There was a lot of  correspondence with tech support who after all else failed tried to restore the pages to how they were before they stopped working properly.  Even that didn’t work so I was advised to do a manual upgrade of Wordpress.  There was one small hitch with that, which was just me being silly and forgetting to change one of the settings in the config file.

Before all that could happen I had to do a separate, fresh installation of Wordpress to see if that would work.  Whilst I was doing that I came across this new theme that I am using.  I hope you like it   I have done a little tinkering around with the sidebars but I still need to upload my own header.  So please don’t ask me where that picture is because it isn’t one of mine.

In addition to fixing my blog I have been very busy planning for campaigns in the run up to the general election.  We have proved that the government are going to ignore PCS until after the election.  Despite making a lot of noise, saying that BA and Network rail should get back to the negotiating table with the unions the government have remained stonily silent on requests  by PCS to talk to it’s own employees about the Civil Service Compensation scheme.  The PCS union have made several requests for talks, to cabinet office minister Tessa Jowell and to Gordon Brown who have not yet replied.

So for now we will be concentrating on the Make Your Vote Count  (MYVC) campaign which we have been building on for the past four years.  We will be engaging with the prospective MPs to find out their views on Public Services and to get them to sign up to five pledges.  All responses will be made publicly available.  This will also involve a local public hustings which is being organised by the Shropshire Action Group and resulted in me attending another meeting last night, where I was told I ‘had to’ take notes!!!  I have yet another meeting tonight which I could really do without.

On the plus side, I did have one evening off to visit my Mum for her birthday and my brother was in town which was nice.  The spiky plant I mentioned the other day was much appreciated

Maybe it is stretching the point, but I can see lots of balance in this photograph. It was taken yesterday after my regional (trade union) committee meeting. I had hoped to take quite a few photographs in the city, but as you can see from this photo the light was failing and it was only 15.15.

The meeting was long and we didn’t manage to get through the agenda items in the time alloted, but it was however very productive and informative. We discussed many issues, two key ones were the Civil Service Compensation Scheme (CSCS) talks and the Make Your Vote Count Campaign (MYVC).

Recently the Civil Service management announced unilateral changes to the CSCS and at the meeting we received an update on how the negotiations had progressed so far and what the next step would be.

The MYVC aims to put pressure on candidates in the forthcoming elections by canvasing their opinion and seeking commitment on key issues for the public sector.  This campaign has been building for 4 years and been tested during the local and European elections, with lessons learned we are ready for the challenge.

After all that hard work and the photo challenges the only thing to do was stay for dinner in the city, but that is for another post

For more of this weeks PhotoHunt pictures check out tnchick.

During recent weeks PCS members and reps have been speaking and writing to MPs who will be standing in the upcoming election.  The results with only 2 days left before polling day show that most of  the Conservative or Labour candidates are not interested in engaging in the process:

PCS and its members asked a series of questions as part of the union’s Make Your Vote Count campaign, which also saw 34 candidates’ question time events organised by PCS reps and members across the UK.  The purpose of the survey is to find out the views of the various candidates on where they stand in relation to public services.  The answers are then published on the PCS website, this allows people to make an informed choice before voting.  It also seeks to get people more interested in the election process and encourage them to go out and vote.

To find out where candidates stand on key issues such as jobs, privatisation and European co-operation to close tax gaps, European election candidates were sent a questionnaire. While the union does not recommend any party or candidate, candidates’ responses are then publicised to members to assist them in deciding who to vote for.

Labour and Conservative candidates mostly either failed to respond to the survey or simply referred voters to a national manifesto.

This shows a worrying contempt for the public at a time when politicians ought to be talking to the electorate to regain some of the trust lost through the scandal over MPs’ allowances, the union says.

Delegates at PCS’s annual conference last month overwhelmingly agreed to build on the MYVC campaign, and over the coming year members will be consulted about the possibility of standing or supporting trade union candidates in some elections. There will then be a ballot of the union’s 300,000 members on the issue.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “You would think that in the current climate, with public trust in politicians at an all-time low, that candidates would want to talk to the public. Instead what we have seen is either a refusal to participate or a robotic response referring us to a manifesto. This is simply not good enough.

So after all that hard work helping out with the campaign I had better go and cast my vote hadn’t I