First thing of all – Don’t Panic!
This is a long haul. The consultation period runs up to October, and even then we won’t actually be done fighting. If they then draw up legislation, there will be most likely be campaigning to be done at that point too. So get yourself settled down and ready to plug at this constantly, with whatever level of involvement you can, but without destroying your family life – after all, that’s what we’re fighting for, so there’s no point in throwing it away at the start.
Consider what level of involvement you want to have. There are a variety of groups you can join who will be taking/ planning action. There’s Ahed, which has a discussion group as well as a wiki, or the new Badman review action group, which is single issue and very active atm. Of course EO is still around, though I for one am not impressed with how they have conducted themselves so far during this process, so would not feel comfortable being a member.
If you just want to keep up with blogs good ones to start with are Renegade parent, Dare to know blog and Sometimes it’s peaceful. I’d advise use of an RSS reader that can check the blogs you are interested in regularly, you can use Google reader or something of that sort.
Alternatively, you can set up Google alerts to keep yourself in the loop – they can monitor blogs and websites as well as mainstream media articles but only for given selected terms. It can take some fiddling about to get your search set up, but it’s quite worthwhile.
And a major piece of action, write to your MP. Let them get to know you. Tell them about the issues, explain how you are feeling. If they are conservative they are probably quite open to your thoughts, if they are labour they need to know they’ve found yet another vote losing issue. You can find them at writetothem or via parliament.gov.uk. There’s an excellent letter at Maire’s blog, I strongly advise that you do NOT cut and paste it in its entirety, but you can use it to give you ideas. (Cut and paste letters do not give the same impact as individual letters, so write your own!) Dare to know has some advice as well.
And lastly, because it was good advice, Don’t Panic.
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