Laura Eccott joined in 2019 and is in the Chichester & Arun Green Party
I have been an active GPEW (Green Party of England and Wales) member for 4 years, after having studied biogeochemistry at university enabling me to realise the severity of the climate crisis and campaigning for disability rights with a variety of charities.
In my home life, I am raising a disabled daughter and my three rescue cats. I love reading, photography and sailing. I enthusiastically take up opportunities to learn and am currently reading a book on developing my skills as a fundraiser.
I wish to use my skills to maintain, and hope to improve, the well being of the party at this pivotal time of expanding membership and elected officials.
I have held a variety of posts in the party over the past 4 years, including attending Campaign School. I am currently safeguarding officer on Feminist Greens committee, on Campaigns Committee (which works for non-electoral campaigns such as Ellas Law,) Co-coordinator of the drug policy working group, all alongside attending a variety of policy working groups, take photographs for campaign comms, travelling all over to support election campaigns, and also engage with external lobbying groups and organisations (such as Elect Her, Jo Cox Commission). I am proficient with Action Network and Green Spaces, most Social Media platforms, and also hold an Accessibility 101 accreditation from Microsoft alongside ongoing training such as UN Gender Concepts training.
Current external roles : Tree warden : tree protection, community engagement, and liaising with county council.
Friends of Oaklands Park: management of subscriptions, agreeing appropriate applications of funds alongside giving talks on trees / organising events.
UN women UK: I am in my third year as an UN women UK delegate for the Commission on the Status of Women which involves extensive learning on a variety of socio-economic and humanitarian issues across the globe, alongside advances being made, such as in AI, and the anticipated impacts.
Previous career and skills outline : Finance department : spreadsheets and management of royalty files, tax, and cheques/BACS payments to clients.
Mental health nurse :Team work with trust and cooperation being integral, understanding group theory dynamics, risk management, referencing best clinical practice approaches to healthcare, safeguarding vulnerable persons, maintaining confidentiality and privacy of clinical information (for both staff and patients). I know how to hold professional boundaries and to take responsibility of my own practice.
Chemistry degree: data analysis, research based approach (evidence not expectations), large documents read at high volume, critical approach to ensure information, graphs etc aren’t manipulated, understanding complex maths and science.
To ensure your voices are heard on the committee, I will offer a regular slot in my week where people can join me on a Teams call (or communicate in their preferred format) to liaise issues I can take to GPRC that are specific to the SE region.
Reviewing how NFS are being managed by the party now we are expanding rapidly with evolving aims and expectations of members.
I would like to prioritise how important it is to communicate with people at regular intervals with a focus on transparency of process.
There needs to be greater value placed on how the power inequality of different members impacts their interactions with us. I believe it is pertinent, yet often overlooked, to approach issues with an appreciation of that.
I will approach all issues with the skills previously mentioned above to collaborate with the committee to come to a clear direction with each issue raised to the committee with a comprehensive decision making process throughout.
Saying that, it is important to me that I am considerate that I would be joining a wider team who are already working on specifics, so I will initially prioritise diligently getting up to speed with those.