National communications in party emails, social media and the website usually focus on the successes of our MSP group. While their hard work is crucial in promoting our wider vision to the people of Scotland, this approach often leaves the achievements of our branches, councillors and representative groups unmentioned, and unfortunately, many party supporters and members have limited knowledge of these groups' activities. Giving more attention to the amazing work they do will show a wider audience that our actions go beyond our great work in the Scottish Parliament. This will strengthen us as a party, both at the national and at the local level.

The draft Policy Motion on a 'peace with nature' constitution has been available in the Members' Forum since July 2023. It was discussed at a Policy Week session (recording available here), where Astri of the Policy Committee advised that branch support would help ensure that it is prioritised for debate at the Autumn 2024 Conference - hence this Branch Motion.

The Policy Motion seeks to amend policy (PRD 10.1.2) that calls for a written Scottish Constitution, by asking Greens to make the case for three linked ideas:

1. that principles of ecological sustainability exist at a higher level than human laws, and are binding in a different and inescapable way;

2. that conflict between those principles and human laws leads to danger for nature and people, so where it exists human laws must be corrected; and

3. that effective, accessible and fair ways are needed to identify and amend or strike down laws that violate safe Earth system or 'planetary' boundaries.

The Policy Motion calls for these ideas to be articulated by declaring peace with nature within the Scottish Constitution, and for them to be put into effect by establishing a specialised constitutional court to hear and resolve public appeals against laws and practices that may violate Earth system boundaries.

The ultimate goal is to reverse the subordinate position of nature in recent centuries, and to enable the re-balancing of all laws and practices accordingly, against a vision of founding a viable successor culture by 2085. A key starting point is the influential 'Peace with Nature' policy of the Government of Costa Rica since 2007 (as described on the Members' Forum), which is why this particular phrase is used here.

If I am chosen, I plan to work on raising the profile of the achievements of Edinburgh Green Councillors and our Green MSP. A lot of positive change is being made, and it feels like we're just getting started. Knowledge that exists among regular members can play a part in this, as well as facilitating councillors to produce video content as an immediate medium for reaching members in an accessible way. Communicating how folk can get involved and generating some momentum coming up to the local elections in 2026 will be also key. In the next bit I'll share a bit about a few of the things I've been involved in recently, but the plan for this year is to simplify my life and focus more on the Party!

I have been on the committee for a year now as comms officer, and I was involved as an ordinary member for the year before that as well. I'm going to shamelessly take the opportunity to plug a video I collaborated on producing, which is being shown at the Pedal Power cycling campaigning exhibition at Museum of Edinburgh! I took photos for the Breakup of Britain conference in November as well. But being an officer is more than about the technical skill of producing a result, and since moving back to 2020 I've been trying to put myself out there organising things in bicycle campaigning. Last summer I had the honour of collaborating with Porty Ride and Porty Community Energy on running a bicycle ride to celebrate Pride.

For practical reasons alone (the AGM falls in the middle of an election campaign) I hope the branch will return me as Elections Agent for a succesive year. It's a role I've successfully fulfilled for over a decade in total.

I think the Sub-Branch and Member Support working group is just getting started on giving sub-branches and the members within them the toolkit and support to be engaged and effective, and with the lessons learned from 2022/23, would like to stay on as officer, which I now have more time to dedicate work to. If returned to post, I will focus first on finding and co-opting another officer so that we can hold each other accountable and make more regular progress than in the last year.

Having held the office of Elections Agent , formerly Election Liaison for nearly a decade, I returned to the post in 2023. I am in the process of nominating the seven UK general election candidates for the branch, who have all appointed me their election agent for them.

I served on the Sub-Branch and Member Support working group in 2022/23 and became sole officer in the group for 2023/24. I feel the group made significant progress in this year, formalising the role of sub-branches, performing health checks on our sub-branches, and organising a new members' event and sub-branches awayday during the year.

I have now retired from full-time employment and anticipate no conflict or overload from holding two posts for another year.

I have been and ordinary member of the Comms Group for the last year, primarily responsible for coordinating Green News content across the branches It is a friendly group which I have enjoyed being part of. It has been satisfying seeing getting Green News into the hands of the sub-branches.

• Experience in coordinating Green News across the sub-branches

• Some experience with the audiovisual equipment at AUC for the hybrid branch meetings

• Some product and project managemnt experience.

• Slight data anlysis skills. (I made the graphs for the last member communications survery)

I have been an oridinary member of the Events & Engagement Working Group in 23/24 supporting events such as the Spring Conference Social and Green Walks. In 24/25, I would like to support more engagement actvities with non party members and devise ways of increasing the number of branch members.

I have gained skills and experience in organising events as ordinary member of the Events & Engagement Working Group this year. I work as a Project Manager/Director so have organisational skills for managing events and have been social secretary in various socieities in uni and offices I've worked in.

My preference is for ordinary member - campaigns group. If elected, I'd help out wherever needed with the UK election campaign, and follow any arrangements for the outgoing committee to complete the campaign. When the focus shifts on to the Holyrood and local elections, I'd like to support sub-branches, especially those with less volunteer capacity, to build towards helping to elect MSPs and gaining or holding council seats.

As well as practical support, I'm interested in monitoring the next council ward boundaries and seat numbers review, and analysing the effects of this on how winnable all wards are in 2027. I feel it's important that sub-branches understand any changes, and have meaningful input into decisions on choosing target wards.

I'm a leafleting volunteer organiser for half of Liberton/Gilmerton, and also canvassed and leafleted there to help increase our vote to around 1% off winning a seat in 2022. I also organised canvassing and leafleting runs for the Corstorphine/Murrayfield by-election last year, and have volunteered on election campaigns since joining in early 2014. I can use Doras and have analysed canvassing returns and local election results to identify new areas to target.

Being part of the comms team has been really enjoyable, particularly working with the rest of the committee and interacting with so many members. I would sincerely like to continue playing a part in supporting and promoting the policies and activities of the party branch, which I feel does an excellent job. While this past year involved finding our footing as a group, with more experience, we want to continue working on many of the things we think are still in progress.

Grim determination to never miss a deadline...

I would like to contribute to the branch by working on engaging events for members, our allied social movements and the electorate. I am ambitious for the long-term growth of the party and want to collaborate with members both on internal events that reach not only existing active members but also those paper members who would become active if reached out to in the right way. In particular I am keen to engage neurodivergent members, working-class communities and allied social movements in the climate movement and beyond. The party is its members.

I have been involved in many diverse activist and political groups since 2009 and am keen to connect up different groups who should be active alliance with each other. I enjoy hosting events and working collaboratively both as part of a team but also with external groups. I am also happy to seize the iniaitive when I spot an opportunity - I am equally happy to be told "no" by colleagues when I'm too enthusiastic!

Professionally I am a student Community Educator. My core professional values are collaboration, collaboration, collaboration. My training in ComEd has given me theoretical and practical skills and experience in bringing diverse groups together. I've lived in intentional communities and am very used to diplomacy :)

I wish to help the Green Party succeed

Organisation

enthusiasm

sociability

I have been a relatively active member of either the Scottish or English and Welsh Green Party for the last 11 years in a range of capacities. I recently moved back to Edinburgh after a couple of years away and would like to get more involved with the Edinburgh branch. I feel my previous experience in grassroots organising, fundraising and events would be beneficial to the events and fundraising working group.

I have experience working and volunteering in fundraising and running events. I regularly facilitate both in-person and online workshops and events.

As a Green Party member I have helped coordinate a target to win council election strategy as the deputy convenor of the Wychavon branch, worked with Steve Burgess on coffee waste/the latte levy, set up socials, run member calling sessions, written newsletters, managed newsletter delivery, supported with fundraising and hosted events. For the SEEG branch specifically I have supported with fundraising activities coming up with the idea for the Auction of Promises, helped with the Climate Festival stall, helped with the online Burns Night during COVID, and been a newsletter delivery coordinator.

I really enjoy supporting a team to do well and this is what I think branch co-convening is all about. I’ve been elected to this role for the past three years and would like to stand again for three reasons.

Firstly, I’m motivated by Green values and want to play a part in delivering more Green elected reps and Green wins here in Edinburgh.

Secondly, there is more I’d like to do to build on and improve how we operate as a branch and engage more active members across Edinburgh.

Lastly, I enjoy working with the branch committee and Councillors – while co-convening can involve a lot of work and be challenging at times, it can also be a lot of fun to be part of this group of committed and like-minded people.

I’ve been an SGP member for many years and active in a national committee or branch role for over 10 of those, so I understand how the Party functions and what's involved in running the Branch.

In my day job I’m a manager for an environmental charity, where I’ve worked for over 20 years. That role is all about team leadership, project and budget management, problem solving, collaboration and partnership working – experience and skills I can bring to this role.

I’m confident facilitating discussions, chairing meetings, running events, and generally keeping things well organised and on track. I’m also not daunted by multi-tasking or roles that involve lots of moving parts, which is essential in the co-convenor role.

We need to get more Greens elected to the city chambers and to parliament as the other parties unfortunately aren't capable of more than warm words on critical issues. As part of the campaigns group I would like to help with ensuring that our campaigns are the best that they can be.

In my professional life I am a civil engineer which requires me to organise projects and teams, making and executing project plans. For the Greens I have experience of playing a leading role in planning and organising the Edinburgh Greens campaigns for:

• 2019 Westminster

• 2021 Holyrood

• 2022 Council

During those campaigns I helped prepare and update the campaign plan and campaign spreadsheets. I also organised and lead campaign team meetings and branch engagement activities.

Hello! I'm Michael (he/him) and I am running to be a member of the Communications Working Group as my first preference, but I am also open to being on the Sub-branches & Member Support Working Group.

I've been really inspired from my own social media getting out the vote for the EU election and from Glasgow branch, and I would like to see if we can make better use of Instagram and other non-Twitter platforms by adapting our graphics to work better for these platforms.

I quite enjoy making graphics, writing (and re-writing) articles, trying to distile big ideas into something more comprehensible. If you give me your #1 vote, I can promise that I'll get our green wins the attention they deserve!

I have been really active over the last couple years, with some highlights being:

• Vice Convenor and before that Membership Secretary of North Lanarkshire Branch, delivering outreach to our new members and social media

• I'm the Young Greens International Officer. I represented the party at the European Greens Congress, helping finalise the manifesto for the European elections and I helped deliver GOTV for those elections here in Edinburgh, including lots of social media content, posters, and general comms.

I understand Communications quite well thanks to broadcast media training from NEON. I'm an experienced campaigner around social and climate issues, and I often make the case for these causes in the media.

Having held the post of Communications Officer for two years, I'd like to stand for election as an ordinary member of the Communications Working Group to be able to focus on specific tasks, such as:

• Updating and developing our Comms Guide

• Improving the event accessibility information on our website

• Helping to develop a team of content creators and editors for our communications

I can also work on e-newsletters and the website as needed.

I've been a Scottish Greens member since 2009, and a comms volunteer most of that time, working on Green News, website, e-newsletter, media library and social media. I'm active in my sub-branch, currently admin secretary and a leaflet delivery organiser. I work in comms in my day job.