As is customary at this time of year, we should reflect on how much has been achieved and how much we have progressed.

So firstly, I’d like to thank you all for the efforts you’ve put in over the last year and hope you can sustain the momentum going into 2010, the General Election year.

One of the reasons I stood for CF Chairman was to make sure that every Young Conservative in the country had a voice and an opportunity to get involved with both CF and the Conservative Party: this, of course, could only be achieved by you folks, the CFers, that help run and promote CF activity at a local level.

CF Newsletter – November 2009
The monthly newsletter from the National Executive of Conservative Future (CF). CF is the youth wing of the Conservative Party, for supporters and members under the age of 30.
Contents:
1. A message from the National Chairman
2. Recent blog posts of interest
3. Branches
4. Campaigns & events
5. Contact us

Welcome to the November edition of the CF Newsletter. Some of you may be receiving this for the first time. This newsletter aims to give you an idea of what is going on in the organisation, and provides information for those …

Many CF members have just returned from a very successful Party Conference. The large number of events and positive media coverage showed the growing strength of our organisation. I expect CF to only improve in the coming months.

Now that Conference is over we must shift our attention fully to the upcoming General Election. I know that for months you have being working hard towards this goal, but now our efforts must double. We don’t have as long as you may think and we must ensure that CF is ready to put its full force into getting David Cameron into Downing St.

As the summer unfortunately comes to a close we are busy getting ready for the Party Conference in Manchester. We are just finalising the details of the CF programme, which we will be letting you know about soon. I hope though you have already booked your place on the training conference we are running on the Sunday before the conference starts!

The freshers’ pack list is now closed and the first packs will start going out this week; the theme this year is ‘Party For Change’ and with just over 240 boxes going out we expect a record signup.

We start August still riding high after the magnificent result in Norwich North. It was a super result for the constituency, Chloe, the Party and Conservative Future. We played a large role in helping a fellow CF member become a Member of Parliament and we should be very proud of this victory.

I want to thank all the members who gave up many hours to help campaign in Norwich, or in the phone centre in London – it did make a real difference. I remember watching Labour desperately ‘spinning’ before the result that the Conservatives would only win by a small margin, but I think the 16% swing from them to us put an end to that argument!

Each month that Gordon Brown delays in calling a General Election, is a another month that CF readies itself to help oust him. We are now getting gearing up for our biggest recruitment campaign of the year; Freshers’ Fairs! Last year we sent over 100 packs out to branches and this year we are going to send even more.

Of course, the battle on the doorstep never ceases; alongside all the local work CF branches do, we also have the Norwich North by-election coming up.

We have delayed the launch of this month’s newsletter until after the June 4th elections.

I’m glad to see that Labour have received the electoral slaughter they deserved; people are furious, not just over the recent expenses’ scandal, but with the last 12 years of ineffective and inefficient government. The people vented their anger at the ballot box.

It was good to see the sound thrashing that the Lib Dems also received, even if the BBC referred to it as ‘mixed results’!

I’ve just returned from a very successful Spring Forum in Cheltenham. Not only was it a success for our Party, but also for Conservative Future.

We campaigned on the doorsteps in the morning; in the afternoon, we carried out a petition against ID cards on Cheltenham High Street, with both the PPC Mark Coote and Party Chairman Eric Pickles supporting us; and our evening event with The Freedom Association, with Simon Richards introducing speeches from Daniel Hannan MEP and Roger Helmer MEP, was both well attended and enjoyed by all.

We are in the middle of improving the communication channels for Conservative Future members, which has prevented us from sending the newsletter to all our members.

These changes are coming on nicely and will provide an effective membership system for years to come, alongside a more effective way of keeping you all abreast of how CF is progressing all over the UK.

A message from the National Chairman

This last month has seen us make several large steps to improve our organisation, which nicely dovetails with the Party’s upturn too!

The first is we are currently updating & upgrading the CF database; this will allow for more communication, and also on a regional basis through the Regional Chairman. It is a slow process, but we hope to have it running soon.