The meeting began a with a 2 minutes silence to mark the recent unexpected death of respected East Ham Councillor, Alec Kellaway. I known Alec for many years and and had worked closely with him on the Council Investment and Accounts Committee. He had always been very considerate and supportive. His death is a personal shock and a great loss to the Party. Council meetings will not be the same without his home baked cakes.
The AGM went very smoothly and congratulations to the re-elected Chair, Charlene McLean and the other elected constituency officers; Alan Griffiths, John Saunders, Gordon Miller, Julianne Marriott and Seyi Akiwowo.
Elected CLP Coordinators are Dianne Walls, Kim Silver, Veronica Oakeshott, Rania Ramli, Winston Vaughan, Conor McAuley, Terry Paul and David Christie.
Due to a very previous wicked life, I was elected as Campaign Coordinator and Agent with Mas Patel as Assistant.
Obviously the next year will be dominated by the forthcoming General Election and the need to re-elect our excellent local MP, Lyn Brown. While it is vital to keep up with the energetic local campaigning and canvassing that we have carried out since 2010, we all know that unless Labour wins its national target seats next year, Newham will be stuffed by a return of Tory rule.
Therefore we have a duty to make sure that in West Ham we do our bit in the target seats that we have been asked by the Party to support. As our Secretary, Alan Griffith, reminded us on the night, we have only "45 weeks until the 7th May 2014 General Election". Let us by hard work and unity turn this statement into we have only "45 weeks to get rid of this rotten Tory led Government".
(Picture of our West Ham HQ during the General Election 2010 when I was also the Agent)
