I've had a few days off and so, glutton for punishment that I am, instead of spending them watching daytime tv and gorging on chocolate ice cream, I decided to head into the Southwark Liberal Democrat Campaign office and see if I could help out.
It was helped a little by the fact I had a doctor's appointment Thursday morning. Being already up and about it was easy to get off 2 stops early on my way home.
First impressions were how busy it was for a weekday around 1130. A full big table of volunteers was already deep into stuffing envelopes - my first task of the day to pitch in on whilst they found a fuller task they could set me to (I'd conceded on arrival I could help all day so they knew they had several hours of my time).
Experienced members helped show me the best places and lines to fold the leaflets along - an art clearly honed thousands and thousands of leaflets and envelopes.
Shortly thereafter it was onto organising the stacks of stuffed letter into a coded order and then grouping by delivery office ready to send out in the freepost.
Good credit is due to the team at the office that day, who took the time to explain not just what they needed me to do, but what it was for, what would happen next, how everything fed into the larger picture, what the campaigning aim of each task was. It was hugely helpful to me as someone who wants to learn more about the entire process and become more involved in it, but I also think an understanding of context helps people work out what to do generally - understanding that the reason everything has to stay in coded order is because that corresponds to the walks that volunteers are then sent out to deliver.
Having delivered a little here, and also up in the Sleaford by election, I also understand that roads don't often go in number order; you want all the evens together and all the odds together because that's how the road is laid out when you walk it - unless it's a cul-de-sac, in which case it does go in number order, or an estate or block of flats, which might have any variety of arbitrary ordering schemes. I massively appreciated everyone who took the time to not just explain the single task, but its importance, the best ways to do it, and how it ultimately helped us target and reach voters.
Owing to the fact it was a weekday that I randomly had off, I was the only young volunteer in the office, I was inevitably asked the question all young people are asked these days - 'Do you know how to work the technology?'
First it was the Apple TV, then a printer jam.
They clearly realised I'd found my element.
Before long I was delegated a task of overseeing a print run of 40000+ letters - managing multiple printers, clearing jams, grabbing materials from a store room, sorting paper, always keeping everything in number order as it comes off and remerging it all as the multiple printers finished. Soon they added another print job of a different sort and I was learning all kinds of repographics things.
At one point, manically running back and forth with my 3rd set of print trays, sorting boxes and scribbled on paper label dividers I was even accused of looking like I was enjoying myself!
Okay so it's a bit of a weird thing enjoy - in honestly it was very similar to my day job so was an easy task for me. But the enjoyment came from the feeling of engagement and involvement. Of the growing sense that I wasn't just sitting around wondering why the world is become a darker place - I was doing my small, rather arcane but useful part in fighting against that and standing up for the kind of world I'd like to live in, the kind of society I'd like to be a part of.
Being in the campaign office gave me a great opportunity to see and learn some of the many different cogs that feed into an election campaign, overhearing campaign gossip, learning he experiences of those who are hardened pros.
From intending to go in for half a day, I ended up going staying till 8pm, going back the next day for another 10 hours, and getting up early on Sunday to do another 3.5 hours because I wanted to see the job done personally. That all happened because people took the time to encourage me, to recognise my enthusiasm, to take the time to explain context and train me up on new processes and equipment right from the start.
I left with a request to email across my availability until polling day, and mentally revising my diary to find some additional days to go do my part.
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