Events
Details for upcoming events related to the Vale of Glamorgan NEU will appear here, along with links.
Welcome
Welcome to the Vale of Glamorgan District web pages. Use the contact information on this page to get in touch about casework, local meetings and training, annual conference and other issues.
To keep up to date with Wales wide issues please read and follow the executive blog.
Upcoming Events
National Conference 2022
The first face-to-face conference in 3 years was largely a positive one. Huge awareness was raised for the plight of refugees by our whole conference photo in refugees welcome t shirts - thanks to Alex Kenny for organising this. £5000 extra was raised and sent to Care4Calais to help with their fabulous work.
Conference debated forty nine motions, passing all but two of them, the motions on War in Ukraine and breaking the TUC agreement with Unison and GMB on recruitment being the two that fell.
There were a number of new topics to the floor of Conference, most notably on Tackling Pornography (a brilliant speech from Amy Fletcher) and Mothers in Prison, and there will be some independent initiatives around these, and other key motions, over the next year.
At times it felt as though we were racing through motions too quickly - maybe this is a hang over from zoom conferences. Two examples were the debates on Motion 10 (Pay) and Motion 47 (VEVE and Organising), both of which will be integral to the success of the Union in the next period and were passed in less than twenty minutes - these motions did need more serious exposition, although credit is due to Phil Clarke for laying out the stakes on the pay ballot.
It is all very well deciding lots of policy at Conference, our task, and responsibility, is to take these to members in schools, to build support for our position and, where possible, translate them into activities that can make a difference. It has ever been thus.
Rule Changes: The way in which the debate on rule changes was presented made it difficult to present the case for the ones aimed at increasing representation and democracy in the Union. It just does not seem right that in a Union that is 75% female, our Conference is only 55% female - that needs to change and no doubt this topic will be returned to next year.
Past event reports
Conference Cymru 2022 report by Roxanne Beckles
There are many negatives as well as positives. We should be proud to be making progress around equality, particularly race equality which brings people together, to stand up for social justice.When we stand together/fight together/commit together things happen.No one has given us anything in trade unions, we have to fight for everything that we have achieved.We need to be prepared to be organised and fight for the things that are important to us.We need to stand together/organise/be together and stick together. Solidarity in work, in communities, across nations, internationally.
Future female activists – your union needs you!
NEU Cymru women’s organising forum members and NEU executive members organised a two-day event to encourage more women members to get active within the union. The overnight event took place place in Llandrindod Wells, Powys on May 20 and 21, it was an introductory weekend for women new to activism and it was wonderful to meet so many new activists from across Wales. The event included speakers, workshops and activities from across England and wales with a focus on Maternity to Menopause and networking. We looked at where we are now and where we would like to be in the future. 79% of NEU Cymru members are women and we have much work to do to ensure that women are equally represented in our local and national structures and meetings. It’s very important to build on this successful event in providing women focussed events in the future especially on International women’s day every year.
NEU Cymru 2nd Care4Calais volunteering weekend
This was the 2nd visit by Welsh NEU members to the Care4Calais warehouse to bring essential items and work in the warehouse and with refugees for the weekend and 2 out of the 5 volunteers were from Vale of Glamorgan district - Bethan Jones, our NP&YT officer and our secretary and National executive member Mairead Canavan.
Thanks to a donation from Wales council we were able to hire a van and take over much needed staples that are difficult to get in Calais. Monetary donations from Carmarthenshire, Denbighshire and Vale of Glamorgan meant that we could fill the van and also have money to go shopping while there and buy the most essential items when we were in Calais.
What a privilege it was not just to give out around 175 sleeping bags to refugees from Sudan, Afghanistan, Gambia and other countries but to show our solidarity by spending hours talking to them, hearing their stories, playing Jenga, chess and connect 4 and watching them thoroughly enjoy having a football to play with. It definitely reminded us all how lucky we are to live in the Uk instead of living in a field for 4 years as some of the young men we talked to had been. #RefugeesWelcome
Vale of Glamorgan Useful Links
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