Committee Election Results

Manchester Labour Students has elected a new Committee, the results of which are as follows:

Chair (MMU): Lauren Cooper

Chair (UoM): Andrew Campbell

Secretary (MMU): Josh Terry

Secretary (UoM): Talia Akhtar

Treasurer (MMU): Luke Pollard

Treasurer (UoM): Hannah Spector

Labour Party Campaigns Officer: Bill Martin

Students' Unions Campaigns Officer: Fin McGoldrick

Political Events Officer: Elsie Wraighte

Social Secretary: Francesca Lemanczyk

Membership Officer: Tamoor Tariq

Publicity Officer: Ben Furber

The liberation positions are yet to be decided, these will be elected at the respective liberation caucuses.

For the full election results take a look here:

http://www.manchesterlabourstudents.org/elections/0910%20Committee%20Election%20Results.pdf

Last Call for Committee Nominations

Calling all MLS members:

Nominations will close for the Committee elections to be held next week, tomorrow at 5pm. So if you’ve been thinking about standing and are currently on the fence – now is the time to make your mind up.

There are lots of positions to choose from (http://www.manchesterlabourstudents.org/elections), so if you think you’d be good at any of them, please stand! You’ve got nothing to lose and a great experience to gain.

To nominate yourself simply email me (richard@manchesterlabourstudents.org) the position you want to stand for and if you like, a Manifesto as well as long as it isn’t more than a side of A4.

Manchester Labour Students contribute to Glasgow NE Victory

Labour have won a stunning victory in Glasgow North East following an excellent and honourably fought campaign in the Scottish constituency. Willie Bain was duly elected with a solid majority of 8111 votes, a 59.39% share, which represented a 1.89% swing to Labour.



Talia Akhtar & I joined Labour Students from all around the country to spend a week in the constituency during polling week to deliver leaflets and knock on the doors of local constituents to deliver the Labour message. We campaigned with councillors, MPs, MSPs and the odd celebrity in Eddie Izzard - everyone helping to fight SNP cuts and elect the only local candidate. It was hard work but rewarding that we could contribute to such a successful campaign.

Congratulations to the new Labour Member of Parliament for Glasgow North East, Willie Bain.

Labour Students Political Weekend 2009

Last week Manchester Labour Students joined members from Labour clubs from all around the country to descend on the Forest Pines Hotel & Golf Resort outside Brigg in North Lincolnshire for Labour Students Political Weekend, the first national event of the academic year. Travelling from Manchester meant we didn’t have to wake up at 4.30am like Labour Students from our devolved nations so we arrived ready & raring for a weekend of speakers, policy debates & the legendary Saturday night social.

The weekend kicked off with a welcome from National Chair Joseph Sherry, followed by a session with the quite hilarious Ian Cawsey, the local MP for Brigg and Goole and member of the Parliamentary rock group ‘MP4’. Other speakers on the day included Special Advisor to Gordon Brown, Kirsty McNeill, & Vernon Coaker MP who is currently Minister of State for Schools and Learners at the DCSF. Ellie Reeves fromthe Labour Party National Executive Committee and her sister Rachel Reeves, Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Leeds West also spoke to us in a session on their experiences in the Party & then joined our female members at the Women’s Reception. The Women’s Reception was my personal highlight of the weekend as it was great to see a record number of female members at a national event (plus the free wine is always a treat). The Saturday night social kicked off with a quiz (at which Manchester failed abysmally) followed by a three course meal & the legendary disco.


On the Sunday, after an incredible cooked breakfast to aid our recovery from spending the previous night dancing to Things Can Only Get Better, there were sessions on joining a Trade Union, holding our NUS group to account & an introduction to the Cooperative Party from Cooperative Youth Secretary Joseph Russo. Each member also chose a policy group to debate in where we discussed policy ideas for a Labour Fourth Term.

The weekend was a great success & opportunity to meet up with like-minded individuals from universities all around the country & hear speakers who were inspirational in encouraging us to fight in our constituencies for a Labour Fourth Term.

NUS Delegate Election Results!

Tonight saw the close of UMSU's delegate elections for NUS Conference 2010. The full results will probably appear on the UMSU website tomorrow.

Nevertheless I'm really happy to say that the two Manchester Labour Students candidates Mel Haslam and John Gilchrist both secured a place!

Mel managed to top the ballot getting more 1st preference votes than any other candidate securing 90 votes, 20 ahead of the person coming 2nd place.

Thank you to everyone that voted for Mel and John and also congratulations to Josh Barth as well who won the by-election for EPS Faculty Officer on the UMSU Exec this evening.

NUS and Manchester's students will be better off in having Mel and John representing students issues on conference floor.

UoM Chair to Step Down at AGM

With the club’s Committee elections a month away now I thought it would be worth letting people know my intentions so members can start to consider what they might be interested in standing for.

I've decided that I will not be re-standing as Co-Chair (UoM) at the AGM next month and therefore will stop being Chair a week after that.

It has been a really difficult decision but I feel that at this point in the year when we have been able to achieve a good level of members and I've been able to ensure that club's finances are in the best position they have been in to date, a new Chair would have all the resources needed to work with the rest of the Committee to have a really successful year.

I won't be standing for any position on the Committee at the AGM and therefore will act as Returning Officer for all the non-Liberation posts. If you would like more information on the elections take a look here: http://www.manchesterlabourstudents.org/elections

Although I’ve only been Chair for 8 months, I’ve been on the Executive Committee for 2 years and in that time I’ve been the club grow hugely not just in size but also in its culture and influence.

Manchester Labour Students is an excellent organisation that I know will go from strength to strength and I’m really excited to see it move to its next generation of leadership.

Please please please please, please come to this, please. Please.

As our lovely blog readers I would take it as a personal favour if those of you that *cough* self identify as women would go to awesome Hannah’s awesome women’s forum event. I’m very sad that I’m not allowed to go. :(

First event of the year for self defining female members is Wednesday 28th October at 16:30 in Bikos cafe University of Manchester SU.

This will be a chance to catch up, discuss key issues for women in the labour party and decide a priority campaign for this year. And make a plan of action for future events that you would like. After will be a chance to go to the riverters which is the womens rights collective at University of Manchester and is open to Man Met students as well.

If you cant make it but would like to get involved in the Womens' Campaign Group there will be many more events, but you may want to go to Manchester Labour Womens' Forum this saturday at 12 at the Co-op Rooms, Barlow Moor Rd with the Withington PPC Lucy Powel.

Why Twitter is Basically Awesome

So this is my first proper post on the Manchester Labour Students Blog. My plan was for it to be insightful, thought providing, witty and clever...screw that, let’s talk about why Twitter is awesome.

I’m not going to tell you what Twitter is: if you don’t know, you can google it. What I do want to tell you is why Twitter might help you want to get involved with Manchester Labour Students. This post is really for you members that haven’t quite made the leap of being active. Twitter can help you want to become an activist; Twitter can help you get to know some of us.

There are five of us on the exec that tweet: Richard, Mel, Jonty, Rob and myself. The other four keep us all updated about what they are up to and what funny or stupid thing just happened around them: I tweet to avoid getting any work done. We all tweet different amounts and about different things but what we all like to do is have a natter. What you won’t ever see is any of us being anything other than genuine and personable.

That’s the fun, personal side of it. Meeting people you know from twitter is always easy: the ice has already been broken. So if you’re unsure if you want to come to one of our campaign days, political debates or even one of our meetings then chat to some of us on twitter and find out for sure.

Generally though, Twitter is starting to make a serious impact politically. Two issues this week, promoted primarily by people tweeting about them, have made national news. So if you didn't know about this and/or this...where have you been?

After following me, Richard, Mel, Jonty and Rob on twitter you've got to follow Kerry McCarthy who is the Labour Party's twitter Tsar (that isn't her official title, but her official one doesn't have alliteration).

Cheers!