Loomio
Tue 9 Oct 2018 7:34PM

Affiliation to European Movement

CT Claire Thomas Public Seen by 25

I have received the affiliation document by EM, see attached. I have read through and although I have a few questions to ask Tim, I have no objection to us joining in principle. Please note we need a minimum of two current elected officers. I assume that includes me, Ian who was elected as secretary and was Alison elected as Treasurer? It was before my time. We also need to submit annual accounts to EM. I am going to check how sophisticated they expect these to be but I am hoping it is something that Alison can put together without too much trouble. If anyone has comments or questions, please add them to this thread.

IB

Ian Bartle Tue 9 Oct 2018 9:20PM

Seems reasonable, but just a few points: would affiliation to EM clash in any way with our affiliation with Britain for Europe? Would it constrain us in any of the activities we want to do? Probably not but I'm not sure. We need two 'elected officers' to be individual members of the EM. Are there two of us? I had thought of joining but haven't done so yet. Perhaps the chairs of the sub-groups can also be seen as elected officers, though not sure if any of them are members of EM. EM require us to have an AGM. We have discussed this before and decided not to have one. Can't remember exactly why not - was it just because it didn't really seem to be worth it, or would having an AGM have other implications for the group, eg legal, financial?

ARC

Alan Richard Champneys Wed 10 Oct 2018 8:35AM

Can you ( or they) articulate the benefit of joining? This is a question I would ask Britain for Europe. If Britain for Europe are not especially pushing it, then I wouldn’t bother at this stage, if it were me.

CT

Claire Thomas Thu 11 Oct 2018 1:17PM

See my notes below - BfE are asking for this. I can explain more at steering tonight.

AB

Alison Born Thu 11 Oct 2018 9:46AM

I agree with Alan's points. I was informally elected as treasurer and have since agreed to carry on in the role, I can produce annual accounts.

CT

Claire Thomas Thu 11 Oct 2018 1:16PM

I should have added to the beginning of this thread that this is something we have discussed on a couple of occasions previously at steering group - possibly not everyone was there. Basically we need to affiliate to EM in order to benefit from the sharing of data on the PV database and in order to coordinate spending etc in the event of a People's Vote. That is the reason. I will dig out the notes Tom Brufatto (Britain for Europe chair) sent me on this. I have already email Tim with various queries about elected officers and memberships and I am sure this can be sorted out without us having to make significant if any changes to the way we operate. And it is reversible.