West Midlands Community Branch
Annual General Meeting Minutes
Wednesday 24th March 2021
TEAMS Virtual Meeting
1. Welcome –
Lynn welcomed the members
2. Minutes from 2019 were presented to the meeting,Members agreed minutes accepted.
Matters outstanding
Sleep insAGM 2020 was cancelled due to national lockdown – No minutes
3. Branch Reports
Appendix 1 – Branch Chair report, Members agreed it was read before the meeting.
Matters arising
None
Appendix 2 – Branch Secretary report, Members agree it was read before the meeting
Matters arising
AW asked for redundancy figures and unemployed membership.
At this time figures are unavailable and difficult to ascertain as members do not always update their membership when changing/losing jobs, although the branch has noticed an increase of unemployed memberships.
4. Branch Accounts
Appendix 3 – 2019 Trial Balance, Members agreed read before meeting
Matters arising
None
Appendix 4 – 2020 Trial Balance – Members agreed read before meeting
Matters arising
AW queried the rent appeared less then last year
SR rent was over paid 2019, adjusted 2020
JH Clarified larger surplus ending 2020, Most meetings are now held virtually reducing petrol costs.
Branch membership number has increased by 265 in the year due to Covid-19 increasing joiners, bringing in more revenue.
5.Election of Officers/Stewarts
Elected unopposed
Chair – Lynn Gillespie
Branch Secretary – James Hawker
Treasurer – Arfan Zaman
International Officer – Salim Perager
Health & Safety Officer – Christopher Hall
Women’s Officer - Jaclyn Nunes
Retired Members Officer – Andrew Wood
Vacant
Welfare Officer
Membership Officer
Young members Officer
Communication Officer
Equality Officer
Education Co-Ordinator
Optional Vacant Positions
Lifelong Learning Coordinator
Labour Link Officer
Social Secretary
Workplace Stewards/H&S rep form received
Heather Lewis – TCHG
Richard Bernardz – TCHG
Salman Mirza – Brushstrokes
Salim Perager – WHG
James Hawker – MAT
Lynn Gillespie – Citizen Housing
Sonia Cooper – Citizen Housing
Mike Tector – Aspire
Matters arising
Discussion took place, lack of communication from UNISON national
Several members have said they have not received the email from branch with nomination form
ACTION
SR to send nomination forms with email to all members
JH to take members concerns and look into this and report to next Branch Committee meeting.
6. Motions
Membership support – Dropin/Advice monthly meetings
During lockdown a large proportion of members have been invited to zero UNISON meetings, while other organisations have capitalised on platforms such as Zoom facebook live and Microsoft Teams.
The community branch has regressed into becoming a service style branch rather than an organising one, while the rest of the world has seen the rise in the black lives matter movement, and Donald trump losing the election
Though raised a number of times over the last several years there has been very little movement around drop in/advice.
Anecdotal evidence
NUJ convenor reported meetings have gone up from 30 to 130, and he has feedback its heartening to see members with children sitting on their laps discussing union business from home.
immigration casework has gone up as clients have been accessing advice through whatsApp, emails, zoom and facebook live meetings
An example of a campaign we have been running during COVID where over 60,000 have signed a petition,
so things can be done.
https://www.change.org/p/home-office-help-gurmit-kaur-stay-in-the-uk
Membership report – Salman Mirza was asked to move the motion.
The motion was discussed at some length.
Motion carried
7. AOB
Staffing Committee
The branch needs to set up a staffing committee, which is to support branch staff.
Members of this committee cannot be branch officers.
Action
Members were asked to consider this
Virtual Meetings
Some discussion took place about virtual branch meetings, only one meeting took place during 2020.
It was agreed that this would be improved for 2021, with virtual meetings and attendance/virtual meetings to take place.
Action
JH & LG to arrange meetings
Sleep ins
A brief history of the sleep ins case was given and then a update on Unison policy going forward since the decision last Friday did not find in our favour. Policy right now is to campaign for a change to the law as all other avenues have been exhausted. JH pointed members to the Unison website Q&A and posted the link in the chat. He advised that the Branch will look at sending some form of newsletter out to members in the next week or so but that much of the reaction and policy is ongoing.
Members concerns re work related issues
Several members asked questions about their work related issues,
Action
Members were advised to email referrals with their work issues for future support.
General
Several members expressed concern that UNISON does not promote themselves, Members feel that more can be done. The general feeling people only join UNISON if they have a problem.
Branch to offer training, workplace stewards need to know what the benefits that UNISON offer as well as support when having a workplace issue.
Action
JH to look at arranging a survey to ask what training people would want.
Branch to support workplace stewards to encourage more people to join.
8 Meeting closed 19:15