NEC/Minutes/10th July 2011
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Contents |
Attending
Loz Kaye (LK)
Andy Halsall (AH)
Apologies
John Barron (JB)
Gavin Meredith (GM)
Ed Geraghty (EG)
Minutes
Minutes of the meeting 5th July approved (GM, AH, LK)
Actions from this Meeting
AH to contact Stephen Ogden with regard to the NO post extension.
LK to closely manage the press team of this week.
LK to get back to the Manchester City Councillor with regard to Digital Exclusion.
AH to talk to EG regarding external policy process.
AH to speak to JB with regard to membership information and Lincoln Pirate numbers.
LK to put party conference and merchandising on the agenda for the next NEC.
Matters arising
None
Nominations Officer
LK brought up the communications from stephen Ogden, specifically that he had requested an email go out regarding the NO post and that he was concerned only one candidate had so far been nominated. AH pointed out that one was sent out initially when nominations opened and that a second request had gone out with the leader statement, both of those mails had elicited other replies.
In terms of the election AH and LK agreed that given the technical pressures faced at present it would seem reasonable to extend the nomination period by 3 days, until Wednesday the 13th of July. AH will contact SO to inform him of what is happening and will also put another final mail to the membership.
Press
AH pointed out that we the party had had interest from another party member in being part of a formal press team, that the press officers are now in place and are reachable via the inbound press telephone number and indeed being tasked as required by AH and LK. LK is to continue to closely manage the press team as Wikileaks is on the agenda, but with the intention of taking a more hands off approach from the week after.
LK informed the NEC that he had had a successful interview with the next-web and we were seeing interest from the Huffington post. LK pointed out that this was a continuation of the successes from last month. AH pointed out that so far the strategy of having candidates acting as commentators and spokespeople had met with some measurable success. LK and AH agreed that the aim from here on to involve more candidates was a good one in continuing this experiment and that once the new web presence is complete that will be the next step.
Web update
AH reported that the new interim web design was in place, and had been reorganised to some extent over the last few days. New content is going up now and has been for the last 48 hours with a focus on more voter friendly and informative content. The aim is still to have it released before Monday at 8am, although there may be some issues from the web team in terms of implementation. AH noted that SW is heroically working to resolve those issues in EG's Absence. AH stated that he was still committed to a launch tomorrow, if all was in place. The interim site is a good indication of the New direction the party is starting to take.
LK Asked about whether it would be a soft Launch, AH stated that he aimed to release to members this evening via the IRC channel, but that he would make full use of media and social media to announce the launch on Monday. LK and AH agreed that using the NextWeb article as a spur would be beneficial.
Digital Rights/Exclusion Paper
LK informed the NEC that he had been approached by a councillor from Manchester City Council interested in Digital Rights. The councillor has asked LK and the party to produce a paper on the issues with a view of inviting LK on to a council committee. LK sees this as his focus for the next weeks. LK stated that he intended to invite Jack Allnutt to assist in this for a specific Manchester focus and that he also wanted to invite Dr Maria Aretoulaki a DJ for external input. AH agrees and would like LK to include the candidates if he can, obviously taking account that it is a manchester document in the first instance.
Policy process
AH informed the NEC that the policy process is currently stalled due to issues of manpower and organisation, essentially a lack of web designers within the IT team has meant that he has been working on that. With the new web presence complete he hopes to restart the process by Wednesday on the internal side, and intends to seek assurances from EG as to timings on the external side.
LK stated that he wanted to see the Digital Exclusion element feed in to that with regard to poverty. LK also stated that he wants to launch the external and internal process personally. AH Agrees. AH suggested that a Reddit based instance might be a quick and easy way to implement the external policy suggestions, and would speak to EG about the suitability of it.
AOB
AH stated that he was happy with progress in Sheffield and happy that he now had more people involved.
AH also stated that he had spoken to Liam Reed in Lincoln who has put himself forward for the RAO position. LR had asked how many pirates there were in Lincoln, AH felt that it was somewhat problematic that he couldn't answer that question but would find out via JB. In the long run AH felt that Campaigns needed access to user data. AH further informed the NEC that he Intend to go to Lincoln to talk to LR and any other Pirates in the area and fully supported LR's intention to run a stall, he had already passed on the document relating to Peace in the Park in Sheffield and would make any material available to LR that he could.
AH requested that the Party conference as well as merchandising be put on the agenda for the next NEC meting.