Fresh faces join Labour

As part of a nationwide membership drive for the Labour Party, I wrote to folk to invite them to become members of the Labour Party. The letters went to addresses in the Bromley, Waltham, Sydenham and Beckenham to individuals who had indicated support for Labour during canvassing for the 2008 election.

These areas are exciting for me because they are newly included in my electorate and did not yet have Labour branches. The letters were followed up with telephone calls to see how they felt about becoming members or supporters.

I’m happy to say the results are very encouraging! New members are signing up, while others have asked to go on a supporters list to receive regular notices of events and news from Parliament.

It’s interesting how the nationalities included in the new membership group reflect the great cultural diversity of our Port Hills electorate.  To the existing members – including new New Zealanders with UK, Indian, French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Samoan and American roots, we can now extend a welcome to Ethiopian, Philippino, Tongan and South African people. This ’United Nations’ of first homes is a wonderfully diverse base for our Labour Electorate membership.

Our canvas teams in 2008 also doorknocked Maori on the Te Tai Tonga electoral roll and membership follow-up has yielded new members for the Otautahi Branch of that electorate.

I’m really pleased by all this activity so look out for news of the new branch activities!