Friday 21 November 2014

It's not all doom and gloom for our campaginers

It is easy, running a campaign like this, to get tied down by looking at the negative aspects of what is going on.  It's not hard as there are so many to choose from.  The impact on us, the impact on our families, the impact on our finances.  All of these are important and all of these worry us considerably.

Then there's the other issues surrounding the campaign like equality and discrimination and the underfunding of Mental Health.  There's the fear of stigma or recriminations for speaking out in our own names.  In a community where anxiety and paranoia is tied in to the lives of many of us, this is a real concern to many, though we're fortunate to have people who will represent us both publicly and to the Trust itself.

However it's not all doom and gloom.

We have discovered that there ARE people our there who will support us.  We are considered by some to be a small local issues, but not everyone sees it that way. To all of you we send our grateful thanks!
  • Glosswitch at the New Statesman and Louise Pennington at The Huffington Post who shared our story on a national forum.  The other national publication interested and investigating the Trust.
  • The women at Everyday Victim Blaming who shared our story and gave our campaign the first boost it needed.
  • Mumsnet, arguably the largest parenting website in the UK who when they made us Blog of the Day saw many people contacting us with their support.
  • Our 142 followers on Twitter who have given us a reach of over 10,000 people every week since we've run.
  • The students of Lancaster University who have passed a motion to support our campaign and are eager to help us in any way that they can.
  • Radio Lancashire and the Lancaster Guardian who made us lead stories in the local area.
  • The 255 people who are following us on Facebook who are giving us a post reach of 1000's
  • All of the people who have read this blog, generating more than 6000 page views in 3 weeks

We came into this campaign feeling small and weak and wondering what on earth we could do to make a change.  The response to our campaign has given many of us a sense of self belief that we didn't have before. It has shown us what we are capable of.

Its not all doom and gloom and it is not over yet.  We will keep on until we succeed.

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