And then there were five...
In a strongly
worded statement
Owen Meredith has announced his intention to quit from the CF exectutive. In accordance with the constitution - particuarly section six, paragraph 2.1 that requires elections for the chairman and the NME to be elected every 15 months, Meredith will resign when this NME's term should have come to an end between March and June 2009.He also urges the rest of the NME to do the same. They don't seem to be playing ball though.
Posts
12 comments:
I have to say I see some sense in what Owen is saying on the basis that some (certainly not all) members of the NME are frankly useless and there are far better candidates out there.
The argument that it will cause disruption is absurd and everyone knows it. If there is scope to change a government during a national crisis, surely there is not a problem with changing a couple of NME members, well over a year before the election.
Suitable candidates would already have large experience of CF and thus would slide seamlessly into the setup.
Once again, I reiterate that some NME members are very good at their job, and I think people recognise that, so why not stand again on the platform of your successes and seek re-election?
Imagine if Gordon Brown was to say "I have served my full term as PM but since this is not a good time to change government, I am going to delay the general election"- we would all be outraged?
So to the NME- find a bit of bottle, recognise that some of you will get re-elected if you stand, but that it is wholly undemocratic and arrogant to retain your current position, and call an internal CF election quickly before this whole thing turns into a farce.
ps. By March/June, 2 members of the NME will have resigned- is that not saying something?
Arguments against please??
I'm definatly not going to argue against you becasue i completely concur with what both the anonymous post above and Owen Meredith has written.
Owen is right to step down in March/June and i only hope that the rest will do the same, unfortunatly i beleive that non of the others have any morals, sence of duty nor back bone and will remain there for there own ego and self inportance!
I applaude Owen Meredith for standing up in the defence of democracy.
The sad side if this whole fiasco is that Owen is the only member of the NME who actually gets out there and gets on with the work he is meant to be doing! so come march all we have to look forward to is more infighting and bitching!
Well Done Owen, i only hope that more people will support you!!!
I agree (I wrote the previous post). Although I don't share your sentiments about Owen to a large extent, I do admire his decency and sense of propriety.
It is clear that some have only voted this way as they KNOW they will lose an election.
Sorry chaps, we can see right through you, and it's shame that the better members of the NME don't have the confidence in themselves to stand again in an election- we will vote for you if you have done a good job!
Show us the bottle you have criticised Brown for lacking and don't feed us the rubbish that it will disrupt things- better candidates for CF can ONLY be a good thing.
I admire Owen for standing down but if I was a member of the current executive these reforms would not have gone as far as they have.
They should have been crushed from the outset and members of the NME should have had the guts to stand up in the first meeting and state their points rather than leak e-mails after the vote had occurred.
However Owen I do believe that you have stretched the truth a tad as the executive were told that in order to keep one member one vote they would have to wait until after the general election. The reason that was given was that the party would not hold a CF election before as they refused to pay for it.
The option that you voted for does not promote one member one vote- it simply makes a few key activists the voters which is fundamentally wrong.
In a democratic youth organisation every member should have the opportunity to vote whether they campaign religiously every week or simply turn up to the christmas parties; every CF member deserves a vote.
So Owen even though you are admirable for resigning to focus on your chairman campaign let us not forget that the rest of the executive voted for option 2 in order to retain one member, one vote.
Claire, I suggest you read Owen's statment properly. He cleary says: "for some time I have been pushing for a third option: preserving one-member-one-vote for National Chairman and ensuring the current executive serve no longer than the 15 month maximum term."
So your suggestion he wants to remove one member one vote is an exageration of your own.
Hat off to Owen for doing so. Noble gent, and the right thing to do.
It's all so sad really. What promised to be an effective exec is swiftly disintegrating under the weight of egos.
What a wonderful way to go into the general election.
I take it another Keele student?!
"Claire" and "statment" and "cleary" and "exageration"
Sorry anon but I don't understand you- can you please clarify?
I think the blame for spelling lies at a lower level than university!
Clare - go and concentrate on your own chairmanship bid. It will need a lot of work!
Yes, that's what we need for chairman... someone who looks down on various universities and claims they do not understand due to spelling mistakes... "one of us" eh? No, and I wouldn't want to be.
Just going back to the argument about people commenting that supporting Option 2 is the same as supporting one member, one vote could I just point out that Option 2 states no such thing!
“To delay the next CF election until after a possible General Election in May 2010, …. Then to revisit the issue of how to run CF elections at a later date, sometime after the next general election”
It mentions nothing about retaining one member, one vote! In actual fact, it just delays the discussion. There is no guarantee that! This 3 year Exec team could still go to the Electoral College way of voting!
I can see a lot of Keele CF votes for a certain someone in the now quite distant future.
Well done, Clare. Really.