It's very hard to stay fit and healthy when you have meetings every night and basically whenever you have a spare second. Meetings are not good for the physique.
And let's face it, my physique wasn't that great to begin with!
Being a local representative (or being chosen for any elected position) is a great honour, a great responsibility and in most cases a great experience.
I do try and stay as fit as possible. When I was 16 I used to play or train for football 6 times a week - and on my day off, I used to play table-tennis. Now I am lucky to play once every couple of weeks.
And when I try to cram 2 games into a day, or 3 in 2 days, it's a disaster for my poor little body.
And obviously, I use the word "little" wrongly in that instance.
So it's about trying to do regular exercise in my spare time. I have an exercise bike and a rowing machine - no, not that sort of rowing machine - in my room. I like to use them when I can, but take tonight, I go to work first thing in the morning, then get back and have a meeting at 6pm at the Council. I then have another meeting at the Council at 7.30pm that runs to 9.30pm. By the time I get home, I guess my neighbours wouldn't be too happy about hearing my rowing machine clanking backwards and forwards.
So what is the solution?
Well, I jokingly said it at my meeting tonight but it's not a bad idea. Exercise bikes for Councillors to use at meetings. Why not? We can still listen to debates and make interjections, make notes and so forth but do a bit for our health too.
I tell you what, why don't we wire the bikes up to the electricity system so the Councillors can power the lighting and the air conditioning? That would help the environment, and is a green solution!
The only thing you would have to worry about is if some bright spark (pardon the pun) rigged up the bikes so the current flowed the other way. That would be quite a shock, wouldn't it?
I'm sure we'd see a lot more Councillors jumping up and down at meetings one way or the other. :-)
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(Photo Source: Kirk, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Stationary_bicycle.jpg)
