsense in order to profit from Independent support in November. Obama is already cultivating this narrative.

3. The longer this contest last, the less time the GOP has to prepare its electoral machine for November, as it fragments behind different, bickering candidates. Obama’s ‘shadow’ campaign in Iowa has been dubbed as the best organised of the primary by the New York Times despite the money that was pumped in by Republican candidates and the President’s unopposed nomination. Obama has been afforded extra time to organise before, most likely, Romney has the chance to rally the GOP machinery in its totality. This can only enhance Obama’s chances of victory in 2012.

It is for those reasons that Obama will be smiling today. This should all come with a very big caveat though. If Obama’s campaign indulges in complacency for a single moment, the GOP will capitalise. Political operators on America’s political  Right have a reputation for ruthlessness. If they catch a whiff of complacency, Obama will be punished.

So Obama must continue to guard against complacency and maintain an effective campaigning network a la Iowa, as the GOP juggernaut chunters across the America.