Happy new year to you all.

Hackney TUC, in conjunction with a range of community activists, has organised a hustings meeting for the Stoke Newington by-election. This will take place on Wednesday 21 January at 8pm at the Abney Park Hall and will be an opportunity for residents to question the candidates.

We are having flyers printed (see attached) and we need volunteers to deliver them over the weekend of 10/11 January. There are approximately 40 streets and just over 4,500 doors so if 20 people were to volunteer, it would only involve dropping leaflets through a little over 200 doors. The leaflets encourage people to submit questions and comments in advance. This will give us an opportunity to identify the most topical themes and distil some key questions from them. We will then divide the available time between these pre-prepared questions, and an open session. This will ensure that we get both a good spread of issues and a sense of everyone having their say.

We could really do with a centrally located 'pick up point' for the leaflets. Does anyone know a sympathetic shopkeeper, or community institution, where we could dump leaflets to be picked up by volunteers? If so please let me know.

Can you please drop me an email if you are prepared to help out with the leafleting, and also ask friends, family and neighbours to help out.

We are also seeking to approach community leaders directly to get them to encourage people to attend the hustings. So we are looking for volunteers to speak to community activists. If you are prepared to make a phone call, and pay a visit to one or more of these activists to enlist their support please let me know.

On the evening itself we will need some stewards to help with getting people to sign in (residents of the ward will then be given a coloured piece of paper which means they will get preference when it comes to asking questions). While we don't expect any 'rowdy behaviour' the whole event will appear more professional if we have people on hand to assist. Volunteers please.

Funding

The hall has cost us £200, we have not yet had a quote for the printing, but we would welcome donations to help with the cost.

Finally, please cascade this message onto friends, family, colleagues and others interested in revitalising democracy in Hackney.

Thanks very much

John Page