Report to Annual General meeting

Edinburgh Green Councillors Group: Melanie Main, Alex Staniforth, Gavin Corbett, Steve Burgess, Mary Campbell, Susan Rae, Claire Miller, Chas Booth

Since the last AGM n Autumn 2020 Council and Committees resumed responsibilities and met on-line throughout the year. Councillors have continued to work from home, on-line and rarely met officers face to face. Community meetings, notably Community Councils and Parent Councils, have also resumed on-line but not in person. For parents, attendance and participation at meetings has generally increased as on-line meetings give more flexibility for busy parents in the evenings. Councillors have not been able to visit schools or other sites in person in general.

However, this has been another year of uncertainty, with a second and third lockdown setting back agendas for a second year. There was hybrid working in Council where the CEO and officers retain some emergency authority but with Council and committees continuing, and the move to recovery as we come out of the pandemic the priority.

This year have worked with Cllr Derek Howie, who sits as an independent but is a SGP member, supporting his focus on equality and disability access issues. Although the Green Group numbers 8, Derek has voted with the Greens and Greens regularly deliver 10 votes with support from another independent.

Climate change continues to be the priority, the full Green group meeting as a group and individually for each portfolio with lead officers to input into the strategy for the council itself and a discussion on plans for implementing the 20-minute city with the Director Place. Steve Burgess is the Group lead on the Climate Crisis. He represents the Green Group at the All Party Oversight Group on Sustainability & Climate Emergency discussing council plans for achieving net zero for both the Council and the City. The aim is to get a city-wide net zero strategy in place before the UN climate conference, Cop26 in Glasgow in November.

February is always focussed on the budget in Edinburgh Council and as such a lot of councillors’ time is taken up with that, in particular Gavin Corbett‘s as our finance spokesperson. This year we managed to work with other opposition councillors to ensure that rent for residential council properties was frozen for this year, ensuring those on low incomes in council houses – who may have been on furlough and only 80% of their usual income – get a year’s respite from rising rents. Gavin Corbett‘s overall budget was a ‘Green Recovery’ budget which put more into parks and greenspace than any other budget as well as serious investment in the city’s zero-carbon 2030 goal; setting the target line for other parties seeking to prove that their budgets take the climate crisis and other environmental concerns seriously.

In the Spring Council business became notably quieter as Holyrood election campaigning got well underway and Green Councillors joined volunteers working to elect Green MSPs.

Some committee highlights from the past months:

Mary Campbell brought forward a motion to Education committee to push the council to do more on deferred school starts. This will involve trying to be a pilot authority in 2022 for government-funded deferred places, pushing for premature children to be considered in the legislation, and for funded places to be given for all applications this year. You can read more here.

At Transport and Environment Committee, Claire Miller tabled a detailed amendment (see p25) to the yearly report on the air quality figures for Edinburgh. The air quality action plan is now 13 years out of date and desperately needs to be rewritten. The city has 5 “air quality management areas” (AQMA) where nitrogen oxides breach the national agreed levels for clean air and a sixth AQMA for small particulates. The amendment passed after a vote, which means that the committee will be prioritising the actions needed to clean up the city’s polluted air.

Steve Burgess brought a motion to Transport-Environment committee on the urgent need for temporary toilet facilities on the Meadows to cope with the huge numbers of people going there in good weather – it was a relief that these facilities were agreed (all puns intended) and they opened 21^st June.

Alex Staniforth proposed a motion at Council making clear Edinburgh Council’s opposition to the introduction of photo ID for voting on the grounds of disenfranchising voters and informing government ministers of that position. Despite Conservative opposition the motion passed and Edinburgh City is formally opposed to requiring photo ID for voting.

Melanie Main succeeded in getting a Climate Change Charter 2030 for the Edinburgh Integration Joint Board agreed, bringing services from A&E to GP services, care homes to uppaid carers support, into line with Edinburgh’s Climate Commission recommendations. She was also appointed a Climate Champion.

Through Sub-Licensing, Susan Rae finally secured a section in the Taxi Training on safety around cyclists, has been working hard on helping black cab drivers get permission to upgrade their engines to Cat 6 and in relation to short-term lets, encouraging a robust approach to licensing HMO premises.

In the Housing Committee, Chas Booth has been pushing the Council to mainstream work to bring empty homes back into use and urging stronger action to tackle land banking.

Across the city in local wards this year some actions long fought for came to fruition and others are just getting started:

After almost a decade of pressing on dangerous parking and road safety in Fountainbridge-Craiglockhart, Gavin Corbett has welcomed the next steps towards controlled parking in his area: Phase 1 Approved!

After thirty years of residents complaining about dangerous driving and rat runs, but only 8 years pressing herself, Melanie Main secured no entry signs to Braid Crescent, and won agreement to close Canaan Lane as part of the Quiet Route, effectively removing the Woodburn Terrace rat run.

A week after being elected in May 2017, Alex Staniforth began pressing for Northfield Allotments, in Craigentinny & Duddingston, to have a water supply and it was connected in April 2021.

In the city centre ward, Claire has picked up her previous work on creating a buffer zone around the Chalmers Sexual Health Centre on Lauriston Place. In 2018 Claire had raised the issue of anti-abortion protests outside the health centre and had been successful in bringing all partners together to agree how to collect information/evidence on the problem. With a new public petition, the subject came back to the council for debate, and Claire has supported calls for a national approach and is actively working with colleagues in COSLA to find solutions for Scotland.

Steve Burgess brought a motion to Transport-Environment committee on the urgent need for temporary toilet facilities on the Meadows to cope with the huge numbers of people going there in good weather – it was a relief to residents who have put up with urination and worse on their doorsteps for over a decade, that these facilities were agreed (all puns intended) and they opened 21^st June

Mary Campbell has been working to ensure community involvement in the future of Portobello Town Hall, and set up a public meeting which led to the creation of Portobello Central.

Chas Booth has been tackling noise and air pollution from ships in Leith port.

Susan Rae continues to ensure that the £eithChooses, first public participation event, goes from strength to strength. After a successful 2021, with the highest ever vote and zero complaints, the Group is now developing both their outreach and funding sources further.

Despite the pandemic, Councillors have deal with literally thousands of requests for help from residents and supported and initiated numerous local projects. You can read our full monthly reports which give highlights/examples.

Edinburgh Branch committee report

Annual Report 2021 (September 2020 to June 2021)

It’s been a busy 10 months for the Branch Committee. We’ve focused our efforts on the Holyrood 2021 campaign and keeping the branch activities going despite ongoing covid-19 restrictions. We would like to extend our massive thanks to everyone who has been involved with the branch over the past year, particularly during such difficult times.

We have changed the time of our AGMs to fall in line with when other branches across the country have their AGMs, this report covers 10 months from September 2020 - June 2021.

Holyrood Election 2021

The biggest area of work for the Edinburgh Branch Committee over the past 9 months has been our Holyrood 2021 election campaign!

Despite uncertainty and restricted campaigning because of Covid-19 lockdown and social distancing measures we had a record campaign in Lothian with returning MSP Alison Johnstone andparty co-leader Lorna Slater, both elected as regional MSPs. The 50,000 regional votes cast for the Greens is by far the highest-ever and the 12.7% vote share surpasses the 12.0% secured in 2003 to make it the biggest Green vote ever in Scotland. Alison Johnstone has since gone on to be elected as the first ever Green Presiding Officer at the Scottish Parliament.

As part of our campaign, volunteers across Edinburgh and West Lothian made more than 200,000 deliveries of Holyrood election materials, and fundraised tens of thousands of pounds. We saw the number of impressions of the branch Twitter account rise by an average of 500% in the final 3 months of the campaign, and hit a 4 year high for membership figures across Edinburgh and West Lothian.

We have also put in a large amount of effort to complete a thorough debrief and review process, including writing handover and “lessons learned” document for future elections, based on feedback from members, local teams, staff members, candidates and the campaign board team.

We’d like to thank all of our volunteers for the amazing work that they did during this Holyrood election campaign. It was a phenomenal effort with an amazing result.

By-elections and preparations for 2022 local elections

In the past nine months we also contested two local authority by-elections. Our first election was the Craigentinny & Duddingston by-election in Nov 2020- the local team worked incredibly hard and secured a great result for Scottish Greens, increasing our vote share by 4.1% and only 20 votes off Scottish Labour’s result. Our second by-election was in West Lothian in Livingston South constituency, our candidate here was Cameron Glasgow and we won 2.4% of the total vote.

At our 2020 AGM we selected 16 candidates for Edinburgh Council elections in 2022. Over the past year, the 12 target candidates have been supported with a Target Candidate Development Programme, which is designed to give target candidates the knowledge, skills and tools to run local campaigns and be a good councillor once elected.

Branch events, meetings and trainings

All of our events continue to be online due to covid restrictions this year. Our events included:

• Big Burns Night In (BBNI) - organised by South East Edinburgh Greens sub-branch. BBNI was held at the end of January 2021. It was a Burns night celebration complete with music, poetry and speeches, a piping in and toasting of the haggis, a prize draw raffle, even a ceilidh room. In total over 144 households attended, and we raised £3,400 for the Holyrood campaign. See videos here

• Also in January, we held a new members event, attended by more than 50 members, which was an opportunity for new members to meet representatives from their local teams or representative groups, find out more about Edinburgh Branch and how to get involved in the Holyrood election.

• In Feb 2021, we worked with Rainbow Greens to hold a session on the Green Party’s policy on trans-rights, what it means in practice and how we are campaigning for trans-rights to be recognised in Scotland.

• As part of the Holyrood election campaign we held two topical branch meetings on key policy areas in our 2021 manifesto - one on rewilding the city with Alison Johnstone and Nadine Andrews, and one on warm homes for everyone with Ben Parker, Kate Nevens and Mridul Wadhwa. In addition we hosted a fabulous launch event with our top three candidates Alison Johnstone, Lorna Slater and Kate Nevans and our co-leader Patrick Harvie.

Membership and local teams

As of June 2021 the number of SGP members in Edinburgh was 1,678 and 126 in West Lothian. At the beginning of last year we saw a small drop off in numbers, this has largely been attributed to people moving out of Edinburgh and some glitches with the central system, something many local team members discovered when contacting volunteers for the Holyrood election campaign. During our active Holyrood campaign months our membership steadily grew month on month, taking it to the record four year high reported above.

The membership and local teams working group led the In-Real-Life (IRL) part of the Holyrood campaign. A key part of this was producing a number of briefings ranging from our target to win election strategy to how to use Bulk SMS to send text to members of local teams. A number of phone banking sessions were also arranged to help find and match volunteers to local teams.

In addition to the Holyrood campaign, the local team officer helped support the creation of West Edinburgh Greens - a new local team, and began working with them on how they can be better plugged into Edinburgh Branch’s work.

Communications

In Autumn 2020, we launched a brand new and beautiful Edinburgh branch website. One Hundred thanks to Alison Neathey, for its creation and keeping it up to date. Alison also led the coordination for the content for our two Green News editions in winter and spring 2021.

Our policy officers Yasmin and Tristan have worked with our elected councillors and MSPs to submit and share monthly reports on their work with Edinburgh Branch members. Thank you Yasmin and Tristan.

Our communication co-convenor, Harriet Hall, has worked tirelessly to produce regular, monthly Edinburgh Branch email updates to members. Harriet has also helped to increase our social media use across all of our platforms (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram) to communicate events, opportunities, and election messages to members, voters and the local community - including coordinating our multilingual get out the vote videos, see here. Big thank you to Harriet.

Gavin Corbett has continued to support elected members and the Branch to generate local media coverage of Green Party impact and policy, including regular Councillor columns in the Edinburgh Evening News.

The talents of photographers, website designers, editors, graphic and video makers in supporting the development of our communications content have been much appreciated throughout the year. Special thanks to Gordon Craig for his rapid editing of videos, particularly through the Holyrood campaign and to Jenny Smith for all her support with Branch social media content.

Other committee business

Other areas of committee business in the past ten months have included:

• Establishing an Accessibility, Diversity and Inclusion Working Group

• Ensuring our activities were COVID-safe and online meetings were held at times more accessible to those with caring responsibilities

• Ensuring timely communications with branch members around the resignation of Andy Wightman MSP in December 2020 and the resignation of Alison Johnstone MSP upon her election as Presiding Officer in May 2021.

• Representing the Edinburgh Branch at all National Council meetings

• Sharing information, documents and advice with other SGP branches to support them with their activities, including on our AGM processes and debrief from the Holyrood campaign

EGP Treasurer’s Report for AGM - June 2021

The Edinburgh branch finances continue to be in a healthy position, despite it being an expensive Holyrood election year. This is due to the generosity of our branch members – both with one-off donations for election campaigning and ongoing branch regular giving. The following report gives a little more detail about the branch finances. If you would like further information on anything raised in this report, please email questions to treasurer.edin@scottishgreenparty.org.uk.

Holyrood

The finances for the Holyrood Lothian campaign were recorded on a separate budget to the main branch budget. The most significant part of the expenditure was our £30000 contribution to the National campaign. In order to cover this contribution, we managed to raise £22500 (plus an additional £7600 in lead candidate crowd funders, which went directly to the national campaign). Although we were required to use some of our reserves to cover the approx. £8000 difference between the amount fundraised and the amount spent, this was less than the £10,000 we had predicted we would use.

Special thanks must go to South East Edinburgh Greens for their fantastic Big Burns Night In fundraiser, Alys Mumford and Gavin Corbett for their incredible fundraising efforts, as well as to every member who donated.

Ongoing impact of Covid-19 and general finances

With the ongoing impact of Covid-19, branch activity (outwith Holyrood campaigning) has continued to take place online rather than in person, meaning a reduction in room hire and subsidiary costs. However, it has also meant less opportunity for in-person fundraising events. As we look ahead with cautious optimism for continued easing of restrictions, we hope to see more in-person activity take place later in the year.

The overall effect of Covid-19 on the 2020 finances meant a greater decrease in spending than the decrease in income. This meant that, when discounting Holyrood spending, instead of having a deficit as predicted in the 2020 budget, the branch ended the year with a small surplus.

In the first half of 2021, there has been very little branch expenditure (outwith the Holyrood campaign). As such a larger proportion of expenditure in the budget has been allocated to the second half of 2021. Provided that we receive roughly what we expect in branch capitations at some point before December 2021 (more info below), the projection is that, leaving aside the election- related income and spending, we will have a small branch budget surplus at the end of 2021.

National Capitations

Following the recommendations from the SGP Capitations Working Group, the SGP National Council agreed to bring in the new Capitations model from June 2021. The previous Capitations model set the branch capitations figure at 25% of their branch members’ fees. The new Capitations model brings in a hybrid of a fixed amount for each branch with a smaller % of branch members’ fees to act as a top up for larger branches. The intention was to reduce the difference in capitations given to larger and smaller branches. Capitations will begin accruing from June 2021, but we are waiting to find out when the first payment will be made. The decision on this should be made at September’s

National Council meeting. Once Edinburgh branch has received a schedule for receiving national capitations, a schedule for sub-branch capitations will also be finalized.

Branch standing orders

As always, a massive thanks to everyone who has a standing order to the Edinburgh branch bank account – this remains the primary means with which branch activities can be guaranteed. If you are in a position to give a regular amount to the branch each month, please complete this form - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Rv5_V7HhM76l6me-CfC4G31tF2sUb33jp2KSBLjHflc/viewform?edit_requested=true (or email treasurer.edin@scottishgreens.org.uk) and the Edinburgh Branch Treasurer will be in touch to discuss how to set one up.

Looking ahead

At September’s AGM, as a committee we brought a motion to ensure that we retain a level of reserves in the bank account to ensure ongoing running costs of the branch. At this year’s AGM we have introduced an amendment to give additional detail about who holds the decision-making power over when reserves may be spent.

Over the coming 10 months, we will be devoting our fundraising efforts to support the 2022 Edinburgh Council election campaign, as well as investing in capacity building for our local teams.

Bank Reconciliation (2020)

Bank account on 1 Jan 2020 £30,730.65

Total receipts in 2020 (branch only) £5722.15

Total receipts in 2020 (incl elections) £10,905.32

Total payments in 2020 (branch only) £4978.24

Total payments in 2020 (incl elections) £12,048.86

Bank account on 31 Dec 2020 £29,587.11

Bank Reconciliation (1 Jan - 19 June 2021)

Bank account on 1 Jan 2021 £29,587.11

Total receipts 1 Jan - 19 June 2021 (branch only) £2321.96

Total receipts 1 Jan - 19 June 2021 (incl. elections) £21,046.23

Total payments 1 Jan - 19 June 2021 (branch only) £1262.81

Total payments 1 Jan - 19 June 2021 (incl. elections) £25,099.77

Bank account on 19 June 2021 £25,533.57

Becky Luff, Edinburgh Branch Treasurer (20th June 2021)

Leith and Leith Walk Greens

Report to Edinburgh Branch June 2021 AGM

By Mariusz Cebulski (outgoing Co-Convenor)

Meetings

The Leith and Leith Walk sub-branch have continued to meet monthly online.

The 2021 sub-branch AGM was held online on 10/06/2021, attended by nine members. At the AGM it was confirmed that following members will take up roles in the sub-branch:

• Mariusz Cebulski will continue as convenor and take up role of liaison to the Edinburgh branch.

• Rickey Blankenbaker will take the role of membership secretary.

• Dirk Nols will take the role of bookkeeper.

• Molly Wilson will take the role of Social Media coordinator

• Oscar Barclay-Binning will take the role of Secretary

Finances and Membership

Finance

The sub-branch main expenditure was ussage of bulkSMS to contact members during the Hollyrood campaign (£57) which was reimbursed by Edinbrugh branch.

Membership Update

• August 2020 – 278

• September 2020 - 305

• January 2021 – 299

• April 2021 – 311

• May 2021 – 346

Elections

Holyrood election

Members from across the sub-branch supported the 2021 Holyrood General election campaign. Due to Covid restrictions, the campaign activity included almost exclusively material delivery (newsletters, postal vote letters, campaign cards) and window poster campaign. More than 40 volunteers delivered about 50 thousand materials.

Within the wards the sub-branch also coordinated A-Boards on election day.

Other activities

Monthly green discussions – the sub-branch has set up a monthly online meeting to discuss various topics, chosen by branch members. Topics included among others: Treatment of the trans community, Doughnut Economics, Cleveland Model, Madrid Superblocks, End of Monarchy.

Councillor update

Edinburgh council budget was amended to include 21 mil of extra Covid support funding. While most was directly spent on fighting the virus, 2mil was directed to fight homelessness and 800k on bike hire schemes. Other projects including funding were recycling, green energy and cycling support for the disabled.

Housing committee will analyse how to reduce energy usage from council housing.

Discussion where to locate the Gaelic secondary school, with our councilors supporting location in Leith, close to the existing primary school.

Plans for the upcoming year

• Continue to meet monthly (for the forseable future online, in longer term analyse a potential hybrid model)

• Support the 2022 Council campaign in Leith and Leith walk

• Increase membership and member engagement

For any further details please contact leith.leithwalk@scottishgreens.org.uk

Annual Report (Lothian MSPs)

**This report has been compiled by the branch Co-Convenors, Ben Parker and Kate Nevens**

The Lothian MSP team has changed over the past year following the resignation of Andy Wightman in December 2020, the election of Alison Johnstone MSP as Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament in May 2021 and the election of Lorna Slater MSP in May 2021. As a result, this report has been compiled from the monthly reports MSPs submitted over the year, and a latest report from Lorna Slater MSP after her first month in office. Full reports from our MSP and Councillor group can be read on the branch website: https://www.edinburghgreens.org.uk/msp-and-councillor-reports/

• October 2020
  Campaigning on the future of outdoor education centres, Covid-19 testing capacity and care home testing, ban on winter evictions, Mossmorran plant, and more. See the full report here.

• November 2020
  Campaigning on banning winter evictions, preparing for an unusual festive period, looking at the impact of COVID on gender, and more. See the full report here.

• December 2020 / January 2021
  In December 2020, former Lothian Green MSP Andy Wightman resigned from the party. Alison Johnstone MSP was on leave for health reasons during this time so no reports were received.

• February 2021
  Campaigning on action for the homeless, legal protections for mountain hares, addressing the climate emergency, and more. See the full report here.

• March/April/May 2021
  March April and May were focused on the Holyrood 2021 election campaign, where Alison Johnstone joined Lorna Slater and Kate Nevens as our top three candidates. We were delighted to secure the best ever Green result in Lothian achieving 50,000 votes and electing 2 Green MSPs for the region.

• June 2021
  Newly elected MSP Lorna Slater has written her first monthly report for the branch. It can be read in full here. As Lorna's report references, re-establishing the process for MSP reporting to the branch will be a priority for the new committee.

South East Edinburgh Greens Annual Report 2020-21

This report covers the period August 2020 to June 2021. It was a shorter year because 2019-20 was extended, in line with Edinburgh Branch, because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Green News

As usual, we produced Liberton/Gilmerton and Southside/Newington editions of Green News in the Autumn. Owing to concerns from delivery co-ordinators about not having enough volunteers because of the pandemic, we delivered fewer than usual:

• Liberton/Gilmerton: 3,500

• Southside/Newington: 10,000

The Spring edition was produced by the national office for the Holyrood 2021 campaign.

Fundraising and Finances

With no capitation income this year we set a £300 fundraising target to cover potential costs, however the only expenditure that we had this year was for a staple gun, used for putting posters on A-boards for the elections.

Auction of Promises

We asked branch members to submit a promise – something that they’d make (e.g. a crumble), or have already created (e.g. a handmade bag), or could do for someone else (e.g. cello lessons).

Promises were put up for auction via Facebook between 8 and 18 December, when the highest bids were announced.

£270 was raised.

https://www.edinburghgreens.org.uk/events/auction-of-promises/

Big Burns Night In

SEEG undertook this event on behalf of the branch as a Holyrood 2021 Campaign fundraiser, with Robin Liebmann (BOE) providing professional support. Originally we had hoped the event would be in person but it soon became clear that it would have to be online. This meant a steep learning curve for SEEG volunteers and Robin.

However, the online event turned out to be a wonderful occasion, and more than matched expectations. It drew together large numbers of people in creating the event, fostered a real sense of team unity.

£3,464 was raised.

https://www.edinburghgreens.org.uk/get-involved/fundraising/big-burns-night-in/

Transgender Policy sessions

The resignation of Andy Wightman in December drew attention to the party’s trans rights policy with members wanting to understand more.

SEEG were the first group to host the party’s educational workshop and followed that up with our own, more informal, discussion group.

Holyrood 2021

This campaign was all about delivering printed materials, as we were unable to canvass or have street stalls. The national campaign office produced a long list of materials to be delivered in a relatively short space of time.

Initially we were pessimistic about how much we could achieve. However, the Lothian campaign support officers were good at increasing our volunteer capacity (e.g. through phone banking) and in the end we delivered well over 25,000 items, made up of:

• Spring Newsletter

• Election Special Newsletter

• Postal vote letters

• Campaign cards

• Eve of poll cards

• Day of poll cards

We also delivered 250 window posters to supporters and members and put out A-boards at 17 polling stations.

Following the election, we had a thank-you social for volunteers at The Salisbury Arms. This was attended by around 28 people, including many new volunteers who got involved for the first time during the campaign.

Membership

We now have 220 members in our two council wards. This is an increase of 10% in the past year, and is at its highest for over 5 years.

We've developed a welcome information letter for new SEEG members, taking the branch version as a starting point.

Plan for 2021-22

The coming year will undoubtedly be dominated by the council elections in May 2022. Liberton/Gilmerton is a target ward for the first time with candidate, Leda Sharkey, already in place.

Southside/Newington have also been working on a ward plan of community action. SEEG members submitted ideas for issues they would like to work on and voted on them with the following coming top:

• Initiative to tackle overflowing bins

• Cameron Toll as 15 minute neighbourhood

• Make Southside solar

• Implementing the Deposit Returns Scheme

• ‘Clean Air for Southside’ campaign

With the Holyrood Campaign taking priority, detailed planning of these was put to one side until the summer.

Representation on the Branch Committee

John Nichol, who has been SEEG's representative on the Branch Committee since 2018, resigned from the post at this year's AGM.

Our newly elected representative is Breck MacGregor.

Edinburgh Branch to set up working group to review the relationship between the branch and elected reps and to draw up proposals for change, if required

Edinburgh Greens welcomes the decision of Edinburgh Radical Independence Campaign (RIC) to continue campaigning for Scottish self determination based on the sovereignty of the people and RIC's 5 principles:

• For a social alternative to austerity and privatisation

• Green and environmentally sustainable

• A modern republic for real democracy

• Committed to equality and opposition to discrimination on any grounds

• Internationalist and opposed to war, NATO and Trident

We further urge The Scottish Green Party at a national level to affiliate to and engage with the Radical Independence Campaign, following its recent conference on the theme "Why Scottish Independence is a Vehicle for Radical Change".

This motion instructs the Edinburgh Branch Committee to support the bid by CHOISS Edinburgh (Cohousing in Southern Scotland) to purchase Comiston Farmhouse from the City of Edinburgh Council, either by Community Asset Transfer or via the usual sale process, in order to establish a cohousing community.

Insert into EGP Constitution, Section 4 (after "As at 2020, the reserves would be set at £3000 for one year's running costs or £6000 for two years'."):

To make a payment which will reduce the branch reserves to below the equivalent of two years' running costs, the Treasurer will need the agreement of the Branch Committee. To make a payment which will reduce the branch reserves to below the equivalent of one year's running costs, the Treasurer will need the agreement (by simple majority) of the branch at a branch meeting.

This motion establishes a sub-branch of the Edinburgh Green Party, South Edinburgh Greens. The sub-branch is formed of members of the Morningside and Fairmilehead / Colinton local teams. The sub-branch is established under §4 of the branch standing orders and elects the following as its officers:

Co-Convenors: Emma Willson & Frances Guy
Secretaries: Susan Logie & Helen McCabe

Emma Willson will act as liaison with the Edinburgh branch committee under §4.7.1 of the branch standing orders.