October Annual General Meeting - election of officers

Minutes

Present:
Jon Kendrick, Fraser Addecott, Bipinchandra Mistry, Jemima Kiss, Mark McCall, Barbara Wiseman, Toby Chasseaud, Naomi Phillipson, Rowan Dore, David Blackman, Neil Hamilton, Dominic O'Byrne, Chris Baker, Adrian Colley and AN Other, whose signature could not be worked out.

Apologies:
None

1 Minutes
The minutes were circulated and accepted. Barbara Wiseman reminded the meeting that she had asked that the branch put forward a motion to ADM mourning the loss of journalists' life in Iraq

2 Officers' reports
Reports passed round a number of head office circulars for members to see.

3 Officer elections
The following officers were elected:

Chairman – Fraser Addecott, secretary has no note of who nominated him but he was seconded by Bipinchandra Mistry

Secretary – Adrian Colley, nominated by Jemima Kiss and seconded by Jon Kendrick

Treasurer - Adrian Colley, nominated by Fraser Addecott

Social secretary – Jemima Kiss, nominated by Jon Kendrick and seconded by Fraser Addecott.

No nominations were made for the post of welfare officer.

4 ADM Motions
The following four motions were submitted for the Annual Delegate Meeting to be held in Liverpool in March:

a) This ADM instructs the NEC to put pressure on the British government to allow the press in Zimbabwe to operate freely from restrictive laws and the fear of violence and intimidation. The union should support practical independent journalism in Zimbabwe by making available such equipment as it requires for it to operate.
Motion proposer – Fraser Addecott. Backed 8-0 with 6 abstentions.

b) This ADM recommends that the Journalist magazine to be redesigned to reflect the dynamics of the NUJ.
Motion proposer – Bipinchandra Mistry. Backed 7-0 with 7 abstentions.

c) This ADM commends the NUJ's campaign for fair pay for colleagues working at Newsquest titles and calls on the NEC to pursue the campaign vigorously and support any colleague employed by Newsquest who is victimised for fighting for better pay and conditions.
Motion proposer – Chris Baker. Backed unanimously.

d) This ADM notes that during the course of the Iraq war 19 of our colleagues have been killed. The Brighton branch calls on members of the union to pay tribute to our colleagues. ADM instructs the NEC that in future conflicts to urge news organisations to do their utmost to ensure the safety of correspondents by establishing rules of engagement for journalists.
Motion proposer – Barbara Wiseman. Backed unanimously.

A fifth motion from Jon Kendrick on the government's use of spin doctors and calling for the adoption of a code of practice for such PR people was voted down 5-4.

5 Chapel reports
Argus FoC Fraser Addecott said that due to the NUJ targeting Newsquest titles, the Brighton paper had several recruits over the past few weeks. He said: 'Things are looking up and we are working at looking for recognition. It's encouraging at the moment.'

6 NEC elections
Fraser Addecott was nominated to stand for election to the union's top council, the National Executive Council, by Jon Kendrick. Seconded by Jemima Kiss.

There were no nominations for posts on any of the union's industrial councils.

7 Christmas Party
Jemima Kiss outlined the plan to have the party at Havana in Regency Square, Brighton, on Wednesday 10 December from 8pm to 2am. She said the venue was free. It would hold 100 people. A variety of suggestions were made as to what entertainment and inducements to attend could be offered. Suggestions included hiring a magician and having mince pies. One new member (the secretary apologises for not having made a note of the member's name) suggested that if a magician was required she was married to one and so she could help the branch.

8 Any other business
Bipinchandra Mistry asked whether the branch could make a donation to the cost of a trip he hoped to undertake to the Middle East to do a story on the effect of conflict on the Gaza Strip on childrens' mental health. Adrian Colley wondered whether the branch should be making donations towards the costs of members carrying out their freelance work and asked for the subject to be discussed in November so that he could check with head office to see if union rules allowed this.

Barbara Wiseman said she felt that was a legalistic way of looking at it and she felt Bipinchandra should be supported. Jon Kendrick wondered if Bipinchandra could look at commercial sponsorship and said there was a grey area between a philanthropic venture and freelance work.