High Peak Liberal DemocratsThe committee was established by the Party's Governance Review, with the idea being that the work in these three areas has a lot of overlap and would benefit from co-ordination.
This first meeting was mostly about us getting set up as a committee, electing our various Officers and representatives. To that end:
I was elected as Chair of the committee
Adrian Hyyrylainen-Trett was elected as the Chair of the Diversity Sub-Committee
Sarah Green was elected as Chair of the Training Sub-Committee
Claire Halliwell was elected as Chair of the Membership Sub-Committee
Prue Bray was elected to serve as our Committee Secretary
Steve Jolly was elected as our Committee's representative on the Federal Conference Committee
We discussed our future meeting dates and agreed that the four meetings the constitution sets as the minimum did not feel enough for a new committee with such a large remit.
We decided to hold an extra meeting before May, focusing on the committee's strategic purpose, to explore how we could work as a committee, scope the different projects and ideas that committee members have and explore possible avenues of work. We felt it was important to add in this earlier meeting, since waiting until May to decide what to do felt too late to us. We were very conscious that the big membership surges happened in the summer months, meaning that those members will come up for renewal (or lapse) this summer, so we need to have engaged and activated them before that time arrives.
This Spring strategy meeting will then be followed by an Operational meeting of the Chair and Sub-Committee Chairs to ensure that the ideas of that meeting are turned into solid action points and measured objectives. All committee members will be welcome to attend this Operational meeting if they so wish. Then the operational report produced will be tabled at the full Committee's next meeting on May 9th.
Another agreement was made to schedule an extra meeting in June or early July, primarily to ensure that the training scheduled for autumn conference was on track for success. The timing of this June meeting would also allow us to look at any early recommendations or headlines from the Alderdice Review that might be ready by then.
The rest of Tuesday's meeting was made up of informational reports from Federal HQ staff members from the "People" Directorate:
Al Ghaff (Membership)
Arfan Bhatti (Diversity and Candidates)
Dan Purchese (Training)
Their reports gave us an understanding of what is happening currently in their various remits. It is anticipated that once the new Director for People is appointed that we will link up with them too at future meetings.
Overall, we had a very successful first meeting. Everyone left with a clear understanding that there is a lot to be done, but personally I felt there was also a real appetite for change from the committee members, and a willingness to tackle the hard questions.
We are looking at how we can stay in touch with members more, and get your ideas and feedback. Once we have decided how to do that, we will put an article up on Lib Dem Voice and then advertise it as widely as we can.
For reference, the full FPDC is currently composed as follows:
* Miranda Roberts is Chair of the Liberal Democrats' Federal People Development Committee
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