Liveaboard boater Frank Kelly will be standing for election to one of the four boater representative places on the Canal and River Trust Council. Here is his statement which will be on the voting form:
“I am a wholly independent candidate and a continuous cruiser with experience of campaigning on the River Lea and Grand Union, London. Over many years the waterways have become crucially important as a national housing alternative and now support a large population of people dependent upon their boats as homes. I am deeply concerned that the DEFRA consultation failed to reflect this. As a member of council I will undertake to be an effective voice for the civil liberties, human rights and security of residential boat dwellers nationally and will seek to address problems of prejudice, discrimination and harassment faced by our community. I note and fully support the Boater’s Manifesto, and Article 8 in particular.”
Frank is on Facebook as Frank Anthony. His Twitter ID is @invisiblesoup and you can find out more about him on his blog http://www.boatmarian.blogspot.com
Make sure you check your post regularly as voting forms will be sent by post. The forms will be sent to the same address that your boat licence is posted to, so make sure you still have access to that address. Voting will take place between 8 February and 9 March. Each boat licence will get one vote, so that means joint licence holders only get one vote between them. The election is being carried out by the Electoral Reform Society.
The election will use the Single Transferable Vote system, which attempts to achieve the best compromise, as opposed to simply electing the candidate with the most votes. You will be asked to vote for candidates in order of your first, second, third etc choice. You don’t have to rank all the candidates on the ballot paper, only the ones you actually want to vote for. So put Frank Kelly as your first choice with a “1” next to his name.
More information on how the Single Transferable Vote works can be found on the Electoral Reform Society’s web site here http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/?PageID=483 or on Wikipedia here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote
Tags: BW charity status, Canal and River Trust, continuous cruising, liveaboards
a continous journey is not required, and continuous cruisers do not exist