Report From First Organising Meeting
Pictures by Craig MacLean
The first organising meeting for the Radical Independence Conference, held in Glasgow on Saturday 2 June, was a real success. Over 100 people attended with some travelling from Edinburgh and Dumfries. There were students, writers, trade union members, socialists of every stripe and people from a variety of social and environmental campaigns.
After brief introductory remarks we moved to working groups which had productive discussions about taking the initiative forward:
- There will be a fully professional website online in 3 weeks
- There are plans for stalls and action to raise the profile of the conference
- Individuals and groups can apply to do workshops at the conference. Full details including an application form will be released on Monday
- Future meetings of working groups will be advertised to everyone who left emails on Saturday, everyone who emails in, and via the Facebook pages.
- A Twitter account will be set up
- There was agreement that the date should change to avoid clashing with the Scottish Green Party conference – the provisional date (pending venue) is now October 13th
- A venue is being organised and will be made public when secured
- Business cards and sign ups sheets will be produced soon under the guidance of the media and publicity group
- There are plans for a roadshow across Scotland
The meeting supported the 5 main points of the conference statement -
We call on all progressive people and organisations to support, attend and participate in a conference to found an extra parliamentary, pro-independence campaign which puts forward a vision for Scotland that is:
• Green and environmentally sustainable.
• Internationalist and opposed to Trident and war
• For a social alternative to austerity and privatisation
• A modern republic for real democracy
• Committed to equality and opposition to discrimination on grounds of gender, race or sexuality
Please get in touch now if you want to be part of building the conference:
Add your name to the launch statement online here.
radicalindependence@gmail.com
Press contact: 07879695174
