We’re only as strong as our members

If I had a pound for every time someone said to me “I’ve been meaning to join the Young Fabians but haven’t got round to it”, I’d have enough to buy 1 in 5 of them their membership myself. Yep, that’s right, it’s just £5 to join – a bargain. And now more than ever young people need to get make their voice heard in political circles.

Young voices need to be heard to fight against the terrible deal that the government is inflicting on young people caught between the costs of education rising and there being no jobs – the squeezed youth. And young voices need to be heard at this critical juncture for the Labour Party with a policy review ongoing, and the party structures to be ‘refounded’.

Young Fabian members have had, and will continue to have, opportunity to influence such projects (see our submission to the Refounding Labour consultation and the current YF policy development work).

As I approach the final month and a half of my term as Chair, and move on to standing for the Fabian Society executive committee, it seems a long time ago since I joined the Young Fabians and didn’t actively participate for some time. Eventually I did attend events and somehow got to being as involved as I am now.

I joined because I it seemed silly to recommend others to join an organisation I hadn’t myself. The friend in question was left-minded but didn’t feel comfortable joining Labour. The Young Fabians then seemed the perfect outlet for his left-wing passions and ideas. I still meet members like this today – many go on to join Labour, but many don’t. As a member of the Labour Party myself, I recognise how essential such critical friends are. The Young Fabians is crucial to the wider left movement.

One of the things I am most proud of during my time on the executive and as Chair of the Young Fabians is how much we have become a member-oriented organisation. Central to the work of the volunteers who run the organisation has been a commitment to involving and empowering members. This means new joiners, old members, inactive members and regular event attendees with a range of ways to get involved and an open choice as to whether to simply enjoy reading our pamphlets and magazine, attend events, help organise activity, write for publication, lead projects, or stand for election to the committee. We welcome both those who only have room to do a little, and those keen to do a lot.

I have a couple of years left until I turn 31 and am considered too old. But as I move on from my most active role in the organisation this autumn, I am excited by the new blood and fresh ideas coming into the Young Fabians. If you are not already a member, I’m asking you to join today. If you are a member, you’re invited to take over the organisation and make it what your peers want and need – and please invite your lefty friends to join you.

Today is the last day of our prize draw for new members. You can find out more about the benefits of being a Young Fabian here.

Adrian Prandle is Chair of the Young Fabians.

Why I’m a Fabian

I’ve been meaning to write this down for sometime and a Young Fabian recruitment drive seems like a very good time to get round to it. It’s a short run down of why I joined the Young Fabians and why I remain a committed Young Fabian.

I remember vividly the first time I came across a Fabian Society pamphlet, I was in the library during my undergraduate degree and was supposed to be reading something altogether different. I was at the stage in my political development where I knew what I stood against, but hadn’t fully worked through what I stood for. I knew I was left wing but I didn’t have a firm grip of how to realise the kind of society I wanted to see.

I read Fabian Thinkers: 120 Years of progressive thought and found an affirmation of ‘practical utopianism’. For progress to be achieved it had to be hard fought and won, it had to be real, tangible and rooted in people’s lives. It had to be discernible. That for me is what defines Fabianism: a spirit of gradualism within in our tradition of democratic socialism.  

I continued to read and discovered more about the organisation that proposed the NHS, that argued and campaigned for a welfare state funded through progressive taxation, campaigned for many of the earliest rights for women and which also founded the Labour Party, the London School of Economics and the New Statesman. But Fabianism remains relevant today. Fabians set out the case for minimum wage and also for investment in early year’s education, a project which became Sure Start in the last Labour government.

Which brings me to the Young Fabians. This is my second year on the Young Fabian Exec and before I was elected I worked with other Execs. It’s an incredibly dynamic organisation to be part of and with colleagues whose drive and ability knows no bounds. Over the past two years, there are many professional organisations who would love to claim a fraction of the work load that we have produced for our members. From leadership hustings, to socials, to international delegations or policy meetings with Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet members, we cover them all in any given month and it’s a great thing to be part of.

I would urge anyone interested in centre-left politics, who wants to get more involved and help push the debate forward to join the Young Fabians. The first ever Fabian pamphlet was called “Why are the many poor?”. That’s a question that still needs answering and we need more Young Fabians to help us answer it. 

You can sign up in a few easy steps by following this link: http://bit.ly/jointheyfs for £5 for the first six months, and if you join before the end of this week you are automatically entered into a prize draw.

Brian Duggan is Policy Officer for the Young Fabians.

Young Fabians – the best gig in town

Let’s be honest, saying “sign up to the Young Fabians” next time you’re in the pub and most non-politicos would probably think you were talking about joining the mailing list of the latest indie band sensation.

The new membership drive at the Young Fabians reminds me that we need to do more to let people appreciate what a fantastic place the Young Fabians is. I really think that the Young Fabians is one of the most empowering and horizon-expanding organisations that young people, with a progressive interest in policy and the way the world works, could possibly join.

With a bit of initiative and get up and go, you can find yourself involved in policy thinking right at the top of the Labour party; you get access to one of the most interesting series of events in Westminster (and beyond); and of course get to read and contribute to the Young Fabian publications.

However, what I really enjoy about being involved in YFs is the people. Time after time, I find myself really impressed and inspired by the people I meet through the Young Fabians – people from all sorts of backgrounds with all sorts of different expertise, interests and perspectives. Being exposed to them has broadened my own mind and my own experiences.

I can assure you that if the Young Fabians were to pay for some of our members’ time at the rate that they would normally charge in their day jobs – be they researchers, market analysts, lobbyists, designers and online communicators, speech writers – suffice to say, the budget wouldn’t cover it.

However, what is priceless is not just the calibre of the members, but the diversity. Where else can you share ideas with teachers, trade unionists, bankers, entrepreneurs, officials, volunteers, international development specialists, doctors, lawyers, students, MP staffers, MPs! – all in one evening.

We are all inevitably products of our environment and the people we interact with. We’re richer because of the people who challenge us and inspire us, people who support us and mentor us. I‘ve found all of this through the Young Fabians.

So next time you’re in the pub, and someone asks you whether you’re talking about the latest indie band sensation – set them straight and tell ‘em loud and proud about who the Young Fabians are, and get them to join. We’re only as strong as our membership and it is up to our membership to make us stronger.

Check out our recruitment website for more information – http://bit.ly/jointheyfs

Nick Maxwell is Partnerships Officer for the Young Fabians.

A head full of ideas

In this members post, Young Fabian member Anna Bage explains why she joined the Young Fabians.

Politics has seen an increase of young people getting involved over the last few years, whether at a local or national level. Whilst its slightly elitist image remains, the political world has opened up to allow opportunities for young people, and participation has flourished.

But, still, there is work to do. For those living outside of London especially, Parliament can often seem a world away, with the door firmly shut on anyone outside of the Westminster bubble.

The Young Fabians is a go-between for those who want to debate, share ideas and contribute to politics. Unlike Parliament, it doesn’t require an extensive knowledge of politics, just a healthy dose of enthusiasm and passion. The Young Fabian’s allow many young people to gain experience of a wide range of activities, from blogging to campaigning.

There are opportunities to contribute to in ways that Westminster doesn’t always allow. The Young Fabian School Scheme, being piloted this year, aims to go into schools and educate pupils about ways to get involved, breaking down the often assumed image of politics as stuffy and boring.

With the Labour Party in opposition, and a generation of young people with a head full of ideas; the Young Fabian’s are more important now than ever.

If you’re not a member yet, sign up this week!  It’s £5 for the first six months, and if you join before the 23  September you will be entered into a prize draw.

Anna Bage is a Young Fabian Membership Ambassador and co-founder of the new Young Fabian School Scheme

Young Fabians membership: Making politics accessible

This week’s Young Fabians membership drive has given me a chance to reflect on why I became a member seven years ago and why, after four years on the Exec, I’m still as passionate about YFs as ever.

Seven years ago I was pretty new to politics and was living in London for the first time. The Westminster Village can seem like a pretty intimidating and inaccessible world for newcomers, and I didn’t really know where to start. I mentioned to a friend at a party that I wanted to get more involved in left wing politics in the capital, and he immediately told me to join the Young Fabians.

The YFs proved to be a great entry-point. The frequency of events meant that I could fit being involved around a busy social life and work. The fact that there were regular social events (the boat party, the annual dinner, quiz nights) allowed me quickly to build up a network of politically-minded friends; I found that there was no better way to learn about left wing politics in the UK than to listen to well-informed peers who had been involved for longer. And by going along to policy events I got up to speed on the most current debates in British politics, often hearing from the senior politicians at the very forefront of the issues, but in an environment where I felt able to contribute, ask questions and learn.

After 3 years I was so hooked I decided to stand for the Executive Committee, first as a cooptee and then as a fully fledged exec member. Being on the Exec has given me a unique opportunity to help run Britain’s only think tank aimed specifically at young people. By working on the Exec I have had the chance to produce numerous policy pamphlets, stage events in Parliament, write blogs, interact with members of the Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet and to drive the direction of the YFs as an organisation. In the process I’ve learnt new skills, met some amazing and talented people and had the satisfaction of seeing my efforts pay off in terms of engaging ever more young people in progressive politics. In particular, through co-leading Young Fabian Women I’ve been able to work on an issue I’m truly passionate about, which is tackling the under-representation of women in public life.

None of these things would have been possible if I hadn’t taken the plunge back in 2004 and become a member. So I would definitely encourage you to sign up this week, and to encourage your friends to do so! You can sign up in a few easy steps by following this link: http://bit.ly/jointheyfs for £5 for the first six months, and if you join before the 23  September you are automatically entered into a prize draw! What’s not to like?

Claire Leigh is Treasurer for the Young Fabians. Claire was voted amongst the top 50 left-wing bloggers in the Total Politics Blog Awards 2011.

Why I joined the Young Fabians

When I joined the Young Fabians in 2007, my main motivations were to find out more about politics and to meet like-minded people. During the years since it has occurred to me that underlying these original motivations were a desire for group membership and a feeling of belonging.

For me, joining the Fabian Society was a precursor to Labour Party Membership, which I had thought about and yet been wary of for most of my early twenties. Learning about the Fabians at LSE seemed to augment for me the desire to be part of something greater than myself and where plurality and diversity were also a natural home, within the progressive political realm. The desire to be part of a group can be an innate or instrumental goal. For me it was both, and the Young Fabians have fulfilled my desire on both levels.

Being a Young Fabian was the start of enabling and formalising my identity as someone who is left-wing, and who identifies with socialist principles and seeks to use these beliefs to influence others. With this goal of identity-building there has also been an interplay with more practical objectives.

By being a member and Executive Officer of the Young Fabians I have tangibly used my principles to influence others, for example, as the first Young Fabians’ Equalities Officer, a programme that is now essential to the ethos of the organisation. Also, through organising panel debates and attending events I have been able to strengthen my views through discussion and by being informed by many different perspectives: international, political, feminist, academic (to name a few crude and broad camps).

The end result has been that this experience has made me a more able and confident political citizen, an essential grounding for the years ahead. It has also introduced me to a plethora of wonderful people with a similar aim.

It is with this in mind that I urge anyone with similar desires and thoughts to join the Young Fabians. Believe me, you will not be disappointed. As with most things in life, it is what you make of it and with more opportunities to actively participate in the organisation than ever before, the scope for engagement is tantalising.

You can join for only £5 for the first six months. Your friends can too!

To do so, click here: http://bit.ly/jointheyfs

Preth Rao is Member Involvement Officer for the Young Fabians

Vote for the Young Fabian Blog in the Total Politics 2011 Blog Awards

Voting in the Total Politics 2011 Blog Awards is now open, and we’d be grateful if you can vote for the Young Fabian blog amongst your favourite political blog sites.

Last year we came 70th in the Top 100 Labour blogs, and we think we deserve to place a little higher than that this year.

It’s easy to vote. Visit the survey form on the Total Politics website here.

The voting rules are reproduced from the Total Politics website below.

Alex Baker is Secretary of the Young Fabians and Editor of the Young Fabian Blog.

Total Politics 2011 Blog Awards Rules

1. Your votes must be ranked from 1 to 10. The higher you rank a blog or author, the higher up they will appear in the aggregated results. You must enter a minimum of five names for your vote to count. If you don’t want to enter more than five, just write ‘blank’ in the remaining boxes. Every box must have some text in for the vote to be submitted successfully.
2. Only submit your vote once. If you vote more than once, it won’t be counted.
3. Only blogs based in the UK, run by UK residents and based on UK politics are eligible.
4. Anonymous votes left in the comments on the Total Politics website or emailed to members of staff will not count. You must submit your vote via the survey and you must enter a valid email address when you do so.
5. Do not publish a list of ten blogs on your site and try to persuade readers to vote for them. Any duplicate voting of this nature will be disallowed.

What we need are “thinkers” and “do-ers”

On Tuesday last week the Young Fabians gathered in Parliament for our  ’new members reception’.  Membership has grown impressively this year but this year that we decided to take make this year’s event completely user friendly and help new members quickly convert membership into active involvement.

Hosted by Shadow Small Business Minister, Chuka Ummuna MP, and supported by A4e, our event was a chance for new members (as well as their friends) to mingle with Labour MPs and find out about getting involved with the Young Fabians’ current work.

That is why we said the reception was for “Thinkers and Do-ers”. The theme was deliberate.

Fabians and Young Fabians always hear the criticism that they are more focused on ‘pamphlet Labour’ than ‘leaflet Labour’. We don’t challenge that view enough. But there is an important challenge there too. The Labour movement, now more than ever, faces a generation that wants the opportunity to be both – thinkers and do-ers.

The rise of community blogs like Labourlist, Left Foot Forward, and our own Young Fabian Blog have shown just how broad the appetite for public policy discussion and debate is. Yet turning policy into practice, at every level finding ways to put ideas into effect, is a bigger challenge that needs tackling.

So new members who came to our reception came ready not just to hear about the events they can attend in the coming months, but to sign up to be involved in the various work that was showcased in the room:

• Our Health, Science and Society work involving our Technology and Society Network;
• Our Economy and Employment policy develop group and our Future of Finance Network;
• Our International policy work and our Middle East Programme;
• Our work looking at issues facing the Next Generation;
• Our developing work with schools;  and
• Ways to involve more members in our Anticipations magazine and this blog.

Many of these are already member-led initiatives and we’re eager to see that grow and develop.

Importantly new members also brought with them a flood of exciting new ideas which we should help new members realise in the coming months.

Special thanks should go to Young Fabians member Mark Hornsey for all his help in putting together the reception this year.

Vincenzo Rampulla is Executive Officer without Portfolio on the Young Fabian Executive.

• If you have ideas, want more information or want to get involved in any of the above then please get in touch or use the comment section below.

Introducing our 2011 Policy Commissions

The Young Fabians will soon be launching four Policy Commissions. Our Policy Commissions form the backbone of our policy work and since their inception they have increasingly become strong access points for our members into the policy making process of the Labour Party.

This year we launch the Commissions at a crucial time for Labour. With a thorough examination of party policy under the stewardship of Liam Byrne MP, there is a timely opportunity for our members to take a firm grasp of the chance to offer Labour our ideas on the party’s policy renewal. The process we are undertaking will be a vehicle for our members to develop their ideas and test their suggestions which we will offer into Liam’s Fresh Ideas policy review.

Over the coming months, four Young Fabian members will lead informed debates and discussions, open to all Labour supporters which will result in our submission to Labour’s Policy Review and a Young Fabian Pamphlet setting out our ideas for Labour’s future policy offer.

Our four commissions will look at:

1. Renewing and Reforming Our Economy – Maneesh Sharma and Graeme Henderson

The task of this group will be to investigate the path Labour should take to build a more sustainably prosperous economic settlement for Britain. It will investigate the need for an active industrial strategy, the fairness divide in our economy, job creation and productivity. It also will look towards opportunities in the green economy and in new and emerging markets as well as looking to incentives for business to break out of the ‘low pay low skill’ cycle.

2. Building Stronger Communities - Richard Angell and Anas Sarwar MP

This group will look at the strength and resilience of British community life in the modern world. It will investigate how families across the country are working harder for longer for less. The consequence of this for family life and community activism will be explored. It will also look at the challenge of how communities are empowered into the political process so that citizens become stakeholders in their communities and in national life.

3. Securing the Future of the Next Generation – Joani Reid

Ed Miliband has stated that “the British Promise, that the next generation would always do better than the last, is now under threat like never before.” The key challenge of this Commission will be to investigate how young Britain is coping with the consequences of government fiscal retrenchment. Facing debt, a difficult labour market and a challenging housing market, the next generation of Britain is under huge pressure. This commission will look at how Labour should respond to the challenges facing the next generation.

4. Labour and the World – Debbie Moss

Foreign affairs is at transformative moment and this group will explore Labour’s role in the World. It will span aid policy in a time of austerity, to security in the context of defence cuts and the criteria for military intervention in fragile states and the balance between domestic security and external stability. Labour in the World will look at Britain’s relationships to other states and institutions and how we form an ethical foreign policy and learn lessons from past conflicts.

Young Fabian members have much to offer these four big policy areas.

Please sign up to join our Policy Commissions and join in the debate about Labour’s future policy offer.

Together we look forward to offering the Labour Party a series of new, fresh and robust ideas.

Brian Duggan is Young Fabian Policy Officer.

Young Fabians need you – member wanted to lead special project

An exciting opportunity awaits a Young Fabian member in the next few weeks.

There is currently a vacancy on the Young Fabian Executive Committee, and so we are looking to enthusiastic members who would like to get involved in the running of the organisation. Because we are halfway through the year, we’re looking for a shorter commitment than normal – around 5 months. Though of course, the successful candidate would be well-placed to stand for election to the committee for 2012.

We need a new website officer to take responsibility for managing and updating the YF website. But we also think it’s in need of a refresh so would want you to lead a new project with executive committee colleagues to reimagine our web presence and redesign the YF site. It’s a great chance for someone to quickly stamp their mark on the Young Fabians – we are confident the talent is in the membership so we’re hoping you will step forward.

We’ll be running a small-scale co-option for this single place on the executive committee. To put yourself forward, you’ll need to either attend the special co-option meeting on Sunday June 5th, submit a written statement, or – for the first time ever – submit a video presentation of your ideas. For details of what the committee is looking for from a new website officer, see here. And for more information on how the process works click here.

If you have further questions, or want to express your interest, please contact me via email: aprandle[at]youngfabians.org.uk.

Adrian Prandle is Chair of the Young Fabians.