ALB
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But these are only the draft minutes and so only of limited interest now, for academics and others interested in how our decision-making procedures work in practice.
What is relevant are the final minutes as amended and adopted. Only these are the official version of what took place and what was decided. These are the only ones that have any standing in terms of the Rulebook.
We shouldn’t forget that we are talking here only about the draft minutes, not the official record which is these as adopted by the EC at the next following meeting often, in fact nearly always, as amended.
As far as I know, the adopted minutes are not published (or for that matter exist) anywhere. Best practice is that they should and be signed by the person who chaired the meeting at which they are adopted. After all, they are the only official record of what was decided At the moment to see what has actually been decided at, say, the January meeting you need to have both the draft minutes for that month and the draft minutes for February which will contain the amendments.
Instead of publishing the draft minutes everywhere it might make more sense to publish them only on spintcom as this is meant primarily for members and to publish here only the final version as amended and adopted.
In any event I don’t see the point of publishing the draft minutes in both places and the adopted minutes nowhere.
I can’t help pointing out that these Minutes are rather unbalanced. While they give a blow-by-blow account of a serious incident at Head Office, all they say about the report on the Party’s campaign in last month’s General Election is:
ii. Report of the Election Committee (29 December):
Noted with thanks.For members equally or more interested in externally-directed Party activity, the report can be found here.
Here is the election committee’s report on the General Election:
Election Committee Report on December 2019 General Election
The Party stood two candidates in the 12 December General Election: in Folkestone & Hythe (a Tory stronghold we had contested before) and Cardiff Central (a Labour stronghold, contested for the first time). The campaigns were organised by the local branches, Kent & Sussex and South Wales respectively. We also inserted an election manifesto in an issue of the i paper distributed in the South of England and Wales and in parts of the Midlands, and had a limited number of leaflets printed for distribution by members and sympathisers outside the two constituencies.
The campaigns were organised locally, with the work of agent and arranging for the printing and for the free Royal Mail distribution of an election communication to be done there. This didn’t work out perfectly as there was a problem with the printers in Folkestone which had to be dealt with centrally, and it proved easier to deal with Royal Mail for artwork approval and delivery centrally.
The result in terms of votes was what we expected: 69 (0.1%) in Folkestone and 88 (0.2%) in Cardiff. The campaign was preceded by local activity in both areas which will continue. Local publicity was generated in terms of, in Folkestone, local press publicity and a soundbite on BBC regional TV and, in Cardiff, an interview on an all-Wales online news site; the branch also placed a display ad in the Cardiff evening newspaper. The branches will be able to give a more detailed report of this.
The total number of leaflets distributed was 55,500 in Folkestone, 45,500 in Cardiff, 160,000 in the i paper, 15,000 outside the constituencies, plus 4,000 of a local newsletter in Folkestone, a total of 280,000.
The number of replies, mostly by post but some by email and one each by text and by letter has been over 100. All but 2 of these came from the insert in the i paper. Most of these asked for a free 3-month trial subscription to the Socialist Standard. The Enquiries Department will be monitoring how many of these taking out a paying subscription at the end of the period.
The total cost was: Folkestone printing £722, Cardiff printing £1,087, Cardiff newspaper display ad £450, insert printing £2,045, insert itself £3,456, general leaflet printing £210, a total printing and distribution cost of £7,970. To which can be added the £500 election deposit for both constituencies, making a grand total of £8,970.There will also have been some local incidental costs (travel). The expenses that need to be reported to the Electoral Commission are done by the Party’s Registered Treasurer.
The result in terms of responses confirmed what we have known for some time: that although it costs relatively little (£1,500, i.e., £1,000 for the printing and £500 for the election deposit), expecting responses to follow up is not a reason in itself for contesting. There needs to be, as there are, other reasons such as branch activity and general publicity, nationally as well as in the constituency. It also confirmed that, although relatively expensive, an insert in the i paper is the best way to get responses; this doesn’t necessarily require standing a candidate anywhere but it is probably helpful to have at least one.
“if it is possible for cdes with access to head office to “borrow” substantial amounts of funds,”
To reassure members who might get the wrong impression, it is not possible for “any” comrade with access to head office to also have access to the relatively small amount of petty cash kept there, let alone to “substantial amounts”. Only those who know a code and where a key is kept would be able to and that’s restricted. Cheques have to be signed by at least two designated persons. We can’t make payments by bacs and there’s a limit to how much can be withdrawn with the bank card ( which I am not sure is used anyway — at one point it was cut in half).
The Party’s financial controls are not that lax. In fact they are pretty strict.
Surely the EC will be meeting next Saturday 1 February as the first Saturday of the month (unless some decision was made at the January meeting we don’t yet know about)? In any event 7 February is a Friday. Also of course there is a new EC since January with a different composition.
I don’t think anybody at Head Office knew or had been informed that you were the North East branch secretary, otherwise you would have been receiving calls for nominations, conference agenda items, etc.
There is one decision of the December EC that should be aware of (and were about to be informed of along with all NE branch members):
RESOLUTION: Browne/Kennedy- “The EC asks the CO to ask North East branch if they wish to disband and which branches they wish to join.” (Agreed)
It should be easy to give you (or any other members) access to EC Minutes. All you need to do is join the new Spintcom and consult the files section. I’m sure the moderator, Matt, could take you through in five minutes how to do this.
The current problem has arisen because the comrade who used to publish the EC Minutes here is no longer in a position to do so, resulting in a suspension of the service.
If this becomes a world pandemic (hope not) maybe we would enter the scenario in Pieter Lawrence’s novel The Last Conflict where the world is threatened by an asteroid hurtling towards it and the authorities everywhere are forced to forget about monetary constraints and set about mobilising resources directly to deal with it (to built underground shelters, if I remember). Not the ideal way for world socialism to come about, but it was just a novel.
Any member can ask to have the EC minutes sent to them by snail mail (in fact any non member can but they have to pay the postage). A couple of dozen do. Not sure though that it’s more rapid than email. Anyway that is not the problem. Once they are done they are sent to branch secretaries and those who have asked to receive them, either by email or by post. The files section of spintcom is essentially an archive where past minutes can be consulted.
It’s not us that are the oddballs but them. They anticipate a world civil war ie Bosnia and Syria on a world scale, and think socialism could be the outcome. Utter nutters.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-china-51245156
Yes, building that hospital will be a great feat and shows what can be done when there’s a will — and as soon as socialism is established there will be a will to eliminate world poverty and the diseases it leads to. We know too that the US Air Force can build an airfield in the same sort of time. So the technical means to eliminate world poverty and disease are already to hand.
All that is standing in the way is class ownership of the means of life and production for sale with a view to profit.
