Head Tale

Usually, every Friday, I try to post a link to an interesting site or video or whatever. But today, I just want to ruminate on one of the most enjoyable days I’ve had in awhile.

Today was the day that Ryan Meili kicked off his campaign for the leadership of the Saskatchewan NDP.  I was up way past my bedtime finalizing a few of the last-minute details for today’s big event then had a great day at work, with my phone constantly buzzing with Tweets, Facebook updates and more.

Since I couldn’t be in Saskatoon for Ryan’s launch, I caught a ride with a friend over to the launch of Trent Wotherspoon’s campaign launch in Regina at noon.  I will have *way* more thoughts in the weeks and months to come about the various candidates, their campaigns and so on but I’ll just say that I was impressed with the very professional show that Trent put on for his launch.

Back  to work and had the pleasure of one of our regular patrons bringing myself and a co-worker in Outreach soft drinks and Timbits – to be honest, a somewhat regular occurrence which is one of the benefits of working with a client group who, perhaps more than any other in the library, are thankful and show appreciation for what we do for them.

I had a few great conversations with colleagues about all manner of topics throughout the day – from how best to scavenge office furniture to the travails of organizing a staff conference to the travel options in South America.

The day was topped by a guy I somewhat know from the Internet (but should definitely get to know better!) handing me two 16GB thumb drives at the bus stop which were loaded with videos of one of my favourite artists who was at the Regina Folk Fest last year!

(I’d jokingly tweeted yesterday that it felt like “the day before Christmas” in a winking reference to Ryan’s launch but those thumb drives were a very real and tangible gift I unexpectedly received today – pretty cool! The guy saying he’d seen my tweets throughout the day and that he was also a Ryan supporter was a bonus.)

Supper with family friends – totally conservative and totally rural and totally cool with me.  I love how Ryan says (probably paraphrasing) “My dad is a card-carrying member of the Sask Party and if I didn’t know him, I might see him as an adversary.  But since I do, I know him as a good man.”

That’s how I see many of my own family and friends in rural Saskatchewan and that’s the key to future success for the NDP as far as I’m concerned.  They’re not the “enemy” or “wrong”, they just have a different viewpoint for whatever reason.

We, as NDP members, need to find a way to bridge that divide.  And to do that, we need to find a leader who won’t come at them in a strongly partisan way but in a common-sense fashion.  That’s a big part of why I’m supporting Ryan and that and other reasons are also something you’ll be hearing a lot more about in the weeks and months to come.

As Ryan’s slogan says, we’re “Better Together”.  Looking forward to the campaign!