By Omar Raii, new LYL Fundraising Officer
On my first month on the committee of London Young Labour, we have had our first all-committee meeting as well as our campaigns launch. The committee meeting mostly served an administrative function in that the majority of the meeting was spent electing (effectively dishing out) the various roles that the LYL constitution required such as Secretary, Events coordinator, TULO officer etc.
I ran for the role of Events Officer hoping that I would be able to organise not just one-off meetings on big political issues but also LYL contingents at demonstrations and picket lines, and even perhaps organise demonstrations through the LYL banner. As it turned out I was elected to the role of Fundraising Officer, which will at least give me an opportunity to perhaps organise fundraisers for important struggles like the Picturehouse strikers, as well as for LYL.
Despite the hostile and at times quite nasty atmosphere that was prevalent at LYL AGM, the first committee meeting was very civil with committee members discussing ideas about how they want the year to go. My ideas in the discussion on LYL events, such as a gig in support of living wage struggles across London, and a meeting on free movement (a policy supported by LYL conference), seemed well received and hopefully I can push the committee on making those ideas a reality this year.
Our campaigns launch took place on Saturday 3 March where we joined activists in Wandsworth to campaign for a Labour council in the local elections. Though Wandsworth has been a Tory council for decades, given Labour’s successes in the last general election, there was much optimism about the possibility of Labour making great inroads in Wandsworth council come 3rd May.
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