Article in today's Yorkshire Post

See the bottom of the main article for a seperate piece from Will Green.

I just had a chat to him about Thursday. Apparently he spoke to Charles Clarke yesterday and asked him if he'd be joining us for rice. The answer, it seems, is no.

As yet, the Home Secretary has not responded directly to our invitation. Unlike his Canadian counterparts, both of whom have civilly sent their regrets.

Mr Clarke, we're waiting!

(And just so none of them can say they didn't get their invitations, we'll be delivering hard copies to the Marriott Hotel this evening.)

More publicity...

Nice article on the Diocese of Sheffield website. And apparently they're also sending an email out to all their clergy.

Good stuff!

Here comes the sun...

A big moment today - the first 5-day weather forecast to stretch to Thursday...

...and it's looking good. Sunny and 22 deg Celsius.

Over the next few days, I'll be watching the latest from the met office with the kind of fixation I normally reserve for opinion polls in the last week of a general election.

Peace in the Park

Chris, Harry, Ingrid, Huw and I spoke to hundreds of people yesterday on the march and on the stall at Peace in the Park. It's great to find that people have heard about Rice for Dinner already - and that it's catching their imaginations. It's starting to feel like we could have a really huge turnout.

Thanks to the others for helping out with the stall!

Other bits and pieces from past 24 hours

It looks like we have a P.A. system.

Someone phoned up from City School asking for information.

Stuart phoned up to say his band can come and play, while Kevin is bringing his classical guitar and some musical friends. We still need more musicians...!

Councillors Harry Harpham and Terry Fox sent apologies. Apparently they're both away next week.

kitchens etc

To my great relief, we now have two kitchens available from 5.30pm on Thursday. One at St Matthews C of E and the other at Hanover Methodists. Both come equipped with big pots. Many thanks to both churches!

Ingrid has just offered to provide two or three large sacks of rice and some large tubs for transporting it in.

This is all brilliant.

Update

Great article in The Star today. I've put a copy on the website.

Ordered another 5000 fliers this morning. They'll be ready for collection tomorrow afternoon.

The email invitations to the ministers went out this afternoon. We'll follow them up with printed invitations delivered to the Marriott, just in case any don't get through.

Got a call from a guy at the Yorkshire Post who wants to do a piece for Monday.

Mark C has been on the phone to Jarvis Cocker's management. Apparently they've asked him to send some information across. Worth a try!

And we just got the first response to the invitations to Councillors. Tim Rippon (Labour cabinet member) has declined due to a prior engagement...

Photos

Just added photos of this morning's press launch to the website. Including the one of Jan Wilson taking a flier. We look forward to seeing her on the 16th!

On the web, radio etc

Well done the press office, we have some good publicity on the BBC South Yorkshire news website,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/4615927.stm

as well as a soundbite on BBC radio Sheffield breakfast news and hopefully some lunchtime coverage on Look North.

media coverage

We got a good response to our press launch today. We turned up outside the town hall with a giant invitation: "MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY requests the pleasure of the company of THE G8 MINISTERS for Rice for Dinner".

Chris was interviewed for Radio Sheffield (they used clips in this morning's bulletins), Look North came along to film us for their lunchtime slot and a nice photographer from the Star came (even though he'd rather have been in Whitby on such a sunny day - wouldn't we all?).

Lots of people took leaflets on the town hall steps, including Jan Wilson. (I should have a papparazzi photo of her...) Then we handed in invitations and fliers for all the councillors.

There's also a nice story on the BBC South Yorkshire website.

socialist choir

I got a call last night from Val from the Sheffield Socialist Choir. Apparently they normally rehearse on a Thursday evening, so it should be straightforward for them to come along and sing on Devonshire Green instead. Great!

fliers

We had 5000 fliers printed last week. Over 4500 have now been distributed via churches, charity shops, bars, students unions and kebab shops - not to mention those that were handed out at the Devonshire Jam and in the street today. So now we're getting another 5000 printed...

welcome

Well, there are nine days to go before Rice for Dinner hits Devonshire Green - and we thought we'd start a blog to plot our progress! On here we'll have updates on the latest developments, links to media coverage and general encouraging stuff.