Social Liberal Forum invite you to their first conference.
Date: Saturday 18th June
Time: 9.30am – 5.30pm
Venue: Central London
Click here for the conference programme.
Confirmed contributors include Vince Cable, Lee Chalmers, Richard Grayson, Evan Harris, Simon Hebditch, Simon Hughes, Chris Huhne, Will Hutton, Neal Lawson, Alex Marsh, Mark Pack, Ed Randell, Alexis Rowell, Naomi Smith, Claire Tyler, Halina Ward.
Cost:
£15 (if booked before the end of April)
£25 (if booked from 1st May)
£10 (unwaged, any booking date)
Ticketing is managed by Eventbrite:
If you would prefer not to pay online then please contact Mark Blackburn.
Could we have more information about where it is? Central London is a bit vague!
I think it was very bad planning to call this Conference for the same day as the ALDC/LGA Lib Dem Group Local Government Conference. This has been publicized for months, and effectively means that some of the party’s leading social Liberal Councillors and Campaigners won’t be at the SLF event.
An avoidable mistake I feel, lets please not make the same mistake in 2012.
Steve – very sorry about the clash. It seemed that any Saturday in June or July was going to clash with something for either the speakers, the organisers or the attendees. Hopefully the party is big enough to support two lively conferences on June 18th.
To add to what Mary has written, it was hard work settling on a date. When we decided on the 18th June we simply did not know about the ALDC conference. It is a shame about the clash because we want to look at the Big Society and compare it to Community Politics and it would be good if ALDC members came along to that. I would hope that ALDC would also have this high on their political agenda in any case. Certainly next year if we have another conference we would not want this to clash again.
But … do not underestimate how hard it is to avoid clashing dates for things. It took us a long time to sort this out.
I do understand the problem, but the ALDC/LGA Lib Dem event has been planned for months, and I would have thought one of the Councillors on the SLF Board would have noticed. However we move on an learn lessons.
I think it is important that we don’t see a divide between the ‘activist’ element of the party and the ‘thinking’ parts as we did in the 1980s. We need activists to be thinkers, and thinkers to be activists. Community Politics is a good example, if it becomes just a means of electing Lib Dem Councillors it ends up being shallow and self-serving. where we have used it to make permanent change in the political culture then that change can survive the ups and downs or party popularity.
Noone on the SLF council knew about the date of the ALDC conference when we planned this. Personally I am not in ALDC, but the places I look are on the Flock together website and Facebook, and there is nothing there, even now. I cannot think that there is a good reason for this for not doing this.
I am a Councillor and on the SLF Council but to be honest didn’t know when the local government conference was at the time SLF was discussing this. I will be going to the SLF conference as I think its really important we develop these sorts of initiatives. Obviously in future years we need to do more to avoid clashes but it is nigh on impossible to avoid all of them!
I’d like more exploration of Steve’s point on the tension between elected representatives and people keen on policy/philosophy awareness/development.
I reckon that many active, non-elected, party members are motivated by the party vision, as are many active non-members, either directly or because they are supportive of particular (prominent) members (who probably are elected, or trying to be).
Has anyone done any surveys or the like within the party on this? If they have, it might be useful to help target how to get the party to grow. If not, do others think it would be useful?
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@Lucy One of the things I try to do in Hackney is organise events on political philosophy with the intention that it might motivate some members to become activists.
I am not aware of any surveys that have been done on the divide you refer to, but it may well be an interesting exercise to do at some point.
I still don’t know which venue you are using
Ken
@Ken The venue is in central London, but we are not announcing it at the moment for security reasons.
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I’m not going to be able to make this (I’m at the the ALDC/LGA Congerence :*) but am really keen to find out about the ‘unconference’ facilities that have occassionally been mentioned.
I’m on my regional (Y&H) conference committee and would really welcome an SLF event within our next event (5th November, Skipton, email me about registering) Perhaps a co-ordinated program of piggy-backing onto the existing regional conference infrastructure would help reach out to more people and also ensure that mix ups with other events are less likely in the future. After all, I recognise that it’s unlikely (and possibly unwise) to organise a full SLF conference outside of London.
Plus, is it too early to ask what’s being organised for Birmingham?
Just for future reference, the Lib Dem Local Government Conference is normally held in the middle of June – deliberately chosen because it is well after the local elections and after most councils have had their AGMs.
Date to be confirmed for next year but very likely to be about the same time. Feel free to get in touch with either ALDC or the Lib Dem Group office at the LGA – libdem@local.gov.uk if planning a summer one next year. Hopefully we can work together next time to avoid a clash and have two good conferences – and maybe have a fringe at both?
Rob Banks
LGA Lib Dem Group
@Rob Banks
Rob, to reiterate what’s been said, when we fixed our date we looked at the calendar for 2011 dated 21/3/11 which states that the only clash would have been the ELD conference in Manila! Considering that the previous weekend had two regional conferences and the subsequent one had the English Council and the Compass conference, where there’d obviously be a clash over target speakers June 18th seemed the obvious choice, and by the time we knew about the LGA/ALDC event we were too far down the road.
Rest assured we will liaise with you and ensure this is not repeated!
Mark Blackbun
Director
SLF
Unfortunately I can’t attend the conference but will there be any papers/slides of presentations available?
Hi Lousie – at least one speaker has indicated that they’ll be using slides so we’ll endeavour to make these available. Providing I can sort out the technical aspects I do intend to webcast many of the debates, both live and to be accessed later through this site – so watch this space, we want as many people to take part in the discussion on the day and beyond!
Thank you very much for setting up the UStream Live Streaming on the day yesterday. It worked extremely well (once the volume had been sorted out by the “techies”).
Two of us who were watching online eventually plugged in personal stereo headsets which improved the listening considerably.
One trick which I found useful to prevent “double audio” (time lapse with a second voice repeating what was said) was to turn off the live stream sound and leave on your PC volume.
It would be very helpful, however, if people spoke clearly and used the microphones properly instead of mumbling. Some speakers were excellent and delivered well, others were very frustrating to listen to.
I felt the day was a real success and highlighted the need to have much better communication within the Party – from the top down TO the Members. Only too often we don’t get to know about what is going on because the left hand doesn’t always know what the right hand is doing. We often receive conflicting reports.
As others have said earlier, please double check other events happening as many of us belong to more than one Lib Dem Associated Organisation.
Thanks again for the live feed – I live in Scotland so cannot just pop down to London for the day.
Rebekah (PoliticsOnWheels)
Will this be available on video at all please?
Congratulations on a very successful and enjoyable conference. It was great to hear some like minds spouting a lot of common sense – as well as some more “blue sky” thinking!
Can the slides that Ed Randall presented be made available as a pdf? I failed to pick up a hard copy on the day.