Federal conference report

Well, we came, we saw, we spent disproportionate amounts of our time peddling Top Trumps… LDYS put on a strong showing at this conference, but it was exhausting! (As you may have in part have gathered from some of our blogs from the week itself - http://www.ldys.org.uk/blog) Work centred around ensuring that our Save Darfur campaign was launched with maximum momentum on Sunday 16th, and we were fortunate to make it into the priorities ballot for debating an emergency motion.

Thanks must go to Louisa Arimatsu, the party's advisor on African policy and Hratche Koundarjian, a representative from the AEGIS trust, for the considerable input and guidance offered to us. We were also privileged to hear 26-year-old Darfuri survivor, Abdo Yahya Abdullah speak about the conflict at the policy debate, and thanks must go to him, and our Chair, Mark Gettleson, for facilitating his attendance.

Other work revolved around the usual rounds of training, fringe events, conference hall speeches and manning the stall. This year even though our stall wasn't in the best position we often had members, MPs and journalists buzzing around to talk to us about our work. Considerable interest was shown in both the Save Dafur and Homophobia is Gay campaigns, and we had some great discussions with members of executives past (Although the hollow laughter from a former VC Comms was a little disconcerting) Mostly the stall was the meeting place throughout each day for the dozen or so members of the executive rushing between events, submitting speakers cards, and then panicking as they drafted last minute speeches…

A real sense of the current executive working together was felt from the Monday onwards when we had an executive meeting that was a little cramped at 19 people packed into our Hotel room. What was great about it was that there were non executive members present too, and we seemed to show a closer relationship with our members than I've seen to date in my first year of being on the LDYS executive.

Overall we achieved some key things, worked as a team and even managed to get ourselves on the BBC a couple of times. It is, however, a pity that on one of those occasions I managed to refer to Menzies Campbell as 'Statuesque'... but live TV will do that to the best of us. Basically, roll on Spring Conference in Liverpool 08; see you there!

Huhne and Clegg at LDYS Conference

We were lucky enough to witness the second in a series of national hustings events between what will be the two main candidates for the leadership of our party for the next few years. In a packed hall, somewhat 'atmospheric' due to day long use from conference attendees, at 8 o'clock the cameras started rolling, and our Vice President Naomi Smith stepped up to chair the debate between Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg.

Chris began with identifying our problem as a party as being our inability to get our message across, something that could really energise our generation and encourage us to get involved in politics. We are the leaders of the future, after all. Surprisingly, this went down rather well at the Liberal Democrat Youth and Students conference… Chris pushed a radical agenda, especially on the issue of constitutional reform. Chris kept to the big issues, with talk of reformin westminster giving way to the environment and 3rd world poverty

Nick stepped up to speak after he had removed his tie in readiness (A blue silky item if you must know) and gesticulated his way through outlining how he wants to put forward the liberal democrat vision. Particularly favourably received by some listeners was the idea of returning to a radical vision of liberal democrat action, aiming to achieve real electoral reform and meaningful devolution of power to our communities.

The audience submitted questions in written form and a few were allowed to spur our potential leaders into expanding on their spiels. Favourites of mine were 'What liberal democrat policy would you change and why?' [Huhne: The Trident 'fudge', Clegg Regional Assemblies and a Lib Dem response to proposals that the UK accede to the US 'Star Wars' programme] and 'Should the Lib Dems be more spiky like a cactus? [Huhne: We have good policies, lets put them out there. Clegg: We should work more closely with our constituencies to ensure policies aren't just 'spiky' but relevant] The latter question from Simon Drage drew quite a lot of laughter and groans, if you've missed why then read this

Finally, Chair Naomi Smith reserved the right to ask the final question herself, and finished with 'In 60 seconds describe the key differences about yourself as a candidate'. Huhne pointed up to his economic experience in the treasury as perhaps an force suitable to properly oppose Gordon Brown as leader. Clegg referred again to his desire to strongly state the case for a proudly 'anti-establishment' agenda for Liberal Democrats, who could aim to break the mould of the current two party system in the next ten years. However, both were in agreement that what united them is considerably greater than anything that sets them apart.

And so, with a wave and a nod it was over, and many of the floating voters in attendance were left with further fodder to help decide who will have their first preference vote in the coming weeks...

... and the rest of it

While the hustings were certainly the highlight event, but lots more happened at conference. Ed Davey spoke to us after a long debate on how we can update our image, and urged us to be more radical (actually, I think he said "spiky", that word appeared a lot this weekend), although perhaps not to the extent that we have been known to in the past.

Policy is certainly one of the big points, and there was an interesting mix of motions, from drugs policy to the situation in Burma. The motion on burma passed nem. con, by the way!

The one thing about this conference that really stood out was the amazing work put in by Guildford local party and Guildford LDYS in organising a venue, socials and some truly excellent food. Good job guys!

If you're interested in hosting LDYS conference in future, get in touch with Matt Cormack for more information.

Free Rad : Back from the grave

Yes, keeping rather cheesily in tune with the date being Halloween we'd like to take this opportunity to announce that Free Rad will be reincarnated for 2008. Its passing has seen us re-think of what it should look like, say, and most crucially (?) be named! Yes, we know Free Radicals are a celebrated part of liberal political tradition, but, you know, they also give you cancer. So we're going with a new name, which surprisingly enough will be 'The Yell!'. Short, simple, and guaranteed to garner grumbling from some of you…

In which case, write in! We're now recruiting to our editorial teams which are based loosely on sections around political thought, global liberalism, activism, and fun or social reporting. If you want to report for us, write for us, draw for us or submit photos then get in touch for a slice of the action. We'll be recruiting throughout November, with the aim to further announce section editors and updates in the next Yell! Monthly. Watch out for the forthcoming face book site inviting you all to join soon…

Soundbites

Remembering those who laid down our lives to protect our liberties, we now have a government that is asking us to lay down our liberties to protect our lives. Chris Huhne

Website

And, about That Website. Well, we have put up the interim website to tide us over until we can professionally commission a new all-singing, all-dancing version. We're planning all sorts of new interactive features that hope to combine some of the best elements of the forums, the main party website and some ideas of our own. Meanwhile the interim website performs it's basic functions, but we are keen for content from interested members.

Blog

Currently the blog section has been written mostly by the executive out of convenience, but we welcome contributions from all LDYS members about work they've been doing for LDYS... Those of you that have contributed, and you know who you are, are stars!

Contribute

So, if your freshers fayre went well; If you've been working with your local party on youth issues; if you've had something work particuarly well for you recently - Just Yell!

LDYS Training

One of our most important jobs is to give you, our members, the skills to be effective campaigners. We need to know what you think about how we're doing and what we could improve. Are we offering training on the kind of things you want? Do we do enough to make you aware of what training is available? What do you think of the way we train? If have opinions on this or would like to arrange some training contact our training officer Mark Mills at mark.mills@ldys.org.uk