Future Women MPs Weekend

This year's annual Future Women MPs Weekend took place on the first weekend of the month and was held in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. It was a tremendous success with 16 participants from different backgrounds and experiences who benefited from a 2-day intense training course mainly focused on planning and winning your selection campaign and building your winning team. They also felt inspired and motivated by high profile speakers such as Catherine Bearder MEP and Tessa Munt MP. We are planning to hold our next year's residential training in early November at the same location.

This is what our participants had to say about this year's FWMPs weekend:

'Some of the best party training I have experienced', inspiring, fascinating, motivating, encouraging, stimulating, comprehensive, intense, educative, practical, energising, invaluable, interactive J

Inspiration Days

Inspiration Days are friendly and informal events, designed to give women members the opportunity to develop their skills, learn more about becoming active in the party and meet other like-minded women from across the Region.

Training at Spring Conference 2012

As with every Party conference, we are doing our best to deliver the most relevant and useful training sessions that will give you the tools to help you with your political career. We are in the process of finalising the training sessions that will be delivered at Spring Conference and further information will follow shortly. Spring Conference will be held in Newcastle Gateshead on 9 - 11 March 2012 and more information about registration can be found here.

Selection will start in 2012

Selections will start in early 2012, so this is a 'window of opportunity' for any potential candidate. If you want to become a Liberal Democrat MP in 2015, it is vital that you start putting yourself in the best possible position for selection and election as soon as possible! You can download a document which outlines some of the things that you need to be thinking about before selections start here.

One of the most important things is to get yourself approved as a Parliamentary candidate, if you haven't already done so. The 'Rough Guide' which can be downloaded here gives you an overview of the process and the steps you need to take in order to go through the approval process. It's also worth mentioning again that we can offer mentoring for those of you who are either planning to go through the approval process or planning to get selected.

We hope to hear from as many of you early next year and don't forget that we are here to support you!

Leadership Programme - candidates recruited

The Leadership Programme recruitment process has now been completed. A total of 123 applicants applied and the recruitment team has said that the standard of applications was extremely high. However, there was limited space available on the Programme, and a final group of 40 individuals were selected. We are delighted to let you know that 27 (68%) are women, many of whom have previously benefited from CGB training and mentoring schemes.

Congratulations to all the women selected onto the Programme.

The Diversity team at HQ will be overseeing this Programme, alongside initiatives such as Campaign for Gender Balance and New Generation which provide support and development opportunities to women, BAME candidates, and other individuals from under-represented groups who are planning to stand for elections.

Roxana Cimpeanu

Diversity Projects Coordinator

Diversity Unit

Liberal Democrats HQ

8-10 Great George Street, Westminster, SW1P 3AE

t: 0207 2271319

e: roxana.cimpeanu@libdems.org.uk

www.genderbalance.org.uk