Working Conference Sat 1st March

carol · Working Conference Sat 1st March

Working Conference, Saturday 1st March 2008, STUC premises, 333 Woodlands Road, Glasgow, 1pm – 4pm (registration 12.15pm onwards)

Independence First (IF) is a non-party political organisation campaigning for a referendum on independence for Scotland.

We are supporting the ‘People’s Petition’ which was launched by the Scottish Independence Convention (SIC) on 24TH January 2008. The petition aims to put pressure on the Scottish Parliament to hold an independence referendum.

To compliment the launch and to work in tandem with SIC the Independence First Working Conference will have the objective of bringing together all those prepared to ‘work’ the petition on the ground across Scotland and coordinate the organisation of this task. We are hoping this event will be the first of a continuing process.

Guest speakers from SIC include actress and comedienne Convenor Elaine C Smith, who has been invited to open the conference, and peace activist Isobel Lindsay.

All groups are entitled to send a maximum of 2 delegates, cost £5 per organisation. For individuals attending the fee is £2. Tea, coffee and biscuits will be available on the day

For further information and to register for the event please email Secretary Carol Roscoe, secretary@independence1st.com

carol

just bringing this event back up. Lloyd Quinnan is another confirmed speaker. There is a 'working agenda' available, and it definitely won't be a case of long boring speeches on the day.

Anyone wishing to be actively involved canvassing for signatures for the petition this event is a must!

For further info email regarding the working conference email myself secretary@independence1st.com

For further information regarding the petition (available now to download and online) visit www.scottishindependenceconvention.com

regards

Carol

carol

just surfacing with this event again, although there has been significant interest, to raise this petition off the ground we need more bodies otherwise it's going to be one hard slog.

Your support would be appreciated

regards

Carol

carol

another push for this event

Working Conference, Saturday 1st March 2008, STUC premises, 333 Woodlands Road, Glasgow, 1pm – 4pm (registration 12.15pm onwards)

Independence First (IF) is a non-party political organisation campaigning for a referendum on independence for Scotland.

We are supporting the ‘People’s Petition’ which was launched by the Scottish Independence Convention (SIC) on 24TH January 2008. The petition aims to put pressure on the Scottish Parliament to hold an independence referendum.

To compliment the launch and to work in tandem with SIC the Independence First Working Conference will have the objective of bringing together all those prepared to ‘work’ the petition on the ground across Scotland and coordinate the organisation of this task. We are hoping this event will be the first of a continuing process.

Guest speakers from SIC include actress and comedienne Convenor Elaine C Smith, who has been invited to open the conference, and peace activist Isobel Lindsay. Also speaking on behalf of Independence First is Lloyd Quinan, who is a strong supporter of the Basque and other independence movements, and an active member of IF.

All groups are entitled to send a maximum of 2 delegates, cost £5 per organisation. For individuals attending the fee is £2. Tea, coffee and biscuits will be available on the day

For further information and to register for the event please email Secretary Carol Roscoe, secretary@independence1st.com

Also visit our website www.independence1st.com. Also for further information regards the petition visit www.scottishindependenceconvention.com

carol

Just a reminder of the above conference tomorrow .....

Rinty

How about a report of this meeting and the IC meeting in Edinburgh if anyone from the forum attended.

carol

from what I can gather from both meetings (I did not attend the SIC one) there were contentious issues surrounding the petition, I myself had raised a few concerns on Saturday, which I personally don't feel the need to debate here. In principle we would need to accept the 'guidelines' put down by SIC, they are flexible, and each group on the ground to their own way of working. Really we should be heads down and getting on with it, otherwise we'll be wasting precious time bickering over it.

Other than that the turnout on Saturday was near 30, speakers were excellent, contributions from the groups that attended were valued, and did open up healthy debate. A few issues that were raised will be taken on board by SIC for consideration.

regards

Carol

Dave Coull

Rinty asked "How about a report of this meeting and the IC meeting in Edinburgh if anyone from the forum attended"

I wasn't at either meeting, but I received a report from someone who was at the SIC meeting, to the effect that it was "not a very fruitful meeting". However, I remain hopeful that the next SIC meeting will be far more productive.

Carol says "Really we should be heads down and getting on with it, otherwise we'll be wasting precious time bickering over it".

While I agree with "getting on with it", and while myself and some others had already been "getting on with it" before either of these meetings, I nevertheless intend to continue to put certain points regarding the organising of this campaign to all those involved. These points are (1) the paramount importance of keeping the petition non-party-political; (2) the need for the SIC itself to play a role in organising the petitioning, rather than relying on political parties and other political organisations; (3) the superfluity of speeches at meetings - both the speech-makers themselves, and their listeners, would be better out on the streets collecting signatures; (4) the need for targeted coverage of certain areas; and (5) the desirability of the SIC asking for INDIVIDUAL (not "organisational") commitments from supporters of the petition.

Regarding my first point, I believe the SNP alone claims a membership of twelve and a half thousand. If each of those SNP members was to fill up one petition sheet (15 signatures, their own signature and 14 others, not impossible given that most folk could raise half a dozen signatures just from their own family and close friends) that would give a total of 175,000 signatures. However, in my view, relying on the SNP (or any other political party) to organise the petitioning would be self-defeating. The reason is that, if it was widely known that this was what was happening, then opponents of a referendum on independence would dismiss the petition before it was even presented, as merely a party-political stunt. In my view, a petition of 100,000 signatures, collected on a genuinely non-party-political basis, would carry far more weight than a petition of 200,000 signatures collected by a political party. ANY political party.

Regarding my second point, quite simply, the petition is in the name of the SIC. For this reason alone, they cannot abdicate responsibility for organising the petitioning.

Regarding my third point, I am very doubtful of the strategy of "rolling launches". As I understand it, there is supposed to be an SIC "press launch" meeting, with some "local celebrities", in Dundee on 5th April. But the first, national, "press launch" was in January. If the press show any interest at all in additional "launch" meetings, it might be along the lines of "what went wrong with the first launch? Is this a RE-launch?" and "have you been collecting signatures on your petition since it was launched in January, and, if you have, why do you need a re-launch in April?" If there are some celebrities prepared to turn up for a local "launch", then forget the speeches, get them out on the streets. If you can actually get a few celebrities, even relatively minor, local celebrities, out on the streets of a town, with a clipboard and a pen, asking folk for their signatures on a petition, then THAT is worth a photo in local or regional newspapers at least, and, if it's worth a photo, then it's worth a news report to accompany the photo. But speeches at a meeting? Not even worth reporting..........

Regarding my fourth point, as the Summer approaches, it could be worth organising, spread out over two or three of the less-chilly months, some door-to-door collection of signatures. It would be impossible to knock on every door in Scotland, but what I'm suggesting is TARGETED canvassing, in specific areas of each of Scotland's major cities, plus SELECTED towns.

Regarding my fifth point, in an hour and a half out on the streets I personally collected 30 signatures. So it would only take a few more such efforts, over the next few months, for my own personal total to go over 100. Let’s suppose that there are one thousand people prepared to put in a not-too-strenuous bit of effort to collect signatures on this petition. (This doesn't seem like an unreasonable assumption to me. So far as the SNP, Green Party, SSP, Solidarity, are concerned, if even just one party member in twenty shows sufficient commitment, plus a somewhat higher percentage of members of some other organisations, plus a few non-aligned individuals, that could easily add up to a thousand.) If 1,000 people collect 100 signatures each, that’s 100,000 signatures. So, what I proposed to the SIC is, that they should ask INDIVIDUALS to commit themselves to collecting 100 signatures. Not their parties, not their organisations, but them as individuals. I suggested doing this on the basis “I WILL, IF YOU WILL, SO WILL I”. If people know that other people are also committing themselves to do this, then they are much more likely to do so themselves, and they will encourage each other to keep the commitment. Of course there could be no way of verifying people’s individual totals, but, nevertheless, asking for an individual commitment is likely to have a more positive effect than just relying on the political parties.

In my view, by adopting the approaches outlined above, there is no reason why 100,000 signatures could not be collected, on a non-party-political basis, within six months. The petition could be ready for presenting by September.

carol

Dave Coull

Carol writes "Personally I prefer to stick to the rural villages in Perthshire for door knocking, it would be more enjoyable!"

Well of course we are all volunteers, and of course we can't be "sent" like troops to places we don't want to go! All signatures collected for the petition are welcome. We can't expect to knock on every door in the whole of Scotland, but it would be desirable (for psychological reasons) if the campaign could show it had a presence in each of the main cities of Scotland, plus certain other selected areas. There is no reason why "the rural villages in Perthshire" could not be one of these other "selected areas" if there are people prepared to knock on doors there!

Carol also says that it is "too late for it to be seen as being non-party political".

I hope that isn't true. As already mentioned, in my view a petition with a significant number of signatures, organised on a genuinely non-party-political basis, would be more impressive, and more effective, than one organised by a political party, even if the political party one managed to collect twice as many signatures as the non-party-political one.

"the SNP are already hosting a different format of the petition on their website, and groups/party colours - badges can be worn" - if that is so, then I think it is a mistake.

I wrote that, PROVIDED the approaches I’ve been outlining were to be adopted, “there is no reason why 100,000 signatures could not be collected, on a non-party-political basis, within six months. The petition could be ready for presenting by September”.

Carol says "Unless they do take a more organised approach, ie starting with a central coordinator in place, you won't see that petition completed by September Dave".

I think, if the approaches which I have outlined were to be enthusiastically adopted by the SIC, then the target of 100,000 signatures could probably be achieved within six months whether or not a central co-ordinator were to be appointed. The crucial point is the degree of enthusiasm with which these approaches are adopted by all concerned.

I have a strong suspicion that some folk may be thinking in terms of the more laid-back approach of having the petition ready by late 2009 or even 2010 because that is the target "suggested" or "implied" by some professional politicians. But an independent, non-party-political, campaign should not be setting its timetable according to what would suit any professional politician or political party.

Regarding appointing a "central co-ordinator", if that is an actual job title, then I don't like the sound of it. I remember when we appointed a young student, who nobody had ever heard of, as co-ordinator of the newly-formed Scottish Federation of Anti-Poll-Tax Unions. His name was Thomas Sheridan. He certainly worked enthusiastically at this unpaid, voluntary position, but so did a lot of other people work enthusiastically on an unpaid, voluntary basis for that campaign. Unfortunately, Tommy did come to be seen as the "Leader" of that campaign, and it is a debatable point whether this was a good thing or not. It was probably a good thing for Tommy, as it led to him becoming a professional politician, getting a job as an MSP, a newspaper columnist, etc.

But what if we had NOT appointed anybody as any kind of overall co-ordinator of the anti-poll-tax campaign? The campaign would have continued enthusiastically anyway.

However, I do recognise that there are important differences between that campaign and the SIC petition. First of all, the APT campaign was not a petition. We were not asking Maggie and co. nicely if they could please think again about the poll tax. Also, although marches and demonstrations were a useful part of the campaign, they were not the most important part. The most important part of the anti-poll-tax campaign was the mutual commitment of significant numbers of people to support each other in continuing to refuse to pay the poll tax indefinitely, or for as long as it took for the system to become unworkable. The SIC petition, on the other hand, IS a petition, and as such it cannot go on "indefinitely". There really needs to be a sense of urgency about achieving the target of 100,000 signatures and presenting the petition, a sense of urgency which, it seems to me, is not very evident at present.

So my attitude towards appointing some kind of overall "co-ordinator", in this case, is that, providing they remember that we are all unpaid volunteers, and providing they are not just doing this with a professional political career in mind, and providing they are enthusiastic about achieving that target of 100,000 within a matter of months and getting the petition presented, then yes, this could be a useful step. But the priority for me remains to get all concerned to see the good sense of the five points which I set out in my previous post.

carol

some valid points Dave, re coordinator, generally a main contact within SIC who is familiar with the campaign, and has the initiative to work for the better of the campaign, improving numbers of actiivists, coordinating what areas are covered, avoiding duplicating doorstepping, checking the source of where the petitions are coming from etc. Also someone with plenty of time on their hands! Overseeing the general 'management' of the petition.

Did you get a response to any of the issues that were presented on your behalf to the SIC meeting on Tuesday?