Tim Young – giving power back to the people of Colchester

THIS!

The Colcestrian

Labour’s Tim Young is now officially​ recognised as the front runner to dislodge the surprise Tory candidate for MP who snuck in last General Election cycle.

Tim Young, a local lad (rather than a shipped in candidate targeting a marginal) has many years and family invested in our wonderful town and rather than be a mouth piece for big business interests, or parroting his party’s monotonous mantra, Tim is actually interested in working for us – the people of Colchester.

We met up with Tim for a chat and a walkabout to see how passionately he feels about getting things done and becoming our MP.

The Lib Dems used to be in power in Colchester – best part of two decades. Labour voters lent their votes to keep Colchester from joining the sea of blue that is Essex.

Now that Labour have overtaken the Libs, it’s time for their supporters…

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New blog! TheLL!!!

Hey! Remember I’m trying to switch over to Medium. But I still want all my WordPress friends to catch my stuff! Here’s the latest on me & The Lemay Leveller. 

New Blog! Please follow!

Hello all! I’m going to start blogging here – please do follow me and share! 

Soup! Colchester, That is: ColchesterSoup

Hello all!! I am writing this blog on my phone, such is my dedication to both blogging and the subject at hand today. Forgive me for any errors, I am used to writing on a keyboard, and to me, part of the writing process is moving about and handling the keyboard much like playing the piano. I have to try a little harder on my phone, as good as it is. 

Yesterday, Karen from ColchesterSoup reminded me that it’s been some time since I’ve blogged. Ever the inspiring friend, she often helps me remember what I’d like to do. And I’d like to explain the dedication at the beginning of The Lemay Leveller to ColchesterSoup. 

First an explanation for those not in the know: Karen brought @ColchesterSoup to our community. It is a concept tried and tested in Detroit. The idea is simple, if my long winded explanation may be slightly less so. 

Three people or groups pitch to win a pot of money. Where does the money come from? From the very people attending that night. (Affordable at every other month) Everyone who attends the evening pays £5. For that, they get endless bowls of delicious handmade soups (two to choose between), rolls, and a vote. They will listen to that evening’s three pitchers and then decide who wins the pot of money (that’s the hardest part of the night!) 

In the meantime, a family friendly, fun evening is had with a fascinating cross section of Colchester’s inhabitants. The evening is worth the £5 simply for the fellowship and networking that it offers, let alone everything else. 

As for the pitchers: they can ask for money for pretty much anything. They each have five minutes to say what they need the money for and how it may benefit Colchester. And be creative! Most things happening locally have some kind of local merit. 

While I was working on the final revision of my book, The Lemay Leveller, I pitched for money to help pay the editing and publishing fees, in the name of hard work, culture and protecting literature from being owned by the elite. On that night I lost, I was up against stiff competition, but I was told the numbers had been close. 

Despite “losing” (or rather, as it feels, simply not winning the pot of money), that night was a huge success for me. One man donated his recent lottery winnings to me on the night. Others donated directly to my gofundme page. Others decided then and there that they would buy the book when it came out.  Best of all, I met people who have become dear friends to me. 

When ColchesterSoup were invited to participate in the council led festival “The Art of the Possible”, a new event was created: meetSOUP, with ColchesterSoup running it.  People from all over Essex were able to pitch, and Karen kindly invited me to try again for The Lemay Leveller.  Well. You know how it went. Of course I was happy to talk about my book again, no matter if I won or not!  So I pitched again. But this time, I won!!! It felt amazing. It was a huge boost to my confidence as a first time, self publishing author. And now, almost a year later, and my book sales are still modest, but they are growing each month as more and more people try it and then recommend it onwards. Who knows? 200 years from now it might be highly valued literature. And it will be known as having been nurtured by a community that values the arts, the uniqueness of the individual, and how, if that uniqueness is nurtured rather than wasted or abused, it can become a success. That, is what ColchesterSoup, means to me. And on a larger scale, it is this spirit of initiative that makes Colchester the wonderful place to live that it is. 

If you need money for yourself. If you know a charity who does. If you have an idea but no money to get started with, visit http://www.colchestersoup.co.uk and fill in their super easy application form. Who knows? It could be you holding that winners frame! But either way – you’re going to win just by going. You’re going to feel welcomed, a part of an active, engaging, lively community, in a town I’ve deeply come to love. 

If you’re reading this outside of Colchester, why not see if you have a local Soup? And if not, why not do what Karen did. She learned of the movement coming from Detroit, and brought it to us, pushing on the trend throughout the UK. It is micro funding, community funding and togetherness, at its best. 

Sexism & Europe: Why I’ve been quiet of late

The Colcestrian

I’ve been very quiet on the Twitter since the recent Colchester elections.  To be honest, they burned me out.  I got so drawn in that I lost focus on actual human thoughts and was found babbling about Greenstead Ward in the lean-to, hovering over litter trays.

My regular life, outside of doing Colcestrian stuff, is quite complicated and of course includes everything that matters more to me than local or national politics.  I have a family who rely upon me and despite being very socially-involved themselves (even the 9yo boy) still suffered politics-itis over the month I was churning out Q&As with the Council Candidates.

It was a very worthwhile event, and though I won’t say it was responsible for changing the face of local politics, it engaged a lot of people and became a topic of conversation in itself.  It surprised me.

But now, I am burnt out.  I’m…

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Terrorism and Toxic Masculinity

The one thing that nearly every terrorist attack has in common, is that for the vast majority, they are committed by males. Males of every colour, religion, nation. We are dealing with many things in our modern “Terror”, but among them is a toxic culture of masculinity. 

Every time a man listens to a woman’s perspective, every time a young boy is taught that violence is not for play time, every time I bring up feminism (again!) we are all trying to combat against the violence that the male identifying psyche has created. The pressure is there on boys from their earliest moments, to be tough, to be stronger than the others in the playground, to be the best at football. Boys are discouraged to play with dolls or soft toys, the very same toys that teach little girls empathy and how to look after other creatures. 

We all bear social responsibility on this issue, by allowing the boys in our lives to be fully human. By teaching them. By teaching our girls the same. Toxic masculinity has defined a millennia. It’s time we changed the direction of the tide. 

Rest in peace Jo Cox, MP. 

A blog within a blog, on PTSD

Hello all!

 

I just wanted to stop by and say I’ve blogged on another platform!  Shocking behaviour, I know, cheating like that, but you know us writers, we’ll write anywhere!

 

This time I’m writing on a really awesome site, that covers all things PTSD related.  June is PTSD Awareness month, and I’m doing my bit by writing a few pieces about PTSD and how it affects me, and those I love.  You may find the first one here, which is on the subject of trigger warnings.  Trigger warning: rape. 

 

Stay safe x

Time for a Change

I’m here to send a message to the many people who I engage with on social media (twitter, Facebook).

 

When I was born these things weren’t even invented.  It’s a new thing, for all of humanity, and we’ve all got to live with it in one way or another.  I have decided that I am changing the way I live with it.  I should say, how I am learning to live with it. I am learning again how to live after narrowly avoiding death in the Spring/Summer 2015, my priorities and views on the world have changed, ,and I need to change my habits accordingly.  Now that I am here and living in 2016, I have to learn what it means to live with a time bomb in my head (have fun googling AVMs) and how to best handle that.  That includes stress, which is possibly the most dangerous thing to my physical wellbeing.  Well haven’t I learned the hard way, how social media can induce stress… so I am backing out of as much of it as I can safely and happily manage.  I have to make a lot of decisions about how I want to live my remaining life.  Fighting with any Tom, Dick or Harry who pops up is not my choice.

 

I am so bloody sick of abusive people, and people who insist on everyone thinking and feeling exactly the same way.  I raised myself by reading the classics and learning about debate.  I don’t see very much productive debate, just a lot of hot air and harassment.  I’m tired of the arguments, “In or Out or Shake it All About”.  I’m tired of the MRA jumping down my throat every time I speak about women’s rights.  I’m tired of others standing by and watching it.  I’m sick of being unable to express even one little feeling or thought without getting an onslaught of unasked for advice which is usually micro-aggression (not always so micro), or links telling me I should feel another way.  There seems to be no room allowed for people to be different from each other.  People are losing the ability to debate without resorting to insult.

 

For the purposes of our children’s charity, Perkin’s Family Trust, and those precious friendships that I have that largely depend upon tools such as Facebook to maintain, I will not be going altogether.  But I will be trimming my friends list down to only those who I know well, interact with regularly, and get along decently with.  I will continue blogging and sharing that on twitter, but I will not engage with anyone on demand.  I enjoy sharing family moments, quilting moments, learning moments.  I will keep my Facebook interactions to those, and let twitter promote my blog, book and charity work.  I will continue to express political thoughts, including those on feminism.  No one can silence me, but I am taking back some of the access control.  Those things, and the people with whom I interact with on those lovely issues, are too good for me to leave the field altogether.  A dear friend of mine expressed surprise over this decision, because, as she said I “wrote a book to provoke debate”.  That’s a fair comment!  But that’s just the point.  I spent all those years living in hell and then more years afterwards writing about it.  I am choosing to do something different with my coming years.  I will still allow The Lemay Leveller to be the lightning rod that it was written to be.

 

If in the process of this, I “unfriend” you, please don’t take it personally.  It doesn’t mean that I think you’re a bad person.  Maybe you’re not quite the right person for me at this stage in my life.  Or maybe you’re the friend of a friend but we’ve never gotten to know each other.  Or maybe you’re so hard on everyone around you that I have decided I am safest to limit my contact with you.  Or maybe none of the above.  I don’t mean any harm to anyone, but it is time that I start taking my own wellbeing more seriously.  The stress that is coming with being an opinionated woman online is getting to be too much, and I don’t owe anyone a nervous or physical breakdown.  I want to be off grid for a while, apart from this blog and personal communications.

 

Best wishes to all,

Erin

 

(featured image tongue  in cheek)

 

 

 

The “F” Word

It started innocently enough.  I was scanning my timeline on twitter.  A comment jumped out at me:

 

“I wish feminists would focus on pulling women up rather than tearing men down.” @Sargon_of_Akkad

 

At first I thought there was no point in replying, because I have recently had so much abuse from the MRA.  But then I thought – hey – this man seems to be expressing an emotion akin to building bridges.  So I’ll try to explain the feminist perspective.  That’s what twitter is all about, right?

 

I replied “I wish men would consider themselves feminist so women didn’t have to fight”.  That was my mistake.  In the half an hour or so since then I have had dozens of abusive messages.  As soon as they began rolling in, I politely replied to all saying “Please remove me from this convo, thanks”, again, giving them the chance to do the decent thing.  That only made them more abusive.  In these confrontations the men get aggressive very, very quickly and demand that you argue with them.  I don’t want to spend my day dedicated to that, so I am ignoring, beyond this blog, asking the decent men who are reading it why they allow this to happen, why they don’t jump in when they see a female being abused and bullied by a group of men for doing nothing more than stating an opinion – and a pretty common one at that.

 

You see I mistakingly replied, thinking, rather stupidly, I’ll admit, that perhaps these men in this conversation were interested enough in feminism to not immediately abuse me for voicing an opinion.  The very fact that I have had nearly 100 notifications in half an hour over this – all abusive – shows that yes, feminism is needed.

 

“You made your bed now lie in it. Answer the man’s Q” @LeeboGear – Wow.  I don’t take orders from you.  And I am perfectly within my rights to refuse to engage with abusive people.

 

“Remove her from this country and send her to Iran. They NEED feminism.” (But the abuse I’m getting for speaking doesn’t necessitate it at all…?)

 

“He went off the script… NO PREPARED ANSWER” @PaveDarker – So many assumptions here, and always within these messages the underlying theme that I’m a stupid woman.  It is not that I can’t debate.  It’s that I’m exercising my rights as a human being to not waste my time doing it with you.  And while we’re with comments from this charmer, how about this one for size:

 

“Careful, tagging someone without express consent is rape”  Nope.  No need for feminism at all.  Was what I originally said really worth all this hatred and abuse?

 

The comments are still rolling in.  And I am still here turning the other cheek.  I won’t let the MRA ruin a perfectly good day.  But to the many men I know who sit on the sidelines and watch this happening to the women in your life – why don’t you speak up?  For those of you who still aren’t sure that feminism is necessary (women have it all right, don’t they?) ask yourself why it took less than half an hour for it to go from me expressing an opinion to a sadist referring to rape.  Rape.  If you’re desensitised to that word let me remind you, it is brutal, it is soul destroying.  Is that really what men want to be known for?  Brutality?  Would you tolerate it if it was racial abuse?  Most of the people I know wouldn’t.  But I am seeing a lot of tolerating of misogyny.  I will no doubt get further abuse for writing this blog.  Go on MRA, prove me wrong and let me have the last word!  Prove men are better than this by NOT threatening me with rape for speaking.  Prove you’re not a threat, by not threatening me.  My son is growing to be one of the many in the next generation who will not tolerate this abuse against the women in their life.  Some people have advised me not to speak of feminism on social media because of the abuse it brings with it.  I don’t think the Civil Rights movement would have got very far using those tactics.

Is it possible to build bridges across the Left/Right Divide?

Is it possible to build bridges across the Left/Right Divide?

 

This is a question that has been much on my mind of late, as Colchester and the greater world has become more and more politicised.

 

I don’t presume to offer any solutions here, but there does seem to be a problem that needs dealing with.  In my efforts to provoke positive change for my community, I have worked with people across the political spectrum.  I don’t need to be friends with everyone I work with, though I love it when work brings like minds together and friendships bloom.  Maybe there isn’t enough blooming happening.  People these days seem to be quickly summed up as “Left” or “Right” and little more.  The Lefties and Righties all crowd together, both camps bitching about the other and both proclaiming to have all the answers.  What we have though, is a shared origin and a shared problem.  There is ground there to build on, but who is doing the building, and who is doing the tearing down?

 

Our shared problem: How to save the planet and its inhabitants.  Humanity has done a number on itself and our mother earth.  While we small creatures are squabbling, our host is dying.  The flora and fauna are dying.  The humans are dying.  Each generation has but one crack at getting their bit right.  The generations that ruled during the long 20^th century have done more damage, ecologically speaking, than any before.  It is now our challenge to save it all.  Set it right.  And most of those concerned in doing so, align themselves in some way politically.  And here we have our Left/Right divide, which has become so invasive that we are no longer able to achieve anything for the squabbling over who is going to be the one to save it all.

 

Generally speaking, I examine every situation posed to me, and I measure it against the benchmarks that I have come to rely upon.  “Philosophy” means loosely translated “The study of wisdom”.  Wisdom being a grand benchmark to make political decisions with… philosophy and politics are intrinsically linked.  Politics is often putting one philosophy or another into legislation.  The philosophy of politics, is involved each time we exercise a democratic right.

 

I try to give every individual a fair shake, before I make judgements based on who they are, whether I know that they are Tory or Green.  But more and more, I am feeling from many, a sort of “us or them” attitude.  One where you are either in and conforming or you are out.  Well that’ll never fly with me, I need to surround myself with people whose minds are still open and awake.  It is those awake people who make positive, rather than destructive change.  It is the people who are more concerned with burning bridges than building them that are destructive in this scenario, but those are the very people who need to be reached.  Also, what if I know that someone holds beliefs that go directly against everything I hold dear.  Can I still be friends with that person?  Do I need to be?  I cannot accept that further isolation from each other is the answer.

 

Take the example of a group of tourists.  None of them know each other.  They’re in a cave taking pictures of stalactites, and suddenly there is an earthquake.  They are blocked in.  They work together to survive, they bond over a shared crisis, one resuscitates another’s child after a severe injury.  They share the snacks that they’ve each got in their backpacks.  They share tears and hugs and ultimately victory when they are released from the cave.  They get out, and they’re in the pub, sharing life stories.  It turns out, they couldn’t disagree more, politically speaking.  One of them has a facebook feed that reads like a love letter to Farage, the other is Natalie Bennett’s BFF.  But they had never got around to talking politics while they were in the cave, because they were so intent on survival.  We need to tap into the humanity that is within (most) of us, the kind that flourished in the cave.  And build upon that, while allowing space for disagreements elsewhere.

 

Which brings me to the original question raised in the beginning of this blog.  How do we build bridges across the Left/Right Divide?  Do we think it is possible for anything to be achieved without broader cooperation between each other?  If cooperation isn’t the answer, then what is?  A civil war, Left on one side, Right on the other.  A world war?  The whole point is winning, right?  The likeliest thing is that we will plod along for another several generations, all teams trying to win before trying to achieve, until something truly catastrophic incites a revolution in the rather limited way that we are thinking.  I see so much propaganda with no purpose but scoring points against the other side.  Shouting about who is right has become more important than fixing the problems at hand.  Since when was that the issue we were trying to solve?  I thought Democracy was about balance in the legislative process of solving the issues.  Democracy, seems to be stinking like a moulded orange left too long on the counter!

 

I know that these issues run deep and they are among the most emotive aspects of our lives.  But when will we get to the point where saving ourselves and our earth becomes more important than scoring points across and within political parties?  Some of us are trying to raise their voices amidst the din to say that while we fiddle and bicker, something so much more precious than merely Rome, is burning.