A new year for young members

I’m on my way back from Croyde Bay (which is amazing by the way and well worth a visit) having been at the National Young Members Forum AGM. Being the AGM we had a number of new members which was really great, but of course very sad that we no longer some really great people who have dropped off (mostly through age).

I have to say a huge thank you to Sarah Lewis who has served us well as Vice Chair and Emma McLoughlin who has often been my partner in crime.

I’m glad to say that Stuart Reeves (Eastern) was re-elected at Chair of the forum and he is joined by Carrie Milligan (Scotland) as Vice Chair.

The forum decided to focus it’s work around two strands this year, obviously the National Minimum Wage’s 10th Birthday was always going to be key but the forum will also be looking to work on Gun & Knife Crime.

We also had a variety of elections for conferences; I will be going to the TUC Young Members Forum on behalf of UNISON, as well as representing the forum at the Health Service Group Conference.

Age limit should stay the same

We also had a discussion, at my request, on the age limit for young members. I requested this debate not because I believe there should be a change, but because there is always a great deal of debate and strong feeling about this within the young members’ events and that debate should be had by the National Forum. The forum was unanimous in its support for the current age limit. However there remains concerns over the NEC decision (before I was on it) that to hold any position within young members you must be under 27 for the whole of the term of office (whereas people previously did part of their term and stood down as they turned 27). This causes a number of issues, especially at a regional level. The forum decided to refer this to the NEC to reconsider. I will try and follow this up (though I do not sit on the Development & Organising Committee in which this will be dealt with).