Greenwich Freshers Fair September 2011

Elliott, Bex Bailey and Freddy

Laura, Elliott and Freddy

On the 20th and 22nd of September, the Labour society at Greenwich university held a stall at the university of Greenwich freshers fair at the Avery Hill and Greenwich campuses. We had the help of Bex Bailey, Olivia Bailey, Shelly Asquith and Barış Yerli over the two days and we had a very successful drive for members and future committee candidates. In all, we would like to thank everybody for their contribution to such a great freshers fair, and we hope to do the same again for next year! We thoroughly enjoyed talking to everybody who visited our stall, and are very pleased with how many people joined us in creating a non apathetic atmosphere for the coming academic year; remember, our AGM is to be on the 5th October, and there will be an update following the happenings of the meeting very shortly.

NO to AV - The society's stance on AV

A vote was taken on the society's stance on the Alternate vote a few days ago, and as a committee we unanimously decided that we were against the notion.

Our feelings, as described by Elliott Adair (our chair) are as follows:

'AV is not a fair or proportional system that is practical for our country. Our country needs strong majority governments that can govern - pure and simple. We do not need endless coalitions that limp on from one day to next not knowing if their coalition partners are truly with them or indeed if they can command the support of their own grass roots. Not to mention the possibility of a period following election day where we have no government at all, where parties talk in secret back rooms negotiating to make the peoples choice at the ballot box void. We saw this in May 2010 and we are seeing it now in Belgium, where they have no Government!'

The feeling of the society was clear, even if it does involve agreeing with the illustrious leader of the Conservatives - a certain Mr. Cameron.

Change for the sake of change is not good change - if change is needed, then make sure that it is change that will benefit the country, as opposed to just the party forwarding the motion.

Official minutes from the meeting on 9th February 2011

The meeting was started off by Laura talking about creating the society blog, and posting a summary of the minutes and any other society actions. Elliott thanked  Laura for her work in setting up the society Twitter feed.

We didn't have any representation in Glasgow this year for the youth conference as correspondence was sent to the Eltham Labour Party and it took a longer time to get to 

Elliott - this meant we had missed the deadline for names to be put forward.

The forthcoming student elections will have two candidates from the society:

Elliot Adair – Student Representative and NUS Delegate

Antonio Joseph – Student Representative and NUS Delegate

Elliott will be running with some members of the conservative society as part of a team.

There is a possibility of a radio debate with the Conservative society. Freddie has been speaking with David (Cons) about this and has nominated himself to represent the Labour society. The debate will consist of Marxists and Conservatives and other political fractions.   

There will also be an interview with the Crows nest (University newspaper) about the Labour Society, we are yet to find out when this is to happen.

Elliott mentioned having a social event with the possibility of asking a speaker to come along from the labour party for a Q & A session. Freddie mentioned that Eltham will help with this as they are very positive with youth involvement. It may be possible to ask Clive Efford MP to attend - with further information, we can confirm that Mr. Efford is interested in speaking to students as a guest.

All members were in favour of monthly meetings from here on. 

Freddie has written an article for The Crow’s nest and has asked if anyone else would like to take on the role. Laura offered in her role as Communications Officer.

It was reported that the Economics and business Society are planning on having a New year’s Party in the upcoming new financial year (April). The issue was raised of whether we should also have a party sometime and gather further membership. Freddie suggested that we should have a Mayday party. 

The twitter campaign #freddysays was launched.           

Unofficial minutes of the 9th February meeting

Some off the record remarks and unofficial business took place at the meeting today, suitable points were covered and the official minutes will be with you soon so you know what actually went on.
We have fun in our committee meetings, with varying discussion which can start with the university's conservative society, and end up being about our past lives at school, in particular an anecdote about someone being stabbed in the head with a chisel whilst at school.
We discussed cloning, and how cloning our chairman (Elliott) would be a bit weird, as we'd not know who to listen to.
And I think the quote of the meeting was 'The conservative society are desperate for women' obviously meaning for women to join their society, but it definitely caused a few laughs.
We have decided to start a #freddysays campaign on Twitter, as it seems that he is a part time stand up comedian, as well as a campaigns officer, a well as a representative for North Korea at the United Nations apparently, because North Koreans are everywhere.
Freddy also personally knows Dora the explorer.
I end on another quote that was particularly funny:-
'That's where all the treasury money is going - to build our death star'

Our official minutes will be up very soon, watch this space!

An introduction to the society committee (thus far)

Here are the committee members as follows:

President/Chair:

Elliott Adair, Studying Politics.

Secretary and Treasurer:

Antonio Joseph. studying politics

Campaigns officer:

Freddy Sullivan-Wallace, studying politics

Communications officer:

Laura Ward, Studying Journalism & PR

Events officer:

Nimio Mousa, Studying web technology