AGM Minutes 2023
Exeter Green Party (EGP)
Annual General Meeting (AGM)
Minutes for the AGM held 27.07.2023
Meeting started at 19:05.
Welcome and introductions:
Jack Eade chaired with Charlie West as the meeting’s Election Returning Officer (ERO) in line with EGP’s constitution.
Apologies from Ann Keen, Adrian Allery, Kirsty Scrawler.
Confirm minutes from previous AGM (July 2022):
Jack circulated how to access previous AGM meeting minutes earlier in the week (week of 24.07.2023 via Greenspaces).
Lynn proposed that the minutes were accepted, seconded by Andy.
The meeting voted unanimously in favour.
Presentation of reports from party officers with Q&A:
Coordinator Jack Eade [See Jack’s presentation on Greenspaces] Celebration of the past year, leading up to May 2023’s Exeter City Council (ECC) election. Election strategy this cycle was to target the following wards (results were shown on screen):
Newtown St Leonards (NSL) electing Andy Ketchin.
Heavitree re-electing Carol Bennett. We were worried about how the independent candidate, Lucy, would impact votes; in the end she took votes from everyone but the least from EGP.
St Davids re-electing Diana Moore, impressively getting the largest vote share of the night; a fantastic campaign with Amy Sparling, as the ward lead.
Pennsylvania wherein we weren’t expecting to win but came a close second, the result was very encouraging and we thought we might have won on the night. The meeting thanked Lizzie Woodman and Diana for their hard work.
Now with 6 green councillors on ECC we’re chipping away at Labour’s majority. Taking 6 seats from Labour in the next election would result in the council having no single party with a majority; this would help push the transformative Green party agenda. We could do this next year if we have enough volunteers and can continue our great fundraising efforts. With a view to election strategy for the coming year (2024 City election): Jack is hoping to set up a group to look at which wards we should campaign in next cycle using the Party’s ‘Target to Win’ strategy as in previous years and make recommendations to the executive committee to be elected tonight. Those interested in joining this group so far are: Amy Sparling, Jodie/Jo(?), Jack Eade (doing a training course about scaling up EGP in Autumn), Jon Ashe (statistician and experience with Sheffield Green Party). If elected, the Election Coordinator(s) voted in tonight would also be involved. The target candidate selection process is ongoing; Jack put a call out for target candidates, the application deadline for this was 09.07.2023. Process for selecting target candidates involves the candidate filling out an application form, attending an interview, participating in a hustings and an online member vote. The interview panel currently organising interviews for the candidates are TJ Milburn, Jonathan Dawson, Jill Wescott. It will likely be difficult to organise interviews over the summer, so the new exec might need to bring in new people to help conduct the interviews. Questions were asked clarifying what parts of the process meant or included, members shared that past hustings events have been productive.
Jack replied:
Applications are the first step in determining suitability of a given candidate, with basic questions like “do you agree to abide by the Green Party’s Code of Conduct”, more thoughtful questions like “why do you want to be a councillor?” as well as more personal questions along the lines of “is there anything on your social media that would be a cause for concern?” and will stand alongside the results of the interview. Interviews determine if the role of target candidate is right for the candidate, if there are reasons why the candidate shouldn’t stand and to clarify any questions the application may have raised then after all the interviews are held the panel recommend those candidates that would be suitable and which ward of the target wards they would best suit although personal preference is also recorded. Hustings would take place if there were more prospective candidates than target wards. On a personal note, Jack announced that he had to be a target candidate for the next cycle of city elections. Jack said that being on the Exec is tough at times but it is very rewarding. Jack will offer as much of his time as is needed during the transition period to ensure that the new executive committee can run smoothly.
Eric thanked Jack for his help in the last year. Lynn thanked TJ for their work as treasurer and everything else they did to support Jack with executive committee work.
Treasurer (TJ Milburn’s report) [See TJ’s report on Greenspaces]
EGP accounts are based on the party’s financial year, which is the calendar year, so the whole year of 2022 and half of the year 2023.
We had a surplus for the first time in a number of years. Income table in the report shows the monthly income. Green column is the regular and membership donations, first blue column is one off/miscellaneous donations/fundraising, final blue column is capitations (allocation from national green party, based on previous year’s local party membership).
Healthy income last year was primarily based on significant donations. In November and December 2022, there was a fundraising party run by Tess Read which was a good source of income. There were also large one-off donations in November and December.
TJ said they would send out their report/presentation after the AGM. Page of report headed ‘2023’:
Most of the expenditure in the first 6 months of 2023 went on the election campaign. At the moment, based purely on the balances, EGP will have a significant overspend this year. ‘Income’ table of TJ’s report: average monthly income has increased. TJ realised that the spreadsheet, as they had set it up, was recording the regulated period spending purely based on the dates of the regulated election period but actually, we spend a lot of money outside the regulated period that is part of the election campaign.
TJ has changed, from this year, how EGP are recording expenditure, to show how EGP spends more accurately. The ‘comparison’ page of TJ’s report compares the last 3.5 years, based on different categories.
Total income has increased from year to year and at the moment it’s not looking like it’s increased, but remember these figures are based on half of 2023. Average monthly income has gone up significantly since 2020, this is thanks to generous members making regular donations.
2022 was good for fundraising events and on-off donations.
Capitations are 0 for 2023. Unfortunately, the national Party’s finances are in a somewhat perilous state. The Green Party Executive Committee (GPEX) have decided not to pay capitations to local or regional parties this year and for the foreseeable future until the national party’s finances improve. We really rely on these capitations (approx. £1000), so this is a blow, we need to raise this capitation some other way.
Other year on year costs do not change too much. [TJ’s report includes more explanations of finances and comparisons between years.] TJ stressed that we need to raise more money.
Jack thanked TJ for all their work as Treasurer then opened the floor for questions:
Members asked if there’s a general election next May and how much of a problem will the Party be in, in terms of money? How well prepared are we for a general election? TJ replied that GPEX has not made any decision about funding for general elections. Our significant income in 2019 came from grants (£8000) for general election and target ward campaigning. We spent approx. £3500 in the last general election, that’s not including the £500 deposit. Free post mailing costs £3000. If we want to do anything significant for a general election, we need to raise £4000. Financially we wouldn’t get any return on that because we won’t win a general election, but it is important to get our message out there and give people a chance to vote. We did do a crowd funder in 2019, which raised £1677, we could do this again. We still need to raise more money to do a generic general election campaign.
Jack said he would circulate the reports shown in the AGM, subject to correcting typos. It was highlighted that TJ’s report includes information about setting up a standing order and making one-off payments to EGP. Diana has a box of green party badges that people can buy for a minimum donation of £3. It was highlighted that over the last three general elections, we have retained our deposits, in that respect we have done very well.
Volunteer Support (Lynn):
We have more members than we’ve ever had. Action Network provides a different figure almost every day. It’s approximately 315, so 100 more members than we had a year and half ago.
Recruiting volunteers through door-knocking in target wards is proving very successful. This is important because we have a huge number of volunteers who are not members. We don’t push volunteers to become members, Lynn’s view is that if they are helping, then that’s fantastic.
Issues for May 2024 campaign:
Lynn’s view is that in this coming year, more than ever, we will only win in some of the wards if we are knocking on doors. She understands people’s reservations about door-knocking, but EGP has a good and workable system so that door knocking is not scary and that door knockers are protected. We found it harder this year than last year to recruit door knockers, despite our best efforts. Lynn encourages people to become doorknockers or to ask friends and family to become doorknockers.
Organisers: For the size of the party, we are supposed to have one of the biggest volunteer bases, certainly in the southwest – it is the envy of other local green parties. ¾ of the volunteer pyramid are leaflet deliverers. Approx. 4000 leaflets in every ward. We need people to organise leaflet delivery.
Lynn thanked Kirsty and Ella, who are leaflet organisers: they receive the leaflets, bundle and label them then distribute them to volunteer deliverers. Without the organisers, leaflet delivery falls part. If we don’t have organisers, then councillors have to do it which is not sustainable and we won’t continue to grow. We would love to talk to people interested in becoming organisers.
We need people who have skills and specialist experience. E.g. international road safety expert, land use and transport planners, vets, etc. Sometimes deploying these skills is really important.
We’re finding that it is a nightmare communicating with members because more and more people don’t look at their emails. Only 50% of EGP members opened the email regarding the AGM. Communicating with members is time-consuming and difficult and Lynn would like communication to be a priority of the new exec comm. If we aren’t getting messages out to people, then we are falling at the first hurdle. Winning in 2024 means making every single effort we can. Do you know anyone who would put any time into supporting the Green party?
Jack thanks Lynn for her assistance over the past few years.
Media and Comms (Andrew Bell) [See Andrew’s report for more detail.]:
Press releases are still the basis of our press and media output, it is still what journalists go to and it is a useful catalogue to have on our website of what press and media work we’ve done.
For the last year, Andrew has been the press officer of the progressive group (this group works with the liberal democrats). Since January 2023, Andrew has been a specialist volunteer for communications for EGP. Cross over between the two but they are two distinctive roles.
Andrew is also a press officer for the national Green party, which is helpful for messaging and communications. In the year until June 2023, there have been 30 press releases: 1/3 of the press releases were for the progressive group and 2/3rds for EGP (with only EGP councillors and campaigners mentioned in the EGP press releases).
EGP has had good coverage over the years from Radio Exe, Devon Live, Express & Echo, Crediton Courier, Exeter Observer, People’s republic of South Devon (who print every press release we send them). We’ve had several successful stories published, thanks to the tight discipline of our messaging, which has held our narrative well.
Important to realise that press releases are less and less impactful. Social media has become more important. EGP’s social media posts aim to be short and sharp, use emojis, graphics.
On Twitter, EGP uses threads (thread = series of tweets), often with quotes from councillors. Twitter: During May 2023 elections, we reached 3045 followers. Twitter is generally losing followers because of its management so it’s good that EGP has retained these followers. Exeter Labour party has 2811 followers. Generally, EGP has increased impressions from a year ago. 35000 impressions in May this year (impressions = number of people looking at the tweet). Our top tweet was Andy Ketchin’s win and received over 5000 impressions. Many more impressions on EGP Twitter than this time in 2022. Top tweets involve councillors and would-be councillors saying what they are and will be acting on. We’ve recently started doing a snapshot of what the councillors are doing and have achieved that week.
Facebook: EGP has 2247 Facebook followers. EGP’s largest group of followers are women, in the 35-44 age bracket (14% of EGP’s Facebook followers). 11% of EGP’s Facebook followers are in the 25-34 age bracket. This is interesting because there’s a myth that only older people use Facebook these days. However, EGP is attracting lots of young people on Facebook.
Instagram: EGP set up an Instagram account 2 weeks ago. It has 65 followers and seems to be gaining a lot of interest. Andrew is experimenting and learning how Instagram works. Overall good growth in social media, especially twitter, but Andrew is unsure what will happen to Twitter in the future.
There’s a new social media app called Threads. If we were to set up a Threads account, all our Instagram followers would be automatically carried over to Threads. Andrew hasn’t set up an EGP account on threads yet, he will do this once we have built up Instagram followers. Andrew would like to do more video and reels on Instagram, he thinks we should do short 30-60 second social media videos. Andrew has asked councillors to take videos of themselves if they are out and about.
Members asked about TikTok: other party politicians have started using TikTok. Andrew replied saying the National Party resisted TikTok for a while, because of its Chinese connections although they do have an account now; they just don’t post very often.
Andrew wonders if 6 social accounts would be too much work to keep on top of although a member replied saying most people tend to create content in TikTok then share the same video on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter so maybe it wouldn’t involve too much more work.
Andrew stressed that EGP has more followers on Twitter than anywhere else. Advice from the National Party is do not drop Twitter because it is where a lot of our engagement is.
Jack thanked Andrew for his work saying that EGP are lucky to have him; that having a national press officer in our local party is very useful.
Motion: Temporary constitutional amendment:
Proposed by Jack Eade. Seconded by Tess Read.
Jack proposes to temporarily change our local constitution: Our local constitution says we should use single transferable voting when electing new positions. Jack was keen to hold this meeting as a hybrid meeting, but single transferable voting is difficult in a hybrid meeting. This motion would only impact the volunteer coordinator role because there are two people competing for the role and then an option to reopen nominations. Jack proposes that, just for this evening, to have single majority voting. Jack asked the candidates for the volunteer coordinator role prior to the AGM and both candidates were happy with his proposal. The alternative would involve reconvening an extraordinary meeting online in the near future.
A question was asked if other parts of the constitution might be affected by hybrid meetings. Jack said that if AGM attendees brought a device to the next AGM then STV could be done. Jack said that the new executive committee should think about proofing the constitution for hybrid meeting issues.
The motion was overwhelmingly carried.
A poll within Zoom would be used for those attending online and simple pieces of paper for those in person; with Charlie West counting each.
Election of EGP’s Executive Committee:
Charlie West chaired this portion of the AGM in line with EGP’s constitution requiring an ERO that is a member of the Green Party of England and Wales, but not a member of Exeter Green party. Charlie is from South Devon Green Party, he was thanked for doing so..
Statements from those standing for election were circulated by Jack on the morning of 24.07.2023 via email and WhatsApp, the candidates are as follows:
Local Party Coordinator(s) (role sharing) Pete Callaghan and Catherine Rees presented their statements.
Elections Coordinator(s) (role sharing) Amy Sparling and Caitlin Lovic presented their statements.
Volunteer Coordinator(s) Eric Helianthus and Tess Read presented their statements.
Charlie opened up the floor to questions, members asked the following:
How will you work to recruit more volunteers?
Will you have enough time to do your executive committee roles?
The volunteer coordinator role is a very time-consuming role, they must be master of 3 digital systems and 4 email accounts, receive phone calls at all times, do you feel you have skills and respect/compliance of GDPR (GDPR = General Data Protection Regulations, new version of the Data Protection Act and covers information holding)?
There’s a practical side of the volunteer coordinator role: organising leaflets, door knocking in all types of weather, logistics of door knockers and deliverers. How would you engage people in those repeated, cyclical tasks? It’s important to respect the party’s safeguarding policies, are you prepared to reach out and ask for support if the role gets too much for you?
Voting for all the roles was done at the same time, for each role there was an option to reopen nominations. The meeting was continued to allow for the votes to be counted by Charlie.
Green councillor group update:
Diana gave an explanation of the role of councillors and then each of the councillors shared their roles on Exeter City Council (ECC).
Announcement of the election results:
Local Party Coordinator(s) (role sharing): 33 total votes cast.
Pete Callaghan and Catherine Rees: 32 votes
Reopen nominations: 1 vote
Pete Callaghan and Catherine Rees are duly elected.
Elections Coordinator(s) (role sharing) 33 total votes cast.
Amy Sparling and Caitlin Lovic: 33 votes.
Reopen nominations: 0 votes.
Amy Sparling and Caitlin Lovic are duly elected.
Volunteer Coordinator(s) 32 votes cast.
Eric Helianthus: 19 votes.
Tess Read: 13 votes.
Reopen nominations: 0 votes.
Eric Helianthus is duly elected.
Attendees of the AGM and our hosts the Climate Action Hub were thanked.
Meeting closed at 21:40.
