Minutes of Manchester NO2ID Meeting, Wednesday 11th October 2006

Recent Activity
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1) Labour Party Conference

For the Labour Party conference, we spent the Sunday when the Conference opened leaving No2ID postcards and trifolds in the pubs and hotel bars nearest the Ring of Steel, to confront delegates with our message after conference hours. We had around a 70% success rate with the pubs we approached, which is fairly healthy.

No2ID representatives also flyered delegates as they entered the conference each morning, including several members of the Cabinet and Jeremy Paxman. Our presence there was definitely noticed by the delegates, some of whom were in favour of our campaigning and some desperately opposed. We've had feedback from No2ID central office about our efforts so it's good to know we were appreciated!

Thanks to those who helped with these events, particularly the ones who came over the Pennines from York and Leeds to assist us!

2) Fresher's Fair

The week before the Labour Party Conference was the Fresher's Fair at Manchester Uni. No2ID volunteers helped run a stall for the new "Students Against ID" society, gathering 160 signatures and distributing Students Against ID leaflets along with No2ID badges and trifolds. This is far more than the 30 signatures we needed to found the society, which is great news and gives us a presence within the University as well as access to more resources.

Big thanks to Andy for organising the society and stall, and to everyone who showed up to man the stall and talk to interested parties.

3) Hebden Bridge Day of Action

Matt and I went out to Hebden Bridge on 7th October. The local Liberal Democrat councillors had organised a stall on a busy pedestrian street, where we handed out our material to passersby both local and tourist, and collected signatures for both the national No2ID petition and a local petition to Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council.

We received a front-page mention in the Hebden Bridge Times before we went out, with a longer piece above the fold on page three. It was a productive, positive day and we had a great time. After running the stall, we dropped off material in several local pubs and clubs who were again receptive to our message.

Thanks to the Hebden Bridge Liberal Democrats for organising the event for us!

Ongoing Activity
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1) City Council Motion

Dave has received the "magic formulae" from central office for calculating the cost to Council Tax payers of integrating council systems with the National Identity Register. Councillor Paul Shannon is looking into the figures for us.

2) UNISON

Dave has not had time to chase up UNISON. Matt will attempt to contact his Manchester UNISON representative through work; Barry has some contact with Salford UNISON and will approach them for us.

3) Police Federation

Eileen is arranging to meet Greater Manchester Police's representatives with the Police Federation and will discuss Identity Cards with them.

4) Attracting Volunteers

Dave has noticed that our fortnightly station flyerings have not attracted many of our 50-odd members (as well as the 150-odd students) to get involved, and thought that it might be worth changing approaches. We noted that distributing flyers to pubs, shops etc. might be a more efficient use of our time, as well as being more interesting than static flyering. It was decided that we'd try this for a few Wednesday evenings and see how things went.

It was noted that Wednesdays might be a bad night for the students to attend, since many University societies meet on that day. Feedback from students is welcomed, and we may change our evening in the New Year.

People wanted to do another Saturday in Manchester, probably in St. Anne's Square. The November Saturday was booked for this.

Another activity we could usefully carry out is opinion polling. There are some detailed guidelines from No2ID on how to conduct meaningful polls, using the same questions and sampling techniques as other No2ID groups across the country. In the face of certain local Labour party activists tellling us that their polls (normally conducted among Labour Party members) show support for identity cards, it'd be useful to have some information to fight this with.

Future Activity
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1) North-West Liberal Democrat Regional Autumn Conference

[NB: This has already happened, and a report posted to the Manchester No2ID mailing list. It was a useful day.]

This will take place in Blackburn on 28th October. Manchester No2ID have been invited to have a stall there. It will be a good way to encourage local Liberal Democrats across the North-West to support local No2ID groups. Dave will contact the other NW No2ID groups about this.

2) Defy-ID National Gathering

This takes place in Nottingham on 25th November and may well be worth attending.

3) Public Meeting

Our plans to hold a public meeting have been unsuccessful due to the lack of funding. However, if we can arrange one, doing so ahead of May's local elections might be useful.

4) Registration Centre

There will be a Registration Centre for the Identity Register in Manchester. It was thought that this might be in the 4th story of Westminster House. Tracking down this Registration Centre and opposing the planning permission application is important; for more details see  http://www.no2id.net/getInvolved/idCentres.php