Firstly we would like to say a big thank you to all the people who volunteered their help in the 2008 elections. Thank you for your hard work, commitment and time which contributed to the successful result we saw.

ON THIS PAGE

A New Council

Patrons

l Putting the People Back into Politics Meeting

l Environmental Voluntary Work

l JDA Lapel Badges Prove a Great Success

l New Anti GST Car Sticker Launch

A NEW COUNCIL May 2009
The Jersey Democratic Alliance launched the long campaign for the 2011 elections with the Annual General Meeting at Springfield Café on 13th May 2009.

Our political team, Deputies Trevor and Shona Pitman, Geoff Southern and Debbie de Sousa have been making their presence felt in the States since their election or re-election. However, the party itself must stand on its own feet to effectively support them. We cannot expect busy politicians to also manage the party, and, in fact, have deliberately framed our constitution so that they cannot even be asked to do so.

Thus, we have now confirmed our erstwhile Acting Chairperson, Christine Papworth as the Chair for 2009-10. Dave Rotherham will serve as her Deputy. Helen Durkin, one of the campaigning Woolworth staff, has joined the JDA as the new Treasurer. Anne Southern, Geoff's wife, will be bringing her writing skills to the post of Secretary.

Several other new faces joined the Council for this year. Those who do not have sensitive employment will no doubt be posting their biographies alongside the others in the coming weeks.

First ‘Putting The People Back Into Politics’ Policy Meeting Well Received In St. Helier

All didn’t go quite according to plan with the party’s first meeting inviting members of the public – JDA members or otherwise – to come along and put forward their ideas for policies to make Jersey a better, fairer place: just too many people turned up! JDA Chairman, Trevor Pitman explains: “the idea behind running this series of meetings was to get away from the standard lecture or seminar format that seems to put so many people off and offer a real participative, two-way street session where people could really interact and discus ideas. To do this, of course, particularly in a session of only a couple of hours you simply can’t have a big group. As a consequence we targeted for meetings of ideally between 12 and 15 participants. What we got, however, was twice that!”

Not that the JDA are complaining. The original plan of a brainstorming session with everyone sitting around a boardroom table debating the fine detail of a string of ideas had to go, it is true. The amount of good ideas being put forward by individuals more than made up for this, however, with a whole range of policy issues being forward. According to the Chairman, with participants also committing their ideas to provided policy sheets these will now be taken away and explored by the JDA Council at greater length prior to sending out feedback.

“What we have decided to do to take this forward for the next session adds Vice-Chairman, Christine Papworth, “is at the suggestion of several of the participants focus the next policy meeting exclusively at one particular issue. By doing this we feel that we will have more chance to get down to real fine detail in any ideas that are floated, and be able to accommodate people wishing to take part should numbers once again be higher than targeted”.

Of course, following a lot of behind the scenes hard work by our politicians and other Council members over recent weeks another of the ‘Putting the people back into politics” initiative was to offer a platform for other progressive politicians and candidates to share in as the JDA once again lead the way in attempting to get politicians to focus on ways of working together instead of on obstacles. To this regard with a couple of intended ‘independent’ candidates attending this first session perhaps the best news to come out of the evening was that one of these has now decided to stand as a member of the JDA. Commonsense politics for commonsense people…clearly it would seem the message of what the JDA is really all about is finally getting through!

A whole plethora of issues and possible ways to tackle these was put forward: issues such as GST, fairer taxation alternatives generally, housing and the need for more vocational education opportunities featuring heavily. We will have a lot more about the issues put forward at this meeting in due course once the JDA Council has had time to analyse all the paperwork. However, with a series of these meetings in the pipeline we can end this first report on yet another positive note with the announcement to the participants from JDA Deputy Shona Pitman that her colleagues non-JDA States Members Deputies Roy Le Herissier and Alan Breckon had both agreed to attend the second meeting set for later in the month.

“Working together on positive, new initiatives and focussing on common ground instead of differences is not only what ordinary working people in Jersey want,” the Deputy told us, ‘it’s the key to finally getting an island we can all be truly proud of.” We have to agree wholeheartedly.

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NEW ANTI-GST CAR STICKER LAUNCH

Having been the only ones to put forward a number of viable, much fairer alternatives to GST at the 2005 elections the JDA remain amongst very few who kept their word to continue to fight against this regressive and hugely damaging tax. The party will have some important news on this issue very soon. Meantime, however, why not pick up one of our brand new anti-GST car stickers and show the multi-millionaire Ministers behind this scam exactly what you think of it!

We’re offering these FREE initially, so if you want to get hold of one for your motor

call the 24/7 party number: 07797 824243 today.

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PATRONS May 2009
The Jersey Democratic Alliance is proud to announce two of the most outstanding figures in Jersey politics in the last sixty years as our Patrons. Not only is this our way of honouring them, but we also are honoured even more by their acceptance.

Chris Wakeham, apart from being a campaigner for political progress and reform for six decades, has been a real achiever, who has improved life for thousands of young islanders over the years by her tireless work in founding and managing first youth facilities, and then child care provision. The Centrepoint nurseries allow hundreds of mothers to work for a decent standard of living, when they would otherwise be impoverished dependants. Her leading role in the Jersey Democratic Movement is really the aspect of her life's work that we have celebrated in inviting her to be one of our Patrons, however. Chris's huge experience and wisdom will continue to be a valued source of advice for the JDA Council.

Emile Collins has been an outspoken and articulate critic of “The Jersey Way” ever since the Second World War. A founder member of the JDM, he has continued to write prolifically for the JEP “Letters” page, although he complains that they do not dare to print many of his letters. He is also familiar to those who follow Jersey affairs by local radio, as the voice the Ministers' fear to hear on the phone-in programmes. Emile was the very first member of the public signed up by Ted Vibert when founding the JDA, and has continued to play an active part in the party, both manning street stalls and speaking at all major meetings.

Although the JDA sees engaging youth in Jersey politics as one of its most important tasks, the appointments of Chris and Emile as our Patrons signals the party's recognition that there is an older generation who still care about where Jersey is going, and can bring a lifetime's worldly wisdom into their political thinking, and that they must be part of the Alliance, too.

ENVIRONMENTAL VOLUNTARY WORK –

SUPPORTING TREES FOR LIFE

‘Actions speak louder than words’ is an old adage that fits in very well with the ethics of the JDA. Just how true this is was demonstrated yet again by a group of our members on the first Sunday in June. Helping protect Jersey’s environment is surely something every one of us in the island should be signing up to and is certainly an issue the party are committed to 100%. Members will recall that the JDA published its Environmental Policy as long ago as January 2007. But its not all about major ‘headline grabbing’ issues like recycling and the need to pull back from what would be a catastrophic commitment to hugely damaging conventional incinerator technology.

Trees For Life (a completely non-political organisation, formerly the Association of the Men of the Trees) have for many years done sterling work in helping to ensure our island remains a green and beautiful place for future generations. As the accompanying pictures show this particular Trees For Life initiative, which the JDA was only too pleased to be able to assist with, was aimed at ‘hands on’ conservation work – the Jersey Hedgerow Campaign – to help protect the island’s biodiversity.

Fairly physical work it is true, the session saw sickles out in force (though no hammers much to the disappointment no doubt of those who so regularly try to misrepresent the moderate, centre-left politics of the party!) as our volunteers set about clearing away the weeds and debris from young trees planted by Trees For Life earlier. A really enjoyable morning and a good non-political cause this environmental initiative, which the JDA will most definitely be actively supporting again also had unforeseen benefits. As JDA Environmental spokesman, Dave Rotherham summed up nicely: “after this little lot going back to weed my own garden is not something I’ll moan about ever again!” With more sessions coming up if you think you might be interested in helping Trees For Life please call the party number or contact Conrad at direct at Trees For Life on 857611.

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JDA LAPEL BADGES PROVE A GREAT SUCCESS

As many members will remember last autumn we took delivery of the first batch of an especially designed metal/enamel JDA lapel badge. Fashioned in the red, white and blue of the party’s colours on a silver background we are pleased to be able to report that these have proven far more popular than we had anticipated. Not only were the last of this batch of 300 sold at the re-launch of our High Street stall at the end of May, the badges seem to have become an item of interest in places we could never have imagined when we decided to run with the idea.

This fact was brought home to us only last week when out of the blue a gentleman from Athens, Greece contacted JDA Chairman, Trevor Pitman to ask if it was possible for him to obtain one! Seems the man in question was a collector of political badges/insignia and had come across the JDA’s badge through a story on the Internet. With Greece being widely considered as the true cradle of democracy Trevor told us he was only too happy to agree.

What next we wonder – JDA tee shirts on the beaches of Ibiza? If you’re off on your holidays in the next month or two keep your eyes peels. Who knows, maybe we could even make this a regular spot on the website with prizes for the most exotic sighting! In the meantime we are pleased to be able to advise that we now have a second batch of the badges available. Still priced at just £1 they can be obtained by contacting this website or the 24/7 JDA number.

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