place on June 7th in London. Of the 38 members elected at the AGM 28 were in attendance. There were 10 members of the much larger SWP delegation present. Of the organisations involved only the AWL failed to attend. In my opinion the meeting fully justified the decision of the AGM to expand the EC for the coming year. The new members, particularly the regional ones, played a positive role in the meeting.
There were far more local reports and there was much more of a feel of the SA on the ground in the local Alliances. It was also in my view good to have a bigger SWP delegation since this better reflected the reality in the Alliances. • • Palestine
The main discussion was on the decision of the AGM to launch a unity appeal to the rest of the left following the Stop the War Campaign and the massive mobilisations against the war which have changed the political situation in Britain.
It was stressed that we are making a new approach to the activists of the Stop the War movement, the left in the trade unions, those who are leaving the Labour Party, and those socialthe political starting point would be the sort of policies set out in the SA 2001 manifesto 'People not Profit'. There was much discussion on how this policy could be effectively implemented. What was decided was to have a 'task force comprising people committed to the project and therefore keen to carry it out. This approach has attracted a certain amount of debate since, but in the event none of those on the EC who are not fully behind the policy put themselves forward for this. There were three proposals when it came to the election of the chair and vice-chairs. 1) Chair: Nick Wrack, vice chairs: Lesley Mahmood and Celia Prosper. 2) Joint Chairs: Nick and Lesley, and joint vice-chairs: Celia and Steve
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re-elected as secretary. Nick Wrack. • • • The proposal agreed for the task force was Secretary, Chair, Vice-chair, myself, John Rees and Will McMahon.
Other officers were as follows: treasurer, Shelly Margetson; membership, Glyn Robbins; trade unions, myself; women's officers, Lesley Mahmood, Margaret Manning and Lynne Hubbard; youth, Heather Cox and problem. Mandy Baker, Communications, Will McMahon and John Rees, Campaigns, Rob Hoveman; Nominations, Marcus Strom; anti-racist, Weyman Bennett and Armeen Hadi. The office secretariat will be Will McMahon, Mandy Baker, Cecelia Prosper, Rob Hoveman and
The most controversial proposal as far as elections were concerned was the proposal to replace Marcus Strom as nominations officer (the person who deals with the electoral commission). This was seen by the overwhelming majority as unnecessary and unjustified and was heavily defeated.
There was a long discussion about the conduct of the AGM itself, and it was generally agreed that the way the slate process of electing the Executive was poorly carried out.
There was agreement that more resources need to be allocated to this in the future to prevent a repeat of the
A small committee will also be formed to rediscuss the method of election itself. The AGM had instructed the incoming EC to devise a proportional system with regional, gender and ethnic balance.
Overall it was a good first meeting The hard part is to make the decisions of the AGM a success, and to take the movement forward.