Trust in politicians has reached an all-time low. You won’t gain votes by being some anonymous person knocking on peoples doors once every four years and waving a manifesto at people: they’ve already made their minds up. You will get votes by making friends with your constituents, by engaging with them, involving yourselves in their lives – you know, old fashioned community stuff. Time and distance is a factor, of course it is, but with new media you have the tools to do this easily, conveniently, openly. All you need to is get past this “them and us” mindset. There is no them, just us. Trust and respect isn’t earned by a glossy flier, but it might be earned with an email, a tweet. And the sooner we all sit down round a table, real or virtual, and talk like adults the better Welsh politics will be.
Aberdare’s elected politicians have chosen not to blog. That is a great loss to the people of Aberdare because the blog is an ideal medium to engage and connect with constituents. Al Iguana hits the proverbial nail squarely on the head.
It’s been three years since we first started blogging about Aberdare and now there are three thousand photos in the Gallery.
Put one foot in front of the other and repeat, and repeat, and repeat. Before you know it, you’ve trod your way so far down a path, it becomes easier to continue forward, than re-trace your steps backwards.
The photographic ‘themes’ in the Gallery started in Aberdare… honest guv! In a town rich with Chapels and Churches it was inevitable we would start taking photographs across the Valley, then across the Valleys, then farther afield.
And so the pattern is repeated with our other photographic themes. First Aberdare, then out there!
The word we are looking for here is serendipity. We have trod this path as accidental photographer making chance discoveries along the way. We have endeavoured to share some of this joy with you, the reader.
In the photograph : Character from a Mural at Rhondda Heritage Park
Aberdare Blog started as an experiment in communicating views of Aberdare and views from Aberdare. It remains an experiment in communication open to participation. Jane from Mountain Ash blogged the lead story on the Mountain Ash Opencast plans this week. Why not blog your own story from Aberdare today ?
Here is a list of the Top 100 tags used to describe posts on Aberdare Blog… if we haven’t blogged on a subject close to your heart, you can fix that yourself. If you prefer to blog a story with photos or video, that’ll do nicely thank you, send them today.
Oh, hallelluia. The Welsh Assembly Gets Tough on Bloggers this week.
We noted some weeks ago the sudden disappearance of a Plaid Cymru Assembly Member’s blog in mysterious circumstances.
We called for Guidelines on the use of the Internet by Assembly Members, especially after dastardly projects like Natwatch – an anonymous blog – apparently funded by a Labour Party Assembly Member and his young researcher.
Although parts of this missive are being discussed online, there is no copy available in the Transcript of the Standards Committee meeting of 29 January 2008 on the National Assembly website.
Perhaps Jeff Cuthbert as Chair of the Standards Committee will reveal his blogging ‘Guidance’ given to Assembly Members.
We aim to bring you the tastiest and healthiest blog in Wales … so we are cutting down on dogma.
Nice peoples the 
It’s been three years since we first started blogging about Aberdare and now there are three thousand photos in the Gallery.
Oh, hallelluia. The Welsh Assembly Gets Tough on Bloggers this week.
