Rochford and Southend East Constituency Labour Party AGM

It was an exciting meeting, one that I was very glad that I made the effort to attend. There were 109 voting members in attendance, all having a say in who runs the Rochford and Southend East Constituency Labour Party for the coming year.

We were choosing largely administrative roles, and so one's political leanings ought to be irrelevant. Since most of our politics is shared, and the differences are largely guessed at in the absence of debate, it comes down to just how tribal you are prepared to be.

I tried to avoid tribalism. I am not about to give away who I voted for, but I opted for a mix of persons from the Momentum slate and others.

Quite why Momentum wanted a slate puzzles me. They want to control the local party, but to what end? I want a better run party, and I chose who I voted for based on who I thought would do the best job. I am a Momentum member, and could have gone on their slate - I chose not to because I cannot agree that the best person for a role entirely depends on which fringe group one chooses to subscribe to.

Nonetheless, it was good to see competition, and I hope that all who were successful really are encouraged by yesterday's good turnout to really push our local party forwards. We have local authority elections in ten month's time and I hope that we can make more progress in the Council chamber.

I lost my particular election, and like many others I believe it was a close run thing. I wished my opponent 'good luck' before the contest and I trust that he has a good year in the role.

Here are those charged with running Rochford and Southend East CLP for the coming year.

Chair	Ashley Dalton
Vice chair campaigns	Ian Gilbert
Vice chair membership	Helen McDonald
Secretary	Martin Berry
Treasurer	Des Heemskerk
LGBT	Robert Wallicker
Fundraising	Anna Ingram
TULO	Ian Pope
Political education	Vic Hobson
Essex LCF delegate	Lydia Hyde
Women's officer	Maxine Sadza
Youth and student officer	Henry McCaffrey-Williams
Campaigns coordinator	Jim Riel
BAME	Matthew Barber
Disabilities' officer	Rachel Heemskerk
Press	Mike Smith
European liaison officer	Mike Fieldhouse
IT officer	Tom Curtis