Entries tagged with “party renewal” from Working For Walthamstow

Please join us for the second "our children, our future" free afterschool fun day on the 10th July 2008 at the Limes Children's Play Centre on Somers Road from 3.30pm until 6pm. I'm delighted to say that the Secretary of State for Welfare, James Purnell, will be joining us along with our current MP Neil Gerrard.

Whatever the weather there will be plenty of activities for local children of all ages including facepainting and adventure play as well as free refreshments for all ages! The afternoon is an informal opportunity for local families and those who work with them to come together, have fun and have their say about what help and support children, parents and grandparents need to succeed in Walthamstow. There are many changes taking place locally and nationally that will affect families- from the new parental leave rights, to changes in tax credits and benefits as well as the new surestart and childrens centre services - and I want those in power to hear first hand from people in Walthamstow what they think of these changes and what our priorities for our locality are. I'm keen too that those who work with families participate so that they can bring their experience to our discussion and also get to know each other too.I hope you'll be able to join me, Neil and James for some lovely cake and a great opportunity to make sure those in Westminster hear the voices of those in Walthamstow. This event is sponsored by UNISON and has been organised by Walthamstow Labour Party.

Anyone who would like to hold a stall on the day or know more about the event is welcome to get in touch.

I recently took part in a podcast about the question of community and political engagement and talked about how the Labour party must revalue the role of members and activists. You can hear the whole interview here on Andy Howell's blog. Local CLP members know I don't just talk about the role Labour can play campaigning for change; I also put my words into practise. In May I organised an event in Walthamstow to bring together activists and Labour supporters to ask how we can tackle child poverty in our area. I wrote an article about this for the national Labour journal Progress to share our experience and the lessons we learned. We got some really good ideas from the discussion about how to help children and their families in our constituency and I'm now working with others in the CLP and the local area to take them forward. see the role of the MP as being someone who makes things happen like this, bringing people together to share ideas and plan a course of action to achieve our shared ambitions like ending child poverty on our streets. Let me know what you think.