10 years of political activism

yep 10 years ago I was the Lincoln university Womens rights officer, I headed off to Wellington for my "training" and learned how to be a staunch women and how to protest.... all very necessary skills for women in the late 1990's after nearly a decade of tory government.
At training i also met up again with two women I had been at school with, Anna was a role model for me at high school, she wasnt "cool" but seemed to be happy to be who she was and this was inspiring to a 14 year old geek.

I also made some friends through this that I have found again in the last year and have enjoyed connecting back with them. Its so neat to be able to rekindle friendships through the use of online places.

After my year at Lusa, Ben and I joined the Labour party, we toyed with the idea of the alliance, but Labour was were we settled, and have stayed. So at the end of this year we will have spent 10 years in the labour party.

In that time we have both been on various policy commitees, LEC's etc, and for a couple of years I was the youngest regional representative on NZ Council,

Most of this predates the arrival of children, although K attended her first council meeting at about 2 months old and her first conference at 5 months. But having the kids has slowed down our activism a bit, you tend to be less radical in someways when you are responsible for others.
Though I still protested at John Key when he was here in palmy during the election campaign

We now count as good friends the MP for our town who we were on the campaign team with and his wife and children will probably be friends of our family for a long time to come.

I have enjoyed my first 10 years of activism and look forward to the next ten whatever they may bring.

I am especially glad of some of the friendships that I have found through this, Iain, Clare, T, Julie, Anna, and various others.

I may not seem to be as staunch as I used to be, but then maybe I have learned to use my passions to bring changes in other ways.

So thank you to my three high schools too, the first taught me that women deserved a better place than they had. the second that women can be anything, and the third taught me to have fun..... all this and being a geek have lead to me wanting to make a change and for once I can honestly say that I think I have.

D