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RMTnews :: october 2005 4 Open six days a week Mon to Fri - 8am until 6pm, Sat - 9am to 4pm e-mail: info@rmt.org.uk Legal helpline: 0800 587 7516 Seven days a week Members Helpline Freephone 0800 376 3706 Next year’s Annual General Meeting of the union is to be held in Dublin, Ireland from Sunday July 2 to Friday July 7. The AGM is the “supreme government of the union”, deciding union policy and scrutinising the decisions taken by the Council of Executives. It will be held in the Liberty Hall Centre, a custom built venue created by our colleagues in the Irish union SIPTU next to its landmark headquarters at Eden Quay, in the heart of the city. SIPTU is the Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union: Ireland's largest trade union. One of its component unions was the National Association of Transport Employees, into which former NUR members transferred when the NUR decided to withdraw from Ireland in 1952. There will be 61 AGM delegates, and branches have been asked to make their nominations by December 7 2005. So, if you are interested in attending the AGM as a delegate, get along to a branch meeting and find out more. You need to have been an RMT member for at least five years by the end of next year; be employed, and be under 65 years of age. Once nominations have been made, if there is more than one nomination for a delegate place, elections will be held. The ballot will open on December 15. Ballot papers are sent out to branches, votes are taken at branch meetings and the papers returned to Electoral Reform Services, the independent scrutineer that oversees the union’s elections. The ballot will close on Wednesday January 25, so you will know whether or not you have been elected by the beginning of February – giving you plenty of time to arrange your time off work to attend. For further information about the role and function of the Annual General Meeting, see Rule 3 in your RMT Rule Book or on the RMT website, under ‘Constitution’. Regional Organiser Stan Herschel led an active team consisting of lead recruiters Mark Beresford and Ken Sharpe, Tyne and Wear Metro Members Bob Potts and Ian Bradshaw, GNER Reps Malcolm Barnett, Alan Andros and Celia Oldroyd and Network Rail Rep Willie Hamilton. EC member Peter Pinkney and Neville Anderson joined other branch activists to cover the Middlesborough and Teeside area with Donald Graham and John Milligan from the Organising Unit in support. "When you consider the wide range of companies and the diverse groups of workers involved it is all credit to Stan and his team that the RMT profile was raised in so many work places and bodes well for continued activity in the region," John said. Companies visited at various locations throughout the region included Network Rail Infrastructure and Operations, Jarvis, Virgin, GNER, Northern, Tyne & Wear Metro, EWS, EXEL, ISS, Rail Gourmet, Select Service Partner Outlets, Initial City Link, North Yorks Moors Railway. RMT OFF TO DUBLIN IN 2006 ORGANISING IN THE NORTH EAST RMT members were to the fore during the North East Regional Council's successful organising week recently. Malcolm Barnett and Alan Andros at Newcastle Central Ian Bradshaw and Mark Beresford on Tyne & Wear Metro - Park Lane.