Minutes of the first meeting of the new committee 26.3.17

Present:

Richard Bagnall-Oakeley, Viviane Carneiro, Jane Clements, Phil Cox, Jamie Crabb, Robbie Lockwood, Juliet Lyons, Andrew Price

Agenda for Committee Meeting

Sunday 26th March 2017

6-8pm

Check in

1 Committee roles

2 AGM -second half 3 Social Media

4 Sending Statements

5 Admin and Member support jobs

6 AOB

1 Committee Roles

Chair - Richard

Secretary - Juliet

Social Media - Viviane and Juliet

Treasurer - Andrew

Membership Secretary - Jane

Agreed signatories for the bank account - Richard, Jane and Andrew. This will be sorted out with Kate at the AGM.

Viviane felt that the Social Media Committee role needs to be defined further.

There was a discussion about the committee generally reaching agreement by consensus. Action: Richard to send information about this to the committee.

2 AGM - second half

Introduce the new committee

To look at what the priorities are, plans for the year ahead and beyond to include:

a) Membership drive

It was felt that although the union had done well to have over 300 members in the first year we need to aim for 1000 members by next years AGM for it to become more viable.

An idea was for each member to try to recruit 5 people.

b) Regional Groups

This was a plan for the future with a committee member being a lead for each region and eventually having a Regional Committee Role.

c) Social Media

Union presence on facebook and twitter needs to be developed over the next year.

Viviane in her committee role will link with Clare Slaney who is currently managing social media.

Action: Viviane to report to AGM on social media.

d) Wider communications with members

A second person is needed to help with posting news items on Ning - currently done by admin support - Jamie agreed to take this role.

The committee wants to ask members how they think the discussion and announcements google groups have been working and how they want them to work.

An idea was to have a brainstorming/fun exercise at the AGM to gather ideas.

e) Trainee and Qualified Codes of Practice

This needs to be a priority.

Jamie, Nick and Leanne have been working on a list of training organisations to contact.

f) Complaints

Supporting members who have had a complaint made against them by a client.

Phil has been involved in this time-consuming process.

Robbie asked how we support work that is valuable.

We need to make links with more Insurance companies.

g) Grievances/workplace issues

Supporting members who are making, or may wish to make, a complaint/grievance against the organisation they work for - or if they are facing disciplinary procedures in their organisation

Richard is currently the lead for grievances.

Is there another role needed for the politics of institutions separate from individual workplace grievances?

The possibility of training for union members in this area was discussed.

This would link to campaigning. Richard said the union needs to be involved in larger campaigns that affect therapists.

Action: Robbie will find out what training is available, possibly with the Solidarity Federation.

3 Social Media

Viviane reported that there had been 702 likes on the union facebook page.

Discussion about the possibility of using a digital membership form that facebook users could complete on facebook.

Jane was concerned about what might be lost in not having direct contact with members, that it needs to fit in with how membership is dealt with at the moment and suggested having the union e-mail as a link on the facebook page. It was felt this would be too slow as facebook users are used to doing something by one click.

It was agreed this needs further discussion.

Action: Jane and Jamie to discuss how this might work and how it might fit with the existing system.

4 Sending Statements

Statements and letters can be written by members and it was agreed that they need to be agreed by the committee before being sent out by the Secretary on behalf of the union.

It was agreed that the Secretary will be in contact with a member who is writing a statement or letter.

There was a discussion about whether time frames are needed for sending letters, the feeling was that it depends on the urgency of each situation.

Statements and letters will be circulated in the committee list for agreement or disagreement.

Phil was concerned that the recent NUT letter was outstanding.

Action: The new committee will look at this after the existing committee hands over at the AGM.

5 Admin and Member support jobs

It was agreed to change the job title from Admin Support to Administrator to avoid confusion.

6 AOB

Discussion about printing more leaflets as we only have 80 left. Printing 1000 rather than 500 may only be slightly dearer.

Discussion about sending leaflets to organisations.

Leaflets can be sent to members electronically or by post.

The committee would like to see the leaflets before printing to ensure they are up to date.

Action: Jamie to do a list of organisations to contact and send leaflets to.

Action: Jane to send copies of the leaflets we have to the committee and to get the Publisher package on the union laptop.

Agreed to have £30 in petty cash to cover small expenses like postage.

Next meeting

TBC