Present: Committee Members: Mark (Chair), Julia (Treasure), Bev (Members Secretary), Kat (Elections Officer), Sarah (Communications Officer)
Members/Supporters: Roy and Alicia.
Welcome: Mark welcomed everyone and thanked them for joining us tonight.
Apologies: Tom S, Norman W, Charles M (all members/supporters who made contact with Bev prior to the meeting).
Minutes of last meeting: N/a
Members Secretary’s Report:
Action Network (AN).
The AN email delivery system and related statistical analysis appears to be working well.
Five emails were sent out to all Members and registered Supporters between 13th Jan and 17th Feb 2021. Average open rate 42%. 9 unsubscribes. The last email (this morning) went out to 267 people.
Member and supporter communications: Two members in the same household made contact to say they had joined Plaid Cymru to promote green issues within that party.
One person emailed to suggest that we ask supporters/members if they want printed documents in English or Welsh rather than sending in both languages, in order to save paper and printing costs.
Results of survey: A lack of response to the survey sent out by email meant that the results cannot be regarded as representative of all members and supporters, so a full analysis was not reported. However, the results do suggest that:
1) Carmarthen appears to be the most favoured venue for future physical meetings
2) Communications should be sent out in both Welsh and English.
Point 2) above was briefly discussed and this would be dependent on voluntary support from Welsh speakers to provide translations. Kat suggested that for key documents that need to be sent out, we could use the services of a GP Welsh language officer. We could not expect to use this service for all communications but she doesn’t think it would be a problem for sending out information important for the success of the party.
Future contact with members by phone: Bev is keen to make telephone contact to welcome new members but is currently experiencing a few technical difficulties in filtering data and does not currently have access to members telephone numbers – this issue has been taken up with GP technical support.
Update of officer email accounts: Despite technical issues and delays all officer now have access to CarmsGP email accounts.
Senedd Elections:
- The elections are on Thursday 6 May 2021. We are within the Mid and West Wales (MWW) region. Kat is part of the MWW campaign team who meet every 2 weeks along with representatives from all local parties, list candidates and key volunteers.
- MWW is planning for the election to go ahead, even if it gets postponed. Kat is in a job share position on the campaign to get Emily Durrant elected (Emily is the local councillor for the Green Party in Powys).
- To be successful in getting candidates into the Senedd, CarmsGP need to establish which will be our target ward so that campaigning resources are most effective – the party does not have the financial resources to stand candidates in every ward.
- Standing a constituency candidate costs £500 per candidate but has a lot of benefits. We can use literature distribution to get the candidates name recognised and established within the election area.
- Kat proposed sending out an email to all members and supporters calling out for candidates to come forward. This was seconded by Mark and supported by all committee members. Kat will draft an email that Bev can then send out within the next week. At the next meeting we can then discuss potential candidates and arrange a hustings if necessary.
- Kat advised us all to register for postal votes due to current uncertainty about voting in person. Campaign ongoing.
Local Elections in 2022:
- These will take place next year on the first Thursday in May.
- We would like candidates to come forward for target wards and non-target wards. (A target ward is where we focus our effort, for much more effective campaigning).
- Kat gave us information on sending out literature for campaigns: the more literature you can get out to potential voters before the elections the better. It is usual to send out around 15 pieces of literature up to the campaign.
- There is a spreadsheet available to help pinpoint a target ward for the elections. Kat proposed that she fills in the spreadsheet to identify a target ward, and at the next meeting we can agree the ward to target. This was seconded by Mark and supported by all committee members.
- Bev suggested that she could then prioritise telephone members from our chosen target ward, as well as new members.
Call out for volunteers: Kat has already had one member contact her to say they would like to help.
Any other business:
- Mark congratulated Sarah on her work with the social media posts, which are going well and getting more interaction.
- Kat asked if we could all like and share social media posts from Emily Durrant to raise awareness of her profile ahead of the Senedd elections.
- Roy asked why we’re not sharing CND social media – Mark & Kat explained that we are not an advertising platform for CND (or any other group) even where our interests are aligned, and also that link-heavy posts are mainly ignored by users. Mark suggested using the Facebook group to bring up issues or start conversations.
- Norman Wijker contacted Mark prior to the meeting to suggest items for the agenda but these were nationwide issues rather than local issues for our group. Kat suggested getting in a speaker to cover bigger issues at a later date, so that these wider ranging issues can be discussed.
- Kat suggested setting up a Twitter DM group – asking people to share information on social media is a great way of getting news around. Sarah to investigate.
- Bev enquired about the progress in getting the bank account transferred to the new committee members – this is ongoing.
- Bev is keen to get established as a data controller to comply with GDPR ready for when she can make telephone contact with members. She offered to pay for this out of her own funds to then be reimbursed by CarmsGP at a later date once the bank is sorted. Julia to first contact previous treasurer Kevin to ask if he has means of payment available still to avoid Bev using own funds.
Date of next members meeting: 25th March 7pm.
