The beginning

Hello world.

Before I burst into what I hope becomes a regular series of posts on "Charlie's Greenwich", I thought I would begin my explaining a little bit about who I am, why I've established this blog, lay out the themes that I hope to discuss in the time that follows and ultimately what I hope to achieve from making regular posts to my blog.

Who am I?

As you should already have seen, I'm Charlie. I'm a resident of Greenwich, an HR Administrator at the National Maritime Museum and one of three members of the Greenwich Conservative "Action Team" for Peninsula ward. In no particular order of priority, these 3 facts about me will shape the content of this commentary, since all are significant interests of mine and all have shaped and will continue to shape my view of Greenwich. I hope that in the coming weeks this blog will tell those who are interested a bit more about my values, local interests and aspirations.

Why am I blogging?

I am a regular reader of several blogs, some political, some not. I've tried to blog in the past for my own fulfillment, but haven't been able to keep up regular posting. One of the blogs I regularly read is the highly readable Charlton Average, an explicitly local blog that has recently commented on the quality of local engagement from Greenwich's councillors. My friend and colleague James Garry also began his own Charlton blog last week. I have to confess it was the combination of these two things have brought blogging back onto my own agenda, and whilst I shan't pretend to be able match the quality of Mr Average (or meet the Ofblog standards on local issues ;-) ) or the verbal dexterity of Mr Garry, I do hope that by establishing my own blog that I can join the debate on Greenwich's local issues. I also hope to be able to go beyond the cockpit of local politics and talk more broadly about my life in Greenwich, particularly the bits I like most about it.

What am I going to talk about?

I haven't been able to decide on exactly what I will and won't talk about yet, and perhaps it better I don't. Broadly however, I would like to be able to focus my comment within the following areas:

-What's going on in my ward
-What's going on in the borough
-What's happening at the Museum
-Comment that will hopefully generate discussion with others on the future of Greenwich and how we as residents and employees in the borough want it to look
-Putting my angle on interesting news of the day

What do I hope to achieve?

I can't promise to balance the focus of my content in any way, or even to keep it up as regularly as I and others would like. What I would like to concentrate on is engaging with local people, finding out what matters to them, and how I and my colleagues in Peninsula and the borough as a whole can help to make Greenwich an even better place to live.

Wish me luck!