Conservative Future - A Year of Change
One year ago Conservative Future began a new term of office. My rail miles match the distance to Australia, but my goodness Conservative Future has never been in better health. We have had a year of change, but my goodess it has been a fun year!
One year on, words cannot describe quite how delighted I and the rest of my team are with every member, branch, area and regional chairmen and members who have worked so hard to turn around an organisation to be one of the most respected and hard working campaigning organisations, not just in Britain, but around the world.
In the space of a year, every region across the UK has had a series of successful campaigning, social action, political and social events. Conservative Future now has in excess of 290+ branches nationwide, more than either Labour or the Lib Dems. In the space of a year 210 branches has turned into 290+ branches with 20+ pending formation.
Despite the tough, yet fair decisions made by this Government on changes to higher education fees, we have had the most successful year ever at Freshers Fairs across the UK. Early results have come in from across the country showing that despite the tough choices this Government is making, we have seen members at Manchester University reaching 220+. Newly formed Greenwich and Manchester Metropolitan gained 60+ members each. We have new University branches in areas we could only dream of having a branch a year ago.
The strategy was simple, get an organisational structure in place, hold a series of events, ask a series of high profile speakers to address us and then hold campaigning events which are not just leafletting sessions but are fun! With the Boris elections coming up fast we have held campaigning events with a delegation of Swedish Conservatives, we have waved ‘bye-bye’ to the Bendy Bus and we have welcomed Boris to our Back Boris Boot Camp to train activists on how best to help the campaign.
There have been a number of firsts for Conservative Future this year, the one that makes me the proudest is the reformation of Northern Ireland Conservative Future, which has now become so big that it going to split up into areas. We also hosted for the first year the Prime Minister who very kindly addressed CF Chairman from across the UK, thanking them for all their hard work and efforts over the years. The Prime Minister is delighted by our achievements with our epic support of the No to AV campaign and Back Boris 2012. We are now firmly back at the heart of the Conservative Party with more staff becoming available to us through the office of the voluntary party. The National Executive want to make a special mention to the support that has been given by Andrew Stephenson MP.
Internationally we are now seen as a mainstream example that other parties can use as an example of success. Most recently we have held meetings with Japanese MPs and Academics passing our best practice ideas so they can achieve the best performance from their youth wings. We have hosted our Swedish sister party and been invited to France to discuss our achievements and share our ideas. CF is firmly back at the heart of the IYDU and are actively campaigning against despotic regimes such as the Belarus Communist Party.
Members from across the UK have taken the Conservative Party to the heart of their local communities. Social action provides young people from all walks of life an opportunity to learn and to take responsibility for improving their communities. We have seen from Solihull to South Holland and the Deepings that young people care about their communities. We have had a series of strong media hits in both the National and Student Press as well as run high profile campaigns on issues such as “Facts on Fees” and #IWanttogotoaFreeSchool.
A huge surprise to most of us is the succes of Conservative Future Young Professionals. We have seen new groups set up in Yorkshire, Birmingham, Manchester and London. With top politicians and speakers from all walks of life, we have produced a networking forum for people to understand what the Government is doing for young people trying to get onto the job ladder and for people to have a good time and socialise. Likewise, we took the opportunity to follow the Party’s new Policy Forum so that members across the UK can influence the policy making behind the next manifesto. We have held a series of exciting debates on topical issues with large turnouts, so we look forward to expanding this in the coming year. We have developed a very useful national database which ensures we can communicate with all our members and activists about campaigns and events per region weekly. An announcement on CF elections will be made after Party Conference.
This is not the end however, we have so much more to do, already we are out campaigning for Boris to win next May. We already have planned a set of fantastic future events including reception addresses from Iain Duncan Smith, Graham Brady Jeremy Hunt and Liam Fox. We have a stand at Party Conference for the first time in a number of years where you will be able to speak to members firsthand about setting up a branch, or how to keep one going. We have a fringe event with Andrew Stephenson and David Willetts debating Britain's Future Generation. We have a series of best practice training seminars on everything from how to motivate your branch through to the process of becoming a Parliamentary Candidate. We want to give more support to branches nationwide and improve productivity and longevity of branches so that there will be a continual long-term growth of a branch.
Most importantly however, we must ensure that we are effectively communicating to young people across the UK that this government is turning disillusionment into hope, economic recession into growth and a Broken Britain into a Great Britain. Young people aspire to self-improve and we must help them in the future to achieve this goal. In the space of 18 months, just look what this Government has done to turn around Labour's mess, imagine the possibilities available to us with 4, even 10 or more years in front of us. We hope in the following year that CF can continue our efforts and once again be seen as representing Britain's Future Generation.
