Report- RMT Young Members Organising Lunch (Cuba Lunch)

On Wednesday the 20th of June seven RMT young members met at Maritime House for an informal organising meeting with lunch. It kicked off with a few of us at 1130 with coffee and were joined throughout the afternoon by other young members.

The focus of the day was on what events and campaigns young members could get involved with throughout the year.

We had a chat with Dave Marshall from the Organising Unit about what is occurring at Barclays Bikes; Geoff Revell about the history of workers on the river Thames and London Transport Regions Black and Ethnic Officer spoke about how young members have assisted in previous campaigns and how future campaigns could be interlinked with other groups such as LGBT, BEM and the Womens group.

As it was such a nice day we had lunch out on a very hot and sunny Clapham Common whilst discussing what campaigns we wanted to get involved in and how we could contribute to its success.
The upcoming plans for a young members website was discussed as were the events later on in the year such as Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival (13th-15th July) & Durham Miners Rally + education course (12-14th July,) the Burston Strike School education course and rally (1st-2nd September), TUC march and rally (20thOctober.)

Great ideas emerged about how the young members contingent could really stand out in the crowd in particular regards to the anti cuts demo.

These ideas will need to be developed further and actioned so we decided that we will be holding organising bi-monthly sessions, the next one will focus on the new website and the anti cuts demo.

Due to the success of the afternoon we plan to make this a regular activity and will be looking to involve young members who previously haven’t been involved with the union especially young members who are/were apprentices.

We also decided that we will be heading down to Greenwich pier this summer for another organising lunch in order to speak to some of the workers, fellow members and understand the work which goes on the river Thames, more details to follow but we’re hoping to pick out a nice sunny afternoon, all welcome.

A laid back but productive afternoon.