General Secretary Election 10

I saw this desolate comment left last night and wondered how typical it is? 

Anonymous 29 May 2018 at 22:17

"Napo is non existent in Durham Tees Valley CRC, no communication at all from local Chair, no meetings, nothing. Forgotten members. Complete overhaul of Napo required."

There's now less than a week before Napo's NEC are due to interview both candidates for the post of General Secretary on 5th June, the closing date for Branches to submit nominations being noon Monday 4th June. 

By any stretch of the imagination it's all a ridiculously short timescale, the firing gun only having been triggered by email to Branches on 10th May. Over a period that includes not one, but two Bank Holidays, when many colleagues especially with young children take some annual leave, Branches are supposed to have organised meetings, discussed the merits of each candidate and if agreed, make a nomination. 

As usual with Napo, communication has not been a strong point as evidenced by the following exchanges on Facebook dating from Saturday 12th May, indeed the same day I fired the gun on the process with a blog post.      

12th May Facebook

I haven't received any information on the Napo general secretary elections. Should I have done and by what mechanism?

I’ve not either. I understood NEC have yet to interview both candidates at our next June NEC meeting.

Ah I didn’t know that.

It’s gone to branch chairs/convenors first. Got the email Thursday.

O interesting. Our convenor told us ages ago didnt need to send members stuff as "everything" would be sent out by Napo HQ individually to members. Met our NEC rep on TUC March yesterday & told me that it was next NEC when the candidates would be interviewed. We all get ballot slips eventually but hope we are not voting over summer which would be daft (holidays etc). As an aside...communicating news/what's going on and explaining process with rank and file seems to be a perpetual prob with Napo. I don't understand why when social media offers umpteen outlets! At times it's as if we are trying too hard to be "a magazine" with glossy pics' etc rather than just talk about core business and what the staff (Admin/Officers and Officials are actually doing on our behalf). Personally it's the latter I want as can get t'other elsewhere.

I think more info could be sent out but things have definitely improved. However certain things like this need to go to the branch exec first before members.

Katie Lomas. Branch officers have been sent info as there are things they need to do. NEC meet on 5th June and ballots go out to members shortly after that. If anyone has queries about the process contact your branch reps or link officer/official.

I get that Katie but it relies on Branch Officials communicating & as I said above when I queried Branch Chair re dearth of info was told it (all info) was sent out to individual members or to be found on website. We have had no Branch info since Xxxxxx stood down as Secretary last Sept and have since been told Branches no longer need Secretaries as info goes out to members.

Katie Lomas. Not quite as simple as that Xxxxxx, some stuff goes out direct - all members should get Friday news, plus other specific mailouts plus the blog - but where a branch exec needs to do stuff it goes to them...

Whatever is MEANT to happen I'm relaying what my Branch Chair and Convenor are saying happens and as I have said umpteen times now and am not going to repeat again after this, info has not been passed onto Branch members in Xxxxxxx since last Sept by our Branch Officers for the reasons given.

For what it's worth, I agree with Xxxxxxxx. I wasn't even aware there were going to be general secretary elections until reading a post on here that alluded to it. Perhaps this is not the forum for this discussion but I too feel I would like to know more about what's going on or being discussed.

Thanks Xxxxxxx! I suspect part of the problem is gulf between what is intended/planned centrally and what local officers understand/find feasible to achieve and meanwhile left in the dusk are common & garden members. I only found out about this FB page via references on Jim Brown's blog and then took ages to find a "sponsor" to allow me to join this group. If the Forum on Napo webpage had been developed well it could have facilitated these discussions between any member electing to join in and those Officers/Officials designated or choosing to link in plus there were trained moderators to ensure no abuse etc. As it stands this is a closed group I understand (thou what criteria for admission is I don't know) which is fine but there are a load of members still in the "dusk" or outside these forums of info exchange depending on ability of their Branch Officers to help keep them in the loop. Similarly we have a keen local NEC rep but [they are] one who doesn't use social media nor service emails. We no longer have branch meetings as could not sustain quoracy so members only know about Napo activity via what they find out from website should they bother to search that (still not the easiest to navigate and doesn't facilitate quick exchange info or quick answering of questions) or via emails from the centre......that leaves a lot of gaps!

I'm not sure its fair to hold Napo HQ responsible for what your branch officers aren’t doing or how they have miscommunicated stuff. No one has ever said branches don’t need to communicate certain things to their members so no idea where that idea has come from in your branch. It doesn’t make sense anyway as the exec need to discuss certain things first. The more actively involved people are in their branch the stronger they are!

I'm not blaming HQ I'm making the point that info that it's assumed goes out via Branch Officers from HQ doesn't in our area. Of course it's great when members are active and attend meetings etc but that doesn't happen everywhere and certainly isn't happening in my area and 3 people on Exec being only ones who did meet isn't enough to function as a Branch. Help from members and from HQ was requested last Sept. I'm not going to repeat myself any further.

I had no idea Ian was leaving!! Surely that is an important piece of information!!

Katie Lomas. Our General Secretary is an elected post and served a 5 year term so is up for election every 5 years.

Thanks Katie but I do remember being made aware of this in past years so it was a bit of a shock to see this suddenly appear! No apparent notice given (that I have received) that the term is up!

Katie Lomas.  An advert went out on our website and press, your NEC rep should have reported back to branch members that it was happening as it was discussed at length at last NEC. Ian has been mentioning it regularly since last AGM when he announced he would be re-standing. Branches have been informed this week, get in touch with you local branch officers to find out how they are dealing with it as each branch is different.

As a further example of not knowing key info...I learnt via trawling through Jim Brown blog posts that Katie is now apparently Co-chair with Chris. Is that true? If so what happened to Yvonne and presumably this is again info that was sent out via Branch Chair or Convenors or NEC?? Or is it that whomever made the post on JB's Blog had wrong end of the stick? Actually on re-reading Jim's blog I am maligning the integrity of his info as he's posted a document which ends 

"Please note that the nomination forms must be returned to Napo by noon on Monday 4th June 2018 – please follow the instructions on the form.

Yours sincerely

CHRIS WINTERS & KATIE LOMAS National Co-Chairs" 

So what's happened here then?

Katie Lomas. Must be a typo Xxxxxx! No one has changed roles as far as I am aware!

--oo00oo--

For those willing to look, there are surely many telling indicators of systemic communication and organisational failures in the above exchanges, but the bit that really resonates with me is this:-

"We all get ballot slips eventually but hope we are not voting over summer which would be daft (holidays etc)."

Well, it is indeed anticipated that ballot papers are sent out to members shortly after the NEC meeting on 5th June, unless that is, some common sense prevails. Readers will recall from the blog post on 19th May that London Branch were able to discuss the matter at their scheduled meeting on Friday 18th May and were so unhappy with the process that the decision was made to demand more time and opportunity to learn more about the candidates:-

Emergency Motion

GENERAL SECRETARY PROCESS

This Branch requests that the NEC make arrangements as a matter of urgency, such that all members have the opportunity to ask questions of both General Secretary candidates prior to the Election. If this is not achievable by the election deadline, this motion moves that the deadline be extended.

Proposer: Napo London Branch

It will be interesting to see if the NEC get the message and have the bottle to get a grip on things because unless there's some concrete demonstration of direction and leadership from Napo's supposed governing body, we are indeed all doomed.