As seats begin to elect new Parliamentary election candidates, now’s the time to get your stationary stocked up.

This Autumn, we say goodbye to Isabelle Parasram, our Vice President responsible for working with ethnic minority communities.

Isabelle has been a tremendous advocate, leader and example in the Party and she will be greatly missed. We wish her all the best in her new role as Chief Executive of Social Value UK, which has led to her making the difficult decision to step back from the demands of the Vice Presidential role.

What comes next? 

Autumn Conference passed a business motion finalising arrangements for the direct election of this Vice President role, and we are delighted to be firing the starting gun next week. 

The timetable for the election is below, the rules are available in our Constitution and the Returning Officer’s team will issue more detailed instructions to anyone expressing an interest in the role. With nominations opening next week, why not consider encouraging someone to put their name forward? 

Anyone interested in running to be Vice President should submit their consent to nomination here (that link will become usable from Monday October 11th). Anyone who signals their consent to nomination will be contacted by the Returning Officer’s team and provided with further information about the election process. 

Candidates require the nomination of no fewer than 200 members across no fewer than 20 local parties (for this purpose including the Young Liberals). Members wishing to nominate require a nomination code, available on request here (that link will become usable from Monday October 11th) Anyone wishing to send a paper nomination should contact elections@libdems.org.uk. 

Will there be hustings? 

Yes! Hustings are being coordinated centrally by the Returning Officer’s team and a full slate of events will be publicised by the close of nominations. Candidates will only be required to attend the eight official hustings sanctioned but other events will also be taking place. 

If you would like to organise an official hustings, please make your application here, and the Returning Officer’s team will consider it. We cannot guarantee that your application will be selected as we expect high demand. 

The Federal Communications and Elections Committee met this week to discuss some key challenges and opportunities ahead for the Pary. 

Campaign innovation 

The Campaign Innovation Fund team, supported by ALDC and others, presented to us on the results of a set of experiments conducted to test what does, and doesn’t, help us win campaigns. 

The work is impressive and, alongside the wider literature, feedback from activists, and experience of our committee members, serves to help us make evidence-based campaign decisions.

A few highlights we should all note:

• When we mail out surveys the data suggests that there is a noticeable increase in returns where the accompanying letter is handwritten to where it is mail merged. The extra effort of writing the letter can therefore boost our data collection;
• Where we haven’t the capacity to knock on doors to recruit postal voters letters alone have a limited effect, but when combined with a follow-up letter they really do seem to drive recruitment;
• Facebook ads with well designed graphics can be more effective at driving engagement than ones with group photos.

The fund will be continuing its work next year and we look forward to its findings. 

By-elections

We never get tired of talking about our amazing win in Chesham and Amersham, but the Committee is also attentive to the lessons that can be learned from all of our by-election experiences. 

With Dave McCobb, Director of Field, presenting we discussed a range of issues, including how we communicate our objectives in such elections and how we effectively work across teams.

Of particular importance to the Party is making sure we have skilled Election Agents. Being an election agent is an important and rewarding role and we need great agents if our candidates are to win. If you’re interested in getting more involved in elections, why not find out if this is a role for you?

October is Black History Month — an opportunity to celebrate the enormous contributions that Black people have made across our country.

From Mary Prince to Paul Stephenson, so many Black pioneers have transformed our society’s cultural and political landscapes. We owe a great debt to everything they have achieved. 

Yesterday, there were 6 local council by-elections. Here are the results so far! We are super happy to announce a successful gain from the Conservatives in the Peak District and made some excellent progress in Sunderland and West Suffolk!

We have always been the party of communities and we’re so proud of our local activists standing up for people across the country!