Thursday, April 02, 2009

Bloggers at the G20

Both ConHome and Tom Harris have been muttering about not being invited to the Bloggers tent at the G20. This sparked off something in my memory so I have just been trawling through my Deleted Items, and came across an email from Oxfam on 16 March, which invited me to ask my readers to nominate bloggers to take part. It was, however, part of an email which was about something else altogether. It's an Oxfam initiative rather than a government one, although Wee Dougie Alexander seems to be claiming credit.
Oxfam has initiated a 'bloggers tent' at the upcoming G20 London summit. We are inviting the blogosphere to nominate 50 influential bloggers (a mix of high profile bloggers, those with a focus on poverty/climate change and bloggers from the developing world) to attend the G20 summit and engage with policy makers there. It's an exciting opportunity for Oxfam (and other NGOs) to work with a variety of bloggers and make sure world leaders and delegates at the G20 hear the voice of the developing world.

Given your expertise in this area, you may wish to take part in the nominations or ask your readers to nominate you. Nominations end on Wednesday afternoon. You can find more details at: http://www.whitebandradar.org/en/g20voice
To be honest, I'd rather stick pins in my eyes rather than be put in a tent in a remote part of East London with 50 other bloggers with nothing to write about, so I didn't take them up on their kind offer. But it seems they didn't contact any of the other reasonably well known bloggers.

Tom Watson felt lonely. He asked where the 1,000 bloggers were, he was expecting to attend. Might have helped if he had emailed any of us, I guess. An invitation from the government might have carried more weight than a competition from a charity.

9 comments:

Unsworth said...

Better outside the tent....

Demetrius said...

A tent for bloggers? Good grief. It reminds me of the temperance organisation that held a social evening in a church hall next to a pub called the "Marquess of Granby". It did not go to plan.

SteveH103 said...

Just listened to Gordon. He truly has saved the World!!

Plato said...

Mr Smithson @pb was wondering what on Earth this was this morning.

I did hear a R5 intv with someone from mumssnet though who was there to cover their shoes and hair styles.

Apparently it was most slip-ons.

I kid not.

Simon Gardner said...

Channel 4 News’s Jon Snow has been reduced to writing (frequently) as to how ghastly it all is. And then doing a short video blog - about how ghastly it all is.

So you are doubtless well out of it.

Dave Walker said...

There's no bloggers tent I'm afraid - we're in with everyone else.

On what measure of merit should the bloggers have been invited? You need to define 'reasonably well known' too. Some of the bloggers are well known within the circles they move in, but they just happen to be different circles to yours.

Can I just add that spending a couple of days with bloggers from all over the world in a remote part of East London has been a very worthwhile experience - have loved every minute.

Dave (Live from Excel)

Unknown said...

nothing to write about?

A few people in the last hour seem to disagree with you, start with the Economist

http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2009/04/gordon_pulls_it_off.cfm

hatfield girl said...

Charities are part of government now. Call themselves the third sector and have representation in the cabinet office.

@molesworth_1 said...

There was someone else blogging from the G20 @ the ExCel Centre. No mention of tents, though...