I’m glad to announce my candidacy for Liberal Youth Vice Chair.
Firstly, I want to talk about what I have achieved over the last year working on the Liberal Youth Executive.
As England Convenor, I’ve revived Liberal Youth England (LYE) by writing its constitution from scratch. It’s not perfect, but it was a starting point for LYE and I’m glad people like Matt J. McLaren are willing to give their input on how to improve it further. I also worked with regional chairs to establish them in their new roles and act as a link between branches and the executive.
In November, I was co-opted as Events Officer. It is one of the most intense jobs I’ve ever had and has been so rewarding as well. Working alongside Conference Committee, we had one of the best Federal Conferences in memory with an absolutely packed fringe event – a Q&A on Youth Unemployment with Vince Cable.
I also organised Liberal Youth Conference, which was hosted by Leeds University. It was stage to one of the biggest rewrites of Liberal Youth’s constitution and a wide range of policy discussions on Education, on Drugs & on Equal Marriage.
And as I type, plans for Activate, our training and handover weekend, are in the process of becoming reality, with some very exciting training planned.
But why do I want to be Vice Chair? What do I want to achieve? Where do I want Liberal Youth to be this time next year?
I believe I have the values and skills to perform the role of Vice Chair, effectively Chief Problem Solver. I know and understand how Liberal Youth operates, but also what can be improved. For example, I believe Liberal Youth would benefit from moving our elections to late November or early December to be more in line with the Federal Party. This also would mean that our conferences, which would work best being in November and in July, act as a run up to Federal Conference.
Over the last year, the message I have received from former Liberal Youth members is that we need to get back to making policy. Liberal Youth can and should be the radical voice of the party.
But what about our branches on the ground? I want to make sure that every active branch has a liberalyouth.org email address. I want to communicate with our members. That’s why I believe we must utilise the Libertine to tell our members what their officers have been up to. I also believe we should send a monthly email including these reports, as well as posting emails sent out by Liberal Youth on its website.
You can like my campaign page, as well as read more about my ideas for Liberal Youth on Facebook and post your support on Twitter using #hm4vc
