Scott and I met with Julian Bowrey this morning at the Office of Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), in the heart of Westminster.

Julian is ODPM’s Local E-Government Programme Manager and was one of the people who visited Northfield last summer when the Northfield/Eden Prairie blogging contingent subjected him to a whithering sales pitch after softening him up (with Bangers and Mash, was it? See how those Permalinks come in handy?) at The Contented Cow, our local British pub.

I told Julian that while the December-March time period for ReadMyDay was long enough to recruit a group of UK bloggers and introduce them to the basics of civic leadership blogging, I was concerned that the efforts to promote the RMD bloggers has just begun and for the most part, they’ve not experienced what it’s like to get serendipitous feedback from staff, citizens, colleagues, or media on their blogs… a critical necessity to sustain their blogging efforts. That’s going to take much more time to orchestrate, as most of them don’t yet have any local sites linking to them in any signficant way.

And as I write this, a couple of other concerns come to mind.

- There are several councillors and senior managers from localities currently participating who are interested in joining the project now, just as it’s ending. Their participation would significantly add to the potential success of the blogging experience in that locality, as having a blogging colleague nearby can be a great boost as Mary Reid and Roy Taylor are demonstrating in Kingston. The Kingston duo could also easily be joined by:

Holly Robertson, local e-Gov project manager in Kingston (on the left in the above photo with Scott, Roy and me — Holly expressed strong interest in starting a blog); Kingston Chief Exec Bruce McDonald, who I think would be a perfect candidate for an audioblog.

- I think the localities where managers are blogging need to have their blogs embedded in their websites, rather than being hosted on the RMD project blog server. It would add much to the visibility and potential effectiveness of those blogs.

Am I scheming? Yah, you betcha.

We just arrived at our hotel here in Wimbledon after a delightful day in Bristol and Kingston.

It’s about 10:15 pm and although all the coffeehouses are closed and none of the pubs have internet access, I’m camped outside of another Coffee Republic coffeehouse and using the MyCould internet access from a bench nearby. A bit tough on the fingers for typing, as it’s around 0 degrees C.

About all I have time for is the uploading of a couple dozen more photos in the UK Trip Album and a check of email. We’ll try to audioblog more when we can.

Me with Stephen Hilton and Carol Hayward in Bristol.

L to R in Kingston: Roy Taylor, Scott, Bruce McDonald, Mary Reid

We catch the train for Bristol in 45 minutes. I”m blogging this from the street outside the Coffee Republic which doesn’t open till 7:30. It’s snowing lightly.

I see we made the Star Tribune today:
Local officials blogging for readers far and wide

I’m uploading a dozen or more photos as I write this… hopefully, my laptop battery will hold till it’s done, so check the UK Trip Photo Album.

We had a fabulous day in Wychavon yesterday with Anne-Marie Darroch and colleagues at the District Council. Check Scott’s blog later, as he may have an audioblog report.

We arrive in Bristol around 9 am, then depart at 11:30, with ETA of 2:30 at Kingston with Mary Reid, Roy Taylor and colleagues.

After a whirlwind day in the Scunthrope countryside yesterday with Isobel Harding and family (see the UK Trip Album), we took the train to Worcester. Today, we’ll head to a town near here named Pershore where we’ll meet with Anne-Marie Darroch and the Wychavon District Council.

Dozens of photos added to the album. We’ll annotate them if we get a chance, but right now, we’re in Powerpoint preparation mode.

See the UK Trip Album.

We found a great coffeehouse near our hotel this morning.

and there are two mobile phone stores nearby. As soon as they open, I’ll see if they can help me with my cellphone problem.

NorthLincsNet is the lead organization on the ReadMyDay project.

“NorthLincsNet was established in 2001 to deliver a strategic partnership vision for an electronically connected community able to access services across the whole of North Lincolnshire.”

Fraser Henderson has been the main man on the ReadMyDayproject since Day 1. And he’s been our main man for this trip, even before we arrived, as he was the one responsible for getting us into The White Swan Inn, this marvelous hotel-above-the-pub in the 1000 year-old town of Scotter where I’m currently blogging from.

(Neither the inn’s employees nor Fraser, however, knew that the inn had wi-fi, so he doesn’t get credit for that.)

Dinner at The White Swan on Friday night. L to R: Fraser Henderson, John Bullivent, Scott, and Isobel Harding.

An official from Scunthorpe United, a league 2 football club here in the UK, called our hosts at Northlincsnet yesterday after our arrival. They’d evidently seen the article in yesterday’s paper about us and decided to invite us to a pre-game lunch with the club’s president and directors before the 3 pm game with Leyton Orient. We’ll join them for the game, too.

I’d been giving Scott grief about his football (AKA soccer) addiction but it has turned out to be a stroke of genius. I guess that’s why he’s emperor of Eden Prairie.

The Scunthorpe Telegraph newspaper had advance coverage of our arrival: SOCCER BLOGGERS’ IRON WILL SATISFIED