BRANCH ORGANISERS REPORT FOR 2009

Recruitment at the start of the year again slowed down to a trickle. At Annual Conference it became apparent that there was a National strike looming. With the staff in post list requested by Head Quarters on hand (copies were taken by the Branch) the Branch got ahead of the game and conducted it’s own exercise in recruitment and various changes that needed to be actioned. The results were that over 150 new members were recruited and a host of anomalies sorted out.

Later on in the year I attended a quarterly N.W. Regional Committee meeting where John East was the guest speaker. He brought us up to speed with recruitment and then went on to the new membership system and the problems they were incurring. He then went on and informed the meeting that sadly the new system would not deliver to Branches with over 1,000 members on their books and that it keeps on crashing. If Branches do need label, lists of members in each workplace etc they get in touch with Head Office and they will send them out.

You can appreciate the dismay by the meeting especially when HQ has spent millions of pounds on a new system that’s not delivering what’s on the tin (a bit like the NHS system which costs billions).
It was pointed out by John East that Headquarters needed a system that would be compatible with Royal Mails in order to process the information being provided by them.
The Branch is now looking at several systems where we can have our own stand alone system which is compatible with HQ. It looks like a busy time ahead imputing the records and maintaining the Branch records.

John East also informed the meeting that in the New Year a letter is to sent out to all members with a new plastic membership card and a password to enable members to go online and amend their own record, Change of address, death nomination particulars, workplace, grade etc.
There’s not much more for me to say except thanks to all the reps for their time and support over the year and to wish you all a Happy and a Prosperous New Year.

Ray Lucas

Branch Organiser