Hello and welcome

Welcome to the SYN blog

Quick report re conference (Owen will post a fuller version) it was very well behaved with no sectarian arguments - must be a first and I was pleased to see that the majority of people there were not from the "organised Left" but were there in an individul capacity - mainly Trade Unionists and Students. This shows in the elected officers positions, of the 19 exec members only 6 are from the "organised left"

This is exactly what we envisaged SYN being, somewhere that the disillusioned disenfranchised youth can come together to engage with politics - rather than just single issues - and im really pleased that SYN is a broad church for young activists.

Despite reports from the weekly worker that myself and Owen had tried to enter into some kind of anti - communist witchhunt- our comrades in communist students were able to participate and withdrew their wrecking motion in order that the conference could run smoothly. I await there report on the confernce in this weeks issue :)

Great speeches as you would expect from John McDonnell MP, Tony Benn and Katy Clarke MP and many contributions from the floor - with one motion having no less than 11 speakers!

I was impressed with the attendance which the morning star quoted at over 100.
For a founding youth conference I thought this was very encouraging given the current climate of young people not engaging in political parties, and am looking forward to building on this. I was especially impressed with the number of women there were at the meeting.

In our movement I'm so used to being one of few or the only woman at events that it was really encouraging that there were so many there - typically though the men hogged the platform speaking on all the motions even the abortion rights and feminist motion - but I was pleased to see them supporting womens rights in relation to these particular issues!

Ive posted some pictures at the end of this report but if anyone has anymore please send them to me.

The Full text of all 19 motions is here

The Full list of Elected Officers is as follows.

Co-Chairs: Myself and Owen Jones

Secretary: Vino

Treasurer: Eamon O'Hearn Large

Womens Officer: Mary Partington

LGBT Officer: Jonathon Millins

BME Officer: Heenal Rajani and Robin Sivapalan (Job Share)

Disabilities Officer: Chris (aka Kit) Leary

Trade Union Officer: Ross Marshall

Students Officer: Sofie Buckland

General Exec

Male Seats
David Broder
Matt Willgress and Ben Folley (job share)
Angus Hebenton
Daniel Robertson

Female
Sitara Amin
Grace Drewell
Louise McMullan
Charlynne Pullens