Beach party - FULL DETAILS

Just in case you haven't got 'em:

The barbie will be at a point on the beach at Hove between the Peace Statue and the West Pier. It’s officially listed on the Brighton and Hove Council site as between ‘Norfolk Groyne and Meeting Place’. The reference is to the Meeting Place café on the seafront so we’re going to try to hold it as near the Meeting Place as possible.

Best train station is Hove station, which is about 10 mins walk.

There’s free food and drink for members. We’re investing in portable barbies, veggie sausages, non-veggie sausages, white wine, lager etc etc so get along because it’ll all need devouring. If you’re having problems finding us when you reach the seafront call 0791 966 5818 and we’ll wave sausages at you in unison so you can spot where we are.

Beach party - NEXT WEEK!

See this month's email or mailout for further details of our barbie on the beach from 7pm on Tuesday June 21.

Ethics report

The union’s ethics council has sent us a copy of ‘Journalism and Public Trust’ – a conference held in association with Mediawise and addressed by members of the Press Complaints Commission, the House of Lords and other speakers. The them was the growing lack of trust the general public has in journalism.

We have one copy which can be put in the post to anyone who wants it. MediaWise is the the independent media ethics charity, set up in 1993 by 'victims of media abuse'. Its website is at www.presswise.org.uk

Your right to know

A guide to using the Freedom of Information Act and other access laws is on sale, written by a US journalist. The act came into force on January 1 this year, giving a legal right to access information from more than 100,000 public authorities.

Union HQ is promoting the book Your Right to Know by Heather Brooke, on sale at £10.40 at www.plutobooks.com

Hey ladies!

More women are needed for the Vital Statistics conference next Saturday. The branch will pay your expenses, so if you're undecided let us tip you over the edge!

Email jennyl@nuj.org.uk to find out more. This is a chance to raise your own concerns about equality and employment issues. - sign up now!

Women's conference

The NUJ is holding a women's conference in Manchester on Saturday June 18.

More than 15,000 members are women - some 40.4% of membership but there are still only seven women on the National Executive Council. 41% of chapel reps elected in the past three years are female and 58% are under 35. But they are paid less than their male equivalents.

Women's participation and representation in the NUJ is an important issue. Head office is funding the cost of hiring the Manchester Conference Centre from 11am to 4.30pm and is looking to branches to arrange and cover the cost of travel and, if needed, accommodation (we have enough cash to do this if anyone is interested). The NUJ can cover any childcare costs.

Speakers included NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear, TUC deputy general secretary Frances O'Grady, Thompsons Solicitors' Nicola Dandridge and NUJ assistant organiser Jenny Lennox.

If you are interested then email lenac@nuj.org.uk with your details by June 3!

Thomas Angus

Thomas Angus
Photography
editorial-pr-press-anythingbutweddings

www.thomasangus.com
enquiries@thomasangus.com

Shortlisted BBC Photographer of the Year
NUJ-BPPA

Tel: +44(0)1273 380427
Mobile: +44(0)7971 043698

More NUJ courses

More NUJ courses are being run in London over the next six months. Details and prices (for members) as below. Click on the headline to link for more details!

Thur/Fri Sept 22/23 Intro sub-editing £205

Mon Sept 26 Improving yourJournalistic Skills for Freelances & others £65

Sat Oct 1 Getting started as a freelance £55

Fri Oct 7 Pitch & Deal £65

Sat/Sun Oct 22/23 Photoshop £205

Sat/Sun Oct 22/23 Intro Online Publishing £205

Sat/Sun Oct 29/30 Intro Sub Editing £205

Sat Nov 12 Improving your journalistic skills £65

Sat/Sun Nov 12/13 Intro Quark £205

Thur Nov 17 Getting starte as a Freelance £55

Fri Nov 18 Pitch & Deal £65

Latest news from Justice for Colombia

Local Agricultural Workers Union Activist Assassinated in Colombia

A paramilitary death squad has assassinated peasant organiser Jose Maria Maldonado in the Loma Arena area of the municipality of Pondera in Atlantico department. According to witnesses two men on a motorbike approached Mr Maldonado and shot him dead on the morning of May 17th.

For a long period a paramilitary death squad has been operating in the municipality of Ponedera where they have carried out a systematic campaign of assassinations against local union organisers. Local people say that the paramilitary unit acts under the orders of local landowners and that they use terror to force people from their land allowing the landowners to take over their property. Recently the legal officer of the agricultural workers union, Seferino Padilla, was forced to flee his land and the region after the paramilitaries said they would kill him.

Please send a message of protest condemning this latest murder and calling for a full investigation to the following:

Dr. ¡lvaro Uribe VÈlez
President of Colombia
Fax: 00 57 1 566 2071

Jorge Alberto Uribe
Minister of Defence
Email: siden@mindefensa.gov.co; infoprotocolo@mindefensa.gov.co; mailto:mdn@cable.net.co

Dr Carlos Franco
Director of the Presidential Human Rights Program
Email: cefranco@prsidencia.gov.co; fibarra@presidencia.gov.co

Dr Luis Camilo Osorio
Attorney General
Email: contactofiscalia@fiscalia.gov.co; denuncie@fiscalia.gov.co

Please also copy your message to the Justice for Colombia office on info@justiceforcolombia.org and the UN High Commission for Human Rights on oacnudh@hchr.org.co.

Justice for Colombia website:justiceforcolombia.org

May meeting - a branch record!

Another cracking turnout - of two. But I still haven't missed a meeting since I joined the union, so bobbins to all of you! If I keep it up I'll get a carriage clock when I'm 90, or something.

Sec's (tee hee) on holiday, but basically we had to hand out some material from the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom and pass a couple of membership applications. Those will have to wait until the next meeting as two members does not a quorum make.

The next meeting, as it happens, is our June summer solstice barbecue. 7pm, Tuesday 21 June on the beach near Sackville Gardens. The branch will provide food and barbecues, so just bring booze. And if it rains we'll retire to the pub nearby...

It would be really rather grand if more than two people showed up. A girl can only eat so many sausages, and I have no dog to help.

BTW, there are quite a few new members signed up to contribute to the blog now. Where are they all? I dunno. I feel like I'm scribbling on the back of my text book in Maths. Is anyone out there? Should I just get a life?!

What councils actually do...

A few posts back, Ade mentioned vacancies on quite a few of the union's industrial councils and then said he's not quite sure exactly what councils do.

In my rather limited experience on the new media industrial council, we basically have meetings, talk about what needs doing, and then go away and do it. And have another meeting. And so on.

I'm sure HQ can provide a formal explanation of the role of councils if anyone is desperately keen to know. But there are vacancies on the ethics council, amongst others, so if you feel strongly about industry issues in those areas then joining a council is your opportunity to have a say...

PS
I'm writing this in the pub just before our May meeting, and just realised I left all the bloomin' paperwork at home. Darn it.

Minutes of April meeting

Minutes of meeting on April 19

Present: Jemima Kiss, Adrian Colley, Adam Juniper, Rowan Dore, Doug Devaney, Fraser Addecott, Virginia Bridgewater, Linda Harrison, John Thompson.

1 Apologies: Barbara Wiseman, Karen Hoy, Steve Whitehead

2 New members elected

3 Minutes of March meeting - accepted, there were no items raised for further discussion.

4 Correspondence
i) Copy of Searchlight circulated. As were copies of Trade Union Friends of Searchlight newsletter.
ii) Meeting backed £50 donation in response to plea for cash from the Working Class Movement Library, Salford.

5 Officers' reports - Treasurer Adrian Colley said we had £1,336.23 in the bank.

6 ADM report. Rowan's report was accepted. Jemima said she and Rowan were diligent in attending the conference's business. She said it was exciting to meet people who are so committed to the trade union cause. NUJ President Jeremy Dear had been impressed by the branch's new website and wanted to talk about possibly developing the union's site on similar lines.

Jemima said she organised a meeting addressed by the technology editor of The Independent who knows his stuff and that one of the main highlights was a BBC speaker who gave a great speech, likening Beeb director-general Mark Thomson to a Rottweiler.

Rowan also mentioned the demand that local paper journalists be paid a minimum of £25,000 a year - which while desirable, was felt by the NEC (the union's chief decision-making body) to be an unrealistic expectation. He said that this was what journalists should aim for. Rowan said he hadn't realised how there was a whole block of people who more or less always back the NEC's view on issues debated at the ADM.

7 Chapel reports. Virginia said that even the Argus MD did not understand the proposed pay offer that Brighton Argus journalists have been offered. Pay rises offered ranged from 0 to 2.75%. Recent redundancies had seen Mac operators and a photographer - Alan Jones - made redundant and freelance photographers also faced cuts. Angry editorial recently boycotted the paper's 125th anniversary celebrations.

8 Branch reaffiliated to Justice for Colombia cause at a cost of £50.

9 June beach party. Meeting backed holding a party at Hove. Adrian Colley said he would look into obtaining a council licence etc. Final decision to be taken next month on party details. Fraser asked why that date was chosen and was told it would be instead of the monthly meeting and also had the advantage of possibly being the longest day of the year.

10 Any other business - Fraser and Virginia said they had attended a union-run international development campaign and they have established a project to encourage journalistic freedom in Colombia. They have a mentor from War on Want and asked the branch to back their, which they hope to develop with branch support.

CPBF annual meeting

If you want to attend the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom's agm at NUJ HQ on July 9 we have a nomination form. There's a registration fee of £16.

It's a chance to have an influence on CPBF policy. Aidan White, general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists will speak on 'globalisation and the media'.

Motions can be submitted by paid-up members of the CPBF (which includes the branch).

**PS - Several copies of March/April of CPBF available. Email nujbrighton@gmail.com if you want one put in the post.

Class act

Last week's meeting bunged £50 to The Working Class Movement Library (WCML) in Salford, in answer to a plea for cash - and they've been in touch to thank us.

The library holds a collection of English language books, periodicals, pamphlets, archives and artefacts, concerned with the activities, expression and enquiries of the labour movement, its allies and its enemies, since the late 1700s.

Click on the headline to see its website.

Wanna be a councillor?

HQ is looking for members to serve on NUJ committees like the ethics council and a variety of industrial councils.

For example, take the freelance council - the branch could nominate any member for the South seat, a black member for the black seat and a disabled member for the disabled seat.

* Newspapers and agencies - equality, black members, national newspapers and news agencies

* Magazine and book council - equality, black members and disabled members

* Freelance industrial council - South, black members and disabled members constituencies.

* PR and information - London/South East and disabled members

* Ethics - members sought from Book and Magazine sectors.

* New Media - Black members and disabled members

* Broadcasting - Agencies, black members and disabled members

I'm a bit hazy on how the councils operate, never having served on one. Maybe our chair Jemima can enlighten us on the new media council's operations?

If you're interested in standing please let us know at nujbrighton@gmail.com. You can be nominated at the May meeting, as closing date is May 31. If there's more than one nominee for a seat then you need to supply a ballot statement, as there will be a vote.