Consultation
This year, Liberal Youth are conducting two membership wide consultations. The first one is the one you can find here and it is on the Constitution of the organisation. On the back of this consultation we hope to submit several Constitutional Amendments to our Spring Conference and so there is a deadline for responses: Friday 9th March at 5pm.
The second one will be coming very soon, its more broad and long term and is on the ‘Future of Liberal Youth’, more information on that will be coming soon.
Below is some information about the consultation, if you would like to skip straight to the questionnaire click here.
Constitution
Our constitution regulates the way Liberal Youth conducts its affairs, including the composition of the Executive and its committees, or how many conferences we have every year, to the way we hold elections, or hold our officers to account. As a democratic group, any of our members are entitled to suggest changes to and part of the constitution.
At the moment, our constitution isn’t really doing what it’s supposed to do. There are sections of it that are out of date, refer to other sections that no longer exist, or leave too many ambiguities to be of any use at all. With this in mind, this Executive has decided to conduct an overhaul – but we cannot do this without you.
The structure and direction of Liberal Youth should be decided by you, the members. We need a governing document that is robust, fit for purpose, and legal, not to mention representing the aims and values that our membership wishes Liberal Youth to strive for.
In this consultation, you’ll find a multiple choice questionnaire, and an open section where you can leave any comments or suggestions you have for the constitution. There are no right or wrong answers, just your opinion.
Although we ask you to leave some personal information, such as your Liberal Youth branch, or party membership number, this is only so we can update our records, and make sure it’s LY members who are taking part. This information won’t be included when we look at the results, so you will be taking part in the consultation anonymously.
Thanks for taking part and tell your fellow members!
Stuart Brown (NPO, Constitution lead)
Bobby Dean (Communications Officer, Future of LY Lead)
P.S. If you have any queries please check the FAQs section below first. If your question hasn’t been answered there, contact either Stuart at stuart.brown@liberalyouth.org or Bobby at communications@liberalyouth.org
FAQs
Liberal Youth is an SAO (Specified Associate Organisation) of the Federal Party; we draw many benefits as an organisation with this status including funding. The Federal Party has been conducting an SAO review, which requires all SAOs to comply with certain standards. Under our old constitution we would not comply with these standards, and are in danger of losing our SAO status.
Why the deadline?
Constitutionally, we cannot accept Constitutional Amendments to our Conferences later that six weeks in advance. We have set the above deadline so that we meet that criteria and have a little time to review any amendments if necessary.
What will the ‘Future of Liberal Youth’ entail?
This will be much broader and will ask the big questions about the fundamental direction of the organisation. Whilst we hope we will iron out most of the technical points in the Constitutional Consultation process, this on-going consultation will tackle issues such as the weight the organisation places on campaigning versus training and so on.
How will my responses effect the Consitution?
If there is broadly a consensus on a particular issue then it will be written into the new draft of the Constitution, due to go to Spring Conference. If there is not, then the most popular alternative options will be presented to Spring Conference to be debated by the hall.
I can’t choose between the options in the questions, what do I do?
For the multiple choice questions just select the view that is closest to how you feel. All multiple choice questions have the option of “Other (please specify)”, but we would ask you not to choose this option without suggesting an alternative.
Is this the first attempt at Consultation by this Executive?
In short, no, although it is the first formalised and online attempt. We have held one-on-one conversations at the last few Federal and Youth Conferences and held a Consultative Session at Colchester LY Conference last Autumn. This is us stepping it up a gear.