The first executive meeting of the NEU was on January 12th and the morning session involved training for all executive members as January sees the birth of a new union even for experienced executive members. Kevin and Mary gave a joint General Secretary address in which they laid out the priorities for our new union (you can download the power point above) and all executive members were elected to one of 6 committees.
The various elections took up most of the first meeting and I have since then become aware that the next executive meeting and the first NEU district sec briefing are both during February half term for Wales which is very disappointing. In future, executive members need to be very diligent when these dates are discussed and ensure that Wales is not sidelined when national dates are decided on.
The results of the online indicative ballot on funding (in England) are in.
The silver lining for Wales is that much of February’s executive meeting and district secretaries briefing will probably be taken up with talking about the indicative ballot and so we wouldn’t have been involved in that anyway (even though many of us would like to have been involved and campaigning alongside England on funding)
I am in the process of planning (with Gareth and Beth Roberts) a mental health first aid course with Health and safety rep training for 10 members in my district. We will be holding it over 3 Saturdays from end of March and depending on the success of that we plan to roll it out across Wales to other districts – I think it will be a great way to get members active as well as providing much needed CPD
If you would like me to attend your district meetings, please let me know about them and I will do my very best to make it. I will be updating this blog with relevant news regularly – please distribute to your districts as you see fit and follow and share my blog for future posts.
Mairead
NEU Executive news for Wales by Mairead Canavan 