Well that’s the clocks back, Halloween over and as quickly as the shelves have been emptied they will be filled for Christmas.
With just seven months to go until the next council elections, no doubt you will soon start to bump into people giving out leaflets across Inverclyde.
Parties across the area will soon be putting together manifestos for the future of Inverclyde and key themes will develop.
Although there are well over 1,000 SNP members in Inverclyde, this number is just a fraction of the population locally.
Over the coming months I will be looking for your opinion on what you feel Inverclyde could do better, what, as a party, we should keep getting right and what our priorities should be for the future.
For too long people’s perception of the council has been an authority that does things to people and communities. In the future our council should be known and thought of as a council that does things WITH people and communities.
Equal Pay – It is 2016 but many thousands of women across the country, including right here in Inverclyde, have outstanding equal pay claims. No person should be paid less for doing equal work. The fact that so many women have not had their equal pay claims settled is Inverclyde’s political shame.
I am hopeful that over the coming months all outstanding claims can be settled – and we will keep pressing for this to happen. However if the timescale does not see this take place before the election in May, if the SNP are  given control of Inverclyde Council, all outstanding equal pay claims will be settled within the first 100 days of coming to office.
Equal Representation – I am confident that 2017 will see the largest ever level of female representation in local government.
Inverclyde currently has one female councillor out of 20; and that is simply not good enough.
Whether it is outstanding equal pay claims or women that have been robbed of the state pension age they were promised, is it any wonder that so many bad decisions are made that impact upon women when so few women are involved in making the decisions?
However we must not forget that the reason so few women are currently involved in local politics is because there are still clear barriers stopping them from doing so. One of the main ones in Inverclyde people talk to me about is childcare.
SNP councils, working in partnership with the Scottish Government, will deliver a revolutionary level of childcare that not only knocks down the barrier stopping women getting into elected council office, but also makes it easier for women across the country to enter further education or get out to work.
Over the course of the next council, the SNP will increase the entitlement of free early learning and childcare to 1,140 hours per year.
Importantly this will be flexible, and suit the needs of the parent and the child. This will in turn remove the childcare barrier and at the same time get it right for every child in Inverclyde.