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Original poster

Is anyone else here working at a Polling Station on Thursday?

113 replies

Stinkyfeet · 04/05/2010 19:16

If so, what are you doing and more importantly, what food are you taking?!

OP posts:
Whoamireally · 05/05/2010 11:15

Slow cooker is a bad idea, you will torture yourself all day long with the smell of your delicious casserole/ curry/ whole side of beef cooking away....and then just eat tons more crap to compensate.

ben10isgr8 · 05/05/2010 10:06

Thanks! I am looking forward to being there and will probably sit up watching the results...for a while.

Just hope I don't mess things up

vesela · 05/05/2010 09:48

sorry, knock on their doors

vesela · 05/05/2010 09:48

ben = telling outside the polling station = asking people nicely for their voter numbers as they come out (they don't have to give them to you) so the parties know that someone's voted, and not to knock on the doors

Etiquette is that if they give their number to only one party's teller, that one shares it with the other tellers.

BexJ78 · 05/05/2010 09:03

i think we got paid £90 for the day in the station and then £60ish if you did the count i think. I always find it really bizarre that more people (staff in the council) did not apply to do it. Whilst is can be pretty boring, it is good money on top of your normal salary. I shall be going to the polling station tomorrow and will take great pleasure in asking them 'Has it been busy then?'....it will probably only be the fiftieth time they've been asked!

serenity · 05/05/2010 00:29

I'm not but DH is a Presiding Officer (for a station in North London, when we live in South London, so, with travelling, a very long day for him)

He takes crap. He'll take tea/coffee/biscuits for all the clerks, and then a bag of sausage rolls and pot noodles for himself. He's fighting off scurvy by the time he gets home Money's worth it though!

dinasaw · 04/05/2010 23:39

Dh is a journalist on the local paper so has to go and hang about at the count until the results come through. He gets very bored and tired. As our local count is in a village hall in the middle of nowhere he has no idea what is going on nationally so I stay up and ring or text him with the gossip.

paisleyleaf · 04/05/2010 23:17

When I did the count a few years back it was at the Town Hall, not the poling stations.

Original poster
Stinkyfeet · 04/05/2010 23:04

A Teller possibly, ben.

OP posts:
ben10isgr8 · 04/05/2010 23:01

I am doing something...no idea what. My local councillor asked if I wanted to help out at our polling station on the night ??? She said it was 2 hour shifts but didn't say what I would be doing Luckily it is next to my house so I can get a hot cup of tea cos the barn is bloody freezing.

Original poster
Stinkyfeet · 04/05/2010 22:55

Ahhh

Yes, you can make a brew. Hopefully your Presiding Officer will make sure there's a kettle!

OP posts:
ChippyMinton · 04/05/2010 22:48

(SF - You've rumbled me lol)

A chippy next door? Sound fab.
Are you allowed to make a brew (if there's a kettle of course)?

Original poster
Stinkyfeet · 04/05/2010 22:45

I bet the smell of that is Hell for the polling station staff!

OP posts:
OhYouBadBadKitten · 04/05/2010 22:41

best station I had was next to a chippy

OhYouBadBadKitten · 04/05/2010 22:39

am normally a teller at the station and (oh I have my terms muddled don't I) a counting agent at the count

blimey, its only been a year, how could I have forgotten it all?!

ShrinkingViolet · 04/05/2010 22:38

I'm doing the count, for about the 8th year in a row. Last GE I got home at 4am [tired]. But we get paid a fixed sum for the first two hours, then an additional amount per hout thereafter, so lots of recounts please .

CaptainNancy · 04/05/2010 22:38

£90? Our stingy lot only pay £60
am too tired to do it anyway tbh.

NoahAndTheWhale · 04/05/2010 22:33

I will definitely volunteer my services in a couple of months time, when we should hopefully have moved house.

Original poster
Stinkyfeet · 04/05/2010 22:32

What do you normally do Kitten? The count?

OP posts:
OhYouBadBadKitten · 04/05/2010 22:30

if you are a teller you'll be counting in your head as the counter counts. check that votes don't end up in the wrong pile. if it happens you politely ask the counter to check again please.

sometimes you might be asked to do rough tally charts if you have a couple of different ballot boxes being poured out on to your table.

you may also get involved in heated debates as to whether a vote is spoilt or not.

tis all excellent fun.

this is the first year in a looong tme that I'm not involved on the day

Original poster
Stinkyfeet · 04/05/2010 22:28

Did your dd start last week? If so, I may have clocked you! I usually have ds2 (4)with me if that narrows it down!

OP posts:
ChippyMinton · 04/05/2010 22:23

Do you think? I suspect the electorate may well range from one extreme to the other...

DS said same thing about the rugby .
Am I still anonymous btw? I have no idea about you lol.

Original poster
Stinkyfeet · 04/05/2010 22:15

Oooh - you'll have a much nicer electorate than me then!

Yes, he was, although he denies it was tag rugby . Yours?

OP posts:
ChippyMinton · 04/05/2010 22:11

Just over the border in the opposite direction - Wrysbry. oooh errr

(was your DS at tag rugby tonight?)

Original poster
Stinkyfeet · 04/05/2010 22:06

Hey Chippy - are you local? I'm in our neighbouring London Borough. Have you done it before? A village hall should have an entire kitchen surely!

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