[cma-l] General Election Debates

[Canalside's Thread events guide for NE Cheshire]

Sounds good Andrew ... and yes, we have done the same over the Years. As you
rightly point out at the end of the memo it's up to the individual Station
and the circumstances. No Station is any less worth or better whether they
cover the election or they don't. I was merely pointing out that dependant
on participants it can go wrong, especially if you have the classic '''empty
chair''' waller      who decides to complain because the thing has gone
ahead ...... bonkers I know, but such are folk.

As I say we will possibly go half-way house. I was making the suggestion for
others who don't fancy going full on             5 minutes or so to tell us
about what 'they' as a Candidate will do for (in our case Macclesfield) and
what the Party will do Nationally (no questions asked)

Nick

-----Original Message-----
From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk
[mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] On Behalf Of
ajr.robinson at yahoo.co.uk
Sent: 20 April 2017 22:17
To: cma-l at mailman.commedia.org.uk
Subject: [cma-l] General Election Debates

I would certainly encourage anyone considering holding a debate to go for
it.  Here at Warminster Community Radio we were very delighted that our
election debate in 2015 won a gold award.

Our format was to invite all five candidates for our South West Wiltshire
constituency on to the stage at the local Civic Centre in front of a live
audience.  It was on a Saturday morning from 10.30 until noon.  On entry,
members of the audience were able to suggest questions they would like to
ask and then my production team selected those that would be asked based on
covering a broad range of subjects.  These audience led questions were
supplemented by questions that had been emailed in by our listeners in the
week leading up to the debate and my own questions that I inserted.

At the end of the debate, each candidate had two minutes to put their case
to be South West Wiltshire's next MP.  The positions that they sat on stage
and the order they spoke at the end was drawn randomly before the start of
the debate.

Regarding tickets, these were available for residents to collect from the
venue in advance of the event.  No one was permitted entry on the door
without a ticket.  Our formidable Director Barry Mole made clear to the
audience that while applause was acceptable during the debate, heckling
would not be tolerated.  One member of the audience did not like this and he
was removed from the event.  I think the thing that made me most happy on
the day as debate moderator was that each candidate left feeling I had given
them a fair and equal chance to put their case to the electorate.

If anyone would like any further information about how we did it (which I'm
not saying is necessarily how everyone else has to do it), do get in touch
with us at Warminster.

Andrew Robinson
Station Manager, WCR

Sent from my iPad
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