Conference and Freedom

GOT back late last night from a two day conference in Gloucestershire involving all the regional organisers, the Party's full-time staff and the European Parliament staff.

I was too tired to update the blog after the long journey home which was made much longer by delays caused by a series of accidents. Travelling down on Friday lunchtime we were also held up for around an hour by a shocking accident on the M6 near Manchester. Cars were upside down and a caravan crushed to next to nothing - someone's holiday was ruined and I just hope that was the only casualty.

At the conference, Saturday was spent analysising the Party's structure and the way it operates. Any shortcomings were identified and solutions put in place. The primary concern of the Regional Organisers was the lack of information filtering down through the Party with regard to the direction of the British National Party and the changes within the BNP that had taken place since our election victories of June 4th.

This was addressed at the meeting by the appointment of a new panel of full time party administrators to deal with this. Emma Colgate (Staff Manager), Eddy Bulter (National Organiser) and Simon Darby (Deputy Chairman and Treasurer) will now be on hand to answer any questions and brief regional organisers who need to answer queries posed by their members.

Nick and Andrew's teams for the North West region signed their European Parliament employment forms and learnt a little more of what is expected from them, although the information coming out of Brussels was said by both MEPs to be patchy and in some cases rather unclear.

Early evening the BNP chairman met for an hour and a half with representatives from the South West before everyone moved on to a local hotel for an evening meal. After the meal, Nick went off to London to appear on the Andrew Marr Show.

Sunday morning there were further briefings by Eddy, Simon and Emma before Nick arrived back from London and spoke for nearly two hours with the assembled officials to detail what was expected from them over the next 12 months.

The day finished with a discussion on the General Election.

I have just seen the front page for the new Freedom which is under the editorship of Mark Collett. I like it - more like a daily newspaper's front page with clean lines and bold headings. I'm still contributing to the newspaper but the burden of the design and layout no longer concerns me.

Tina and I are off camping in France next week and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm taking my fishing rod and some serious and light reading. This is my reading list:

The European Parliament by David Earnshaw & Neill Nugent.
European Union Politics by Michelle Cini
The Real Gorbals Story: True Tales from Glasgow's Meanest Streets by Colin Macfarlane.
Life Means Life by Nick Appleyard
Starmakers and Svengalis: The History of British Pop Management by Johnny Rogan.

It will be our fifth summer holiday on Ile D'Oleron, but the first without the children and with the in-laws. Hopefully it will be a little more relaxing. A day's racing at La Palmyre will probably be the high spot for me, although I'm looking forward to the boat trip out to Fort Boyard which is something we haven't done before.

Here's a short video of where we are going taken from Youtube.