Motion #13

Disability Group Minority Report

This additional report is not intended to contradict or dissent from the report submitted by Debra Cooper, but simply to add extra information.

• Only four posts were filled at our AGM (Annual General Meeting) this year, with one elected officer resigning during the AGM. This meant that as a committee we could not achieve the quoracy (four) required by our constitution. After consultation with SOC (Standing Orders Committee), we ran a further election to fill the remaining posts.
• We were hoping to be joined in our first meeting by the Party’s EEDI (Equality, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) Manager, who seems to have left the post around this time. The group was not officially informed of this development and has still received no communication about what, if any, such support we might receive from the National Party going forward.
• Sadly, our elected Chair has been too unwell to participate since the AGM (as well as much of last year), and we have struggled without an assigned leader or deputy. At our second meeting we voted to elect Debra Cooper as Acting Interim Chair and Eve Allsop as Acting Secretary until our next meeting in November, when we will elect these roles properly for the remainder of the term. This has helped to give the group some structure for the time being. Debra has been attending Equality & Diversity meetings on behalf of the group, and Eve has been organising our committee meetings.
• We don’t currently have access to any of the official Green Party email addresses for our group (with the exception of the treasurer address), which has provided extra challenges. The Digital team are in the process of looking at this and we hope to have email access for several of our current committee members soon. In the meantime, we can be contacted via our X page (@GPEWDisability). We would particularly love to hear from members interested in helping us with social media. The committee is currently exploring the best platform to use for our internal communications, and has looked at WhatsApp, Discord, Teams and others. Ultimately, we hope to be able to invite all Disability Group members to join us on whichever platform we decide on.
• There have been difficulties transferring permissions for our bank account to the current committee – meaning that we have outstanding debt we have been unable to pay – but this process seems to be underway now.
• At Autumn Conference we were allocated a stall in the exhibition area. Unfortunately, communication regarding this was also lacking, so we were unable to prepare any materials or a rota. Debra spent some time at the stall talking to people, but we could have made better use of the opportunity with some advance notice. This is something we can do in future and we would welcome offers of assistance from members.