On Climbing Out Of The Conference Bubble For Good

Was my last time being a delegate to National PCS conference this week. I'm taking a voluntary exit and will no longer be eligible to be a member.

Been going to conference every year since 2006 and I have always loved it.

I started as an observer then went back as a trainee delegate. I went every year after that as a full delegate and always got up to speak. I was at home there. It was where I got shit done.

My twitter bio says conference geek for a very good reason.

The debate was balanced and fascinating. The President always let all the points get heard and she still does. Janice tolerates no shit and even if the speaker is talking absolute bollocks she will make sure they get to finish.

She may roll her eyes and pull a face but everyone gets their say.

We've debated some great stuff over the years and we have done so democratically.

I am proud of that. Very proud to be a member of a union that has annual elections, annual conferences and where everyone gets a say.

It isn't perfect I know. Fuck do I know. I haven't drunk the PCS Kool-Aid. I know there are things that could be better and I have tried my hardest to make them so.

Yesterday I spoke on the Scottish Branches' decision to have a 'PCS informs, you decide' neutral stance on the Scottish referendum.

I nearly slipped on the way to the podium on all the red herrings being thrown about.

HINT: wearing a t-shirt with ENGLAND across the front and spouting rhetoric that wouldn't be out of place at an EDL meeting is not the best way to make your point about rabid nationalism.

My contribution seems to have gone down well with the Scottish delegations and I have been offered a visa if they go independent. Free education, free prescriptions and no UKIP? You bet I'm on the way!

Today I seconded a motion in the affiliations section. I am eternally grateful to the SOC for moving this up the agenda so I could finally, after six years of trying, get PCS policy on extending the right to abortion to women in Northern Ireland.

There was a counter motion asking us to disaffiliate from Abortion Rights and predictably 3 men got up to speak to that.

Conference was not having it and we now have policy. I went outside and had a little weep while having my post speech ciggy. It had been a long old haul but finally we had done it.

It is one of my proudest moments.

I'll be greetin' agin in a mo. (if I'm going to go to Scotland I'd best learn the language)

So what were my other highlights and lowlights of National PCS Conference?

(will be dealing with Group separately and all the shit that went on there)

Definite highlight was the Unite debate.

There were three motions.

One was to go into talks without conditions, let the NEC bring an offer back to a special conference to see if we thought it could be put to the membership in a ballot.

The second one was pretty much the same only with a fuck ton of conditions that would have to be agreed before the NEC could even think of bringing it to us.

Third one basically said 'fuck it, walk away'.

Just about every argument and counter argument was had and I am STILL none the wiser as to why we should merge.

Is it because we're skint? Apparently not. We've pulled ourselves out of our black hole. Ok then.

Its because it would make us a great union who would be able to take strike action together!!!

But, said the opposition, we can do that at any time. We don't have to merge to do that. If we merged with everyone we ever took action with we would be a SUPER UNION WITH WINGS OF STEEL AND ELEVENTY BILLION MILLION GAZILLION MEMBERS!!

Give me a break.

DON'T YOU TRUST US???? the NEC wailed, and this seemed to be the entirety of their argument.

Seems that no, actually, conference didn't and their motion fell (after clearly being defeated in a show of hands and the chair calling a card vote which confirmed that) while the middle motion was carried.

Carry on talking with a fuck tonne of conditions it is then.

Other highlights include Francesca Martinez making me laugh so hard at killing babies with a fork (you had to be there) I spat vodka over me dad's back and Jeremy Hardy making a joke about how we should go to bed as we had to debate about gassing badgers in the morning and all of us pointing out that we had already debated that and him cracking up with loud, genuine laughter.

Getting to know some people better was also fabulously cool as was being able to catch up with my family for dinner (though I'm not sure Jake Wilde will ever recover from my mum chatting him up) seeing people I hadn't seen for a year and getting to spend time with my Mahanga.

Lowlights were the above mentioned speech by the wanker in the England shirt and running out of time so my motions on Nigerian schoolgirls and sex workers weren't heard.

I might put those speeches up on here at some point. The one on Nigeria was a doozy!

So how do I feel now, sitting on my train home knackered and wanting The Lovely, Doodlebug, Turkish, Bricktop and my own bed?

I feel good.

Better than that I feel complete.

I looked round the hall and saw the trainees I had taught over the years all go up to the podium to debate and speak with an eloquence that made me cry with pride.

I listened to people talk and swap ideas and talk about organising and class and intersectionality and campaigning and was proud of my input in that.

I saw faces determined not to let my going stop them taking these ideas forward.

How do I feel?

Like I have left a legacy to be proud of and that is all any of us can ask. Well, that and that you put my motions back in for debate next year.

Ta ra PCS.

Its been emotional.