The Forest Hill Society and the Sydenham Society are organising an election hustings for candidates for our next MP on Tuesday, 23rd May from 7:30pm at JK Banqueting Hall at 15 Perry Vale, SE23 2NE, in the centre of Forest Hill.
Candidates invited to attend are:
Shaun Bailey - Conservatives
Ellie Reeves - Labour
John Russell - Liberal Democrats
Karen Wheller - Green Party
Hoong-Wai Cheah - UKIP
Great! Any indication as yet as to whether and which candidates will accept the invitation?
We have three out of five confirmations but I have only just emailed the UKIP candidate as I didn’t know who it would be until this evening.
Brilliant, thank you! Looking forward to it!
Will we need to book or just show up?
The meeting is open to all booking is not necessary but the first 100 people get chairs 
Efforts much appreciated, thank you @Michael and others 
We have a topic listing all known General Election candidates in the SE23 wards. This topic is editable by all verified members, and thank you to those who have helped keep it up-to-date.
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Looking forward to attending the hustings, and it will be good to hear more about this event as it comes together.
On a separate note - there was some confusion on other forums about local organisations, and I want to make it clear that SE23.life is not affiliated with any political party or candidate. We are also unaffiliated with the Forest Hill Society. We share a sincere concern for the local area, but our organisations are entirely separate. SE23.life is also unrelated to the Community Library, much as we love it.
Best get there early then to save my old legs 
Excellent news. Thanks to the FH and Sydenham societies for organising.
What is the format for questions? Will there be questions from the audience and would they need to be submitted in advance?
There will definitely be questions from the audience. I won’t comment further on the structure of the hustings as we still have to decide on that and confirm with the candidates.
Chris, you missed out religion. You probably need to let them know that SE23.life is not affiliated to any religion as well before they spread that rumour about you trying to kill their four legged higher being?
I can confirm that the four candidates (Shaun Bailey - Conservatives, Ellie Reeves - Labour, John Russell - Liberal Democrats, Karen Wheller - Green Party) have all agreed to attend. The UKIP candidate was invited, unfortunately he can’t make it.
If anybody wishes to help out tomorrow evening, please come along at 7pm to help put out chairs and direct people to the hall.
After short introductions from each of the candidates we will be taking as many questions as we can from the floor. We will be finishing at 9:30pm
Everybody is welcome to attend and the event is free, however, we may ask for voluntary donations to the Forest Hill and Sydenham Societies at the end, as the hall isn’t cheap to hire.
In the interests of balance, have any other local traders been interviewed for the websites of any of the other parties? If not, we’ll have to redact that post, @Pauline.
Due to the horrific incident in Manchester last night and the suspension of election campaigning today, we have decided to cancel the hustings that was due to take place this evening.
We are looking to see if it would be possible to rearrange prior to the election and will keep you informed.
I see on the Sydenham forum that the hustings have been rescheduled for 1st June at a different location:
Lewisham West and Penge:
38 Degrees hustings, Wesley Halls Methodist Church, 211-213 Sydenham Road, SE26 5HF, Thursday 1st June at 7pm
I think that’s a different group? N’est-ce pas?
The Forest Hill Society and the Sydenham Society have rearranged the election hustings for candidates for our next MP on Tuesday, 6th June from 7:30pm at JK Banqueting Hall at 15 Perry Vale, SE23 2NE, in the centre of Forest Hill.
We have confirmation from all four candidates mentioned above.
