So last night I chaired a meeting of the Hounslow Liberal Democrats' executive committee and told them of my decision to resign from just about everything. It actually went pretty well. Better than I feared. The general concensus was that if I felt I had to do this thing, then it was entirely my call and it wasn't up to them to question my decision or motives. They also said I'd chosen the right way to go about doing it – some people do just drop out of sight completely and never explain why or what they are doing. They're just suddenly not there any more. I didn't want to do that – these people are my friends as well as my colleagues.
It's not exactly my political retirement as I'll stay as borough chair until the end of the year and resume my attempts to set up a development plan to shape the borough's future. I'll remain as the main leaflet designer – it would be daft not to because a) I enjoy it, and b) last year I won the party award for designing the best leaflets in London. I'll continue to do web and e-mail related things – who knows, I may even get around to updating the site I built (it's well out of date). But that's it. No more candidacies, committee posts, spokespersonships, conference delegate posts, co-ordinator roles – all gone. And not greatly missed, either.