January 2018 EC minutes
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MINUTES OF THE 1st MEETING OF THE 115th EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN held at Head Office, Saturday 6 January at 2.40 pm
[Note: These are draft minutes only and are not official until adopted by the EC]
Present: D.Chesham (minutes), M.Foster, P.Shannon (chair), L.Stevens (via Skype), M Tenner, G.Thomas.
In attendance: 1 visitor
1. It was AGREED that Shannon be chair and Chesham the Minute writer.
2. Minutes of previous meeting and business arising therefrom
2. a) Adoption of the minutes of the previous meeting
Minutes of the Special Meeting of the 114th EC were not to hand.
At this point the Ballot Committee reported they had received two further nominations for the 2018 Executive Committee – Carla Dee and Gwynn Thomas.
It was AGREED that the two members be appointed (Rule 12 refers) and invited to take their seats.
Cde Thomas was present and took his seat immediately; cde Chesham offered to inform cde Dee of her appointment. AGREED
2. b)i Amendment and adoption of the Standing Orders of the Executive Committee
MOTION 1. (Tenner & Foster) "That the existing Standing Orders be adopted unamended" AGREED
2. b)ii Review of Departments' and Subcommittees' Terms of Reference
It was AGREED to review this item at the EC's May 2018 meeting after Conference had met.
2.b)iii Renewal of our registration as a political party
It was AGREED that our registration as a political party be renewed and the Election Committee be asked to arrange this.
2.b)iv Review and update of the register of trustees and bank signatories
It was AGREED to defer final consideration of this item until after cde Chesham had verified the approved signatories which he thought had been recorded in the February 2017 EC minutes.
2.b)v Correspondence with the Electoral Commission
The Electoral Commission has deemed that the Party committed three offences in respect of late pre-poll donation and transaction reports.
Appeals have been lodged with the Commission and we are awaiting the outcome of these.
In order to obviate a repetition of these issues it was AGREED that 'Electoral Commission Returns' be a recurring EC agenda item in future. The importance of prompt financial returns (Forms 'C') from Branches was stressed as playing a crucial role in the provision of expeditious returns by the Party to the Commission.
It was further AGREED that cdes Tenner & Thomas liaise for the purpose of drawing up a memorandum outlining reporting obligations and this be submitted for approval and circulation.
2.b)vi Report of the Ballot Committee
The Ballot Committee reported the results of the ballot for 2018 EC members and Party Officers (see appendix)
MOTION 2. (Thomas & Foster) "That the report of the Ballot Committee be adopted" AGREED
2.b)vii Report of the Internet Committee
The Internet Committee reported that the Party's website has recently been experiencing periods of unexpected down-time due to disk space shortages and requested retroactive authorisation in increasing the server's disk size by 80 GB increasing our monthly hosting cost from €51.20 to €60.00, an increase of €8.80 per month.
It was AGREED that the action of the Internet Committee be endorsed.
2.c) Matters arising from the June 2016 meeting minutes
The EC had requested a report from the auditors on procedures to be put in place to prevent incorrect payments.
It was AGREED to defer this item a month to allow EC members time to read and assimilate the lengthy report.
2.d) Notices of Motion
NONE2.e) Notices of Business
NONE2.f) Matters outstanding from previous minutes
2.f)i Party Wall
No further updates
2.f)ii Head Office staffing matters
It was reported that in addition to Wednesdays HO would be staffed every Thursday during January.
NOTED
2.f)iii O'Gorman bequest.
No further updates.
2.f)iv Advertising of the whiteboard video on YouTube
Cde. Chesham reported that the first phase of the Adwords campaign had ended as the £250 allocated had been spent resulting in a total of 298,848 impressions (number of times the ad has been displayed) which brought 5,367 additional views (watching for at least 30 seconds is counted as a view). At the time of reporting the video has now been viewed over 8,500 times since it was first uploaded on 28 July 2017.
NOTED
2.f)v Inserts
Cde. Tenner reported on the proposal for the next phase of the insert campaign. He listed the following publications as possibilities.
Unison magazine (1.3m), The Scotsman (30k), Glasgow Guardian (newspaper of Glasgow University – 4k), The Week (146k), The Guardian (400k) and the membership of the GMB (630k).
Cost of placing inserts in these publications vary between approximately £25 and £35 per thousand plus the printing of the brochure.
MOTION 3. (Chesham & Stevens) "That inserts be placed in 70k copies of the Unison magazine at a cost of £2.1k plus printing estimated at £1.8k" AGREED
Cde Foster left the meeting at this point to get his train
3. Forms 'A' and 'F'
NONE4. Treasurer
NOTHING TO REPORT5. Reports of Party Officers, Party Appointees, Subcommittees and Departments
NONE6. Correspondence
6.a) Matters of Urgency
NONE6.b) Correspondence from or concerning Branches, etc.
NONE6.c) Correspondence from Companion Parties, etc.
A number of reports had been received from the Socialist Party of Canada, various minutes of meetings held by the World Socialist Party (New Zealand) and EC minutes from the World Socialist Party (India).
NOTED
6.d) All other correspondence
NONE7. Any other business
An email had been received from cde Paul Edwards of Kilmarnock requesting travel and accommodation expenses to enable him to attend 2018 Conference as a delegate for Central Branch.
A reply had already be sent to cde Edwards by cde Chesham explaining that he couldn't be a delegate for a branch which neither met to discuss Party business nor elected delegates to attend Conference or ADM.
MOTION 4. (Tenner & Chesham) "In the absence of guidelines for non-delegate expenses the Executive Committee regrets that it is unable to accede to cde.Edwards' request but recommends he rejoin Glasgow Branch with the possibility of attending Conference as one of its delegates" AGREED
8. Meeting adjourned 4.40pm
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APPENDIX
Report of the Ballot Committee for the election of Executive Committee Members and Party Officers for 2018
Votes recorded FOR/AGAINST
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Dave Chesham (Kent & Sussex) 106/6; Mike Foster (West Midlands) 111/1; Paddy Shannon (Lancaster) 113/3; Lorna Stevens (Lancaster) 110/5; Melvin Tenner (West London) 113/1
PARTY OFFICERS
Assistant Secretary
Tristan Miller (Central) 115/nil
Central Organiser
Adam Buick (West London) 119/nil
Trustee
Howard Moss (South Wales) 118/nil
Auditor
Howard Moss (South Wales) 115/1
Number of Ballot Papers returned by Branch
Central: 33, Edinburgh: 4, Glasgow: 9, Kent & Sussex: 6, Lancaster: 4, Manchester: 15, North East: 6, North London: 6, South London: 7, South Wales/Swansea: 8, South West Regional: 4, West Midlands: 5, West London: 8, Yorkshire: 4
Total number of ballot papers returned: 119
Quote:At this point the Ballot Committee reported they had received two further nominations for the 2018 Executive Committee – Carla Dee and Gwynn Thomas.It was AGREED that the two members be appointed (Rule 12 refers) and invited to take their seats.Cde Thomas was present and took his seat immediately; cde Chesham offered to inform cde Dee of her appointment. AGREEDThere is something odd about this. How could the EC declare elected two nominations before the deadline for nomnations (19 January) had passed? This was exceeding their powers. What if today we find that there are three further nominations, requiring a ballot between all 5 nominated for the 4 vacancies?
ALB wrote:Quote:At this point the Ballot Committee reported they had received two further nominations for the 2018 Executive Committee – Carla Dee and Gwynn Thomas.It was AGREED that the two members be appointed (Rule 12 refers) and invited to take their seats.Cde Thomas was present and took his seat immediately; cde Chesham offered to inform cde Dee of her appointment. AGREEDThere is something odd about this. How could the EC declare elected two nominations before the deadline for nomnations (19 January) had passed? This was exceeding their powers. What if today we find that there are three further nominations, requiring a ballot between all 5 nominated for the 4 vacancies?
Which only goes to show that even this EC is sometimes fallible… It transpires that three additional nominations have now been received by the deadline for the five (not four) EC vacancies fortuitously resulting in a full EC complement of 10 members and averting the need for a further ballot.
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