Selection Meeting for the Milton Keynes South Parliamentary Candidate

Tuesday 28th June 2011
Rushed from work to Camilla Turnballs (Chair of the MK Labour Party) to her house in Bletchley.
When I arrived I was introduced to Dan Simpson (Regional Organiser) and Ann Black (NEC representative), I said to her that the last time I saw you was at the Leadership Conference in Manchester (when she read out the election results), she replied yes and I wonder if I made the right announcement!
Veronica Belcher (Vice - Chair, Fundraising MK Labour Party) was also there, Kevin Wilson (MK Labour Party Organiser), and Carole Braume (MK Labour Party Executive Committee member) arrived after me.
It was all very civilised sitting in a very nice large conservatory.
Dan said that we had to have a brief meeting of the Executive Committee to agree the appointment of the Selection Committee and Proceedures Secretary, and then obviously followed by the first meeting of the Selection Committee.
It was agreed that I would be the Procedures Secretary, and the Selection Committee would comprise of all of the Milton Keynes South members of the Executive Committee.
I did not appreciate how much responsiblity I would have but I like a challenge and I am determined that it will run smoothly on my watch. I was told I would have to agree a budget with the Finance Chair and agree which members from the Milton Keynes South Membership list is eligable to vote with the Membership Secretary but luckily Kevin would do most of this in conjunction with me, I would also need to keep hold of all the CV application forms and forward them to the Selection Committee after the closing date, and that I would receive all the postal vote application forms and pass them on to Dan and Ann after the closing date so that they can check that the resons for not being able to vote on the final hustings meeting is valid.
Also I would be in charge of the counting of the votes and postal votes at the Selection Meeting and supervising the tellers.    
Apparantly we are one of the first to select a candidate under the new proceedures and Ann said that after the selection she would value any feedback to take back to the NEC.
The freeze date for members to be eligable to vote was discussed and agreed along with the timetable for the hustings meetings and deadline dates for CV applications and applying for postal votes and for the longlisting and shortlisting meetings.
With that, all the agenda items were completed and I wearliy drove home.