Henry Wimborne

Henry died this year.  He used to attend Barnet Green Party meetings with support from his family who thought that the interaction was good excercise for his brain during dementia.  His last meeting began with introductions and welcomes and was the meeting of Francesco's election as Barnet Greens' first Youth Officer.  Henry was a member of the Young Communist League in Hampstead.  He was told never to apply for a job with the British Government again.  He attended Oxford.  He then worked as headmaster of a school in Ghana.  And then, of course, inspired by the Green Vision of "nationalise everything" as he put it, he joined us.

Here is a quote from Noel's Blog on Henry

"I am honoured to speak of Noel Lynch’s suitability to take a seat in the London assembly.

I have known Noel as a friend for some twenty years and since I joined the party some three years ago, in his capacity as a leading member of the East Finchley Group. Should he be successful in obtaining election to the Assembly it will be to the benefit of all. He is able, courteous and trustworthy, dedicated to perform that which he promises.
Henry Wimborne M.A. Cantab Llb Hons Lond. Dip. Ed Oxon.
(A keen leafleter, at 94 Henry is the Green Party’s most senior activist)"

Burnout, campaign funds, and facebook - Some interesting web links (without mentioning Christmas)

I have long been inspired to tackle the challenge of activist burnout, and have tweeted this resource on the subject which I highly recommend you print and read if you are spending a lot of unstructured time saving the world.  The subject was top of the agenda amongst London Green Party movers and shakers especially after Ryan resigned from the party citing "risk" of burnout.  I bumped into him recently and thanked him for putting it on the agenda.  Many have pointed to how inspirational he is and his internal official work in the regional Green Party is also worth a mention.

At freshers week in UCL I cought up with Tom Youngman.  It turns out that his mom knows my mom!  Anyway Tom and our friend Greg recommend that if we need money for anything campaign related, go to O2 think big.  I have yet to check out this opportunity.  This month I was the key organiser of 2 events which raised about £300 for the Green Party (technical point: small donations add up!).
An other event, also involving my mom has been the fact that my family hosted a wedding feast!  Most people there had attended the wedding feast the day before.  The link above shows you the sort of event it was, quite fancy.  I played some of my favorite music on my laptop and used what apple call hot corners to make nice colours on the screen.  I also had the (male only) honour of saying one of the seven blessings, number 5, which I sung beautifully.  There was some controversy over Nelson Mandela, whether he was good for the Jews.  I think it was Clare Filder who proposed a toast to him "a friend of the South African Jewish Community".  There was some food waste at the do, but not as much at our house and most of the waste went in the new recycling bins we have.  My mom did a great veggie option and chicken soup, salmon to eat for weeks. (which reminds me to invite Adina over to help finish it off).

A word on "the left". I've been following Jim Jepps' facebook and such on the subject as well as a lot of active groups.  However I am wary of committing as "a Green" to concepts such as socialism, which I recently deleted from my twitter bio, because as much as I enjoy the left's backing, the Green Vision is about casting aside the old fashioned politics and becoming, as Natalie put it, Post-Watermelon.  I have invited the Green Party where I organise to commit to a strong anti-austerity platform for the next local elections.

I have been spending some time using facebook.  It brings together a lot of things, such as news feeds, making them quite easy to use.  Also I occasionally get a message on there and I guess my profile comes up quite high on Google.  Recently I attended twitter (cops off campus) and facebook training with the London Young Greens, which was attended by the very people who don't really need to sort out their online skills.  Sadly not everyone has the same native facebook skills as me and one of my challenges is laboriously helping when things go wrong with non native facebook users.  I have put the link to my blog to twitter, so less frequent, historical, and more wordy contributions will be available.