NEL Greens Annual Report

North Edinburgh and Leith Greens: Annual Report
2026

This report is available as a formatted PDF:
https://members.greens.scot/file/nel-greens-annual-report-2025-6pdf

We are pleased to publish a report of North Edinburgh and Leith sub-branch’s
activities in the period June 2025 – May 2026.

The sub-branch covers three council wards (Forth, Leith, and Leith Walk), and
has a very high concentration of Green members and voters. All wards have a
Green councillor: Kayleigh O'Neill in Forth, Chas Booth in Leith, and Susan Rae
in Leith Walk.

Contact us at nel@scottishgreens.org.uk

Committee

The subbranch committee was:

Unless otherwise noted, the committee was elected at our AGM in June 2025.

Membership

As of 20 May 2026, the membership stands at 650, which is +46% compared to last
year). This comprises 119 members in Forth (+44%), 202 in Leith (+44%), and 329
in Leith Walk (+42%).

The membership secretary continued to engage new members via welcome emails and
phone calls.

Meetings and events

The sub-branch held monthly hybrid meetings at Leith Community Centre (with
breaks in August and December). There were typically attended by 10-16 members
and followed by social drinks at the Lioness of Leith.

Social events included a litter pick in Leith Links organised by Morgane Perez-
Huet, a Christmas party organised by Mariusz Cebulski, and post-election drinks
at Lost in Leith organised by James T. Harding.

Scottish Parliament Election

The sub-branch was directly involved in three interlinked campaigns:

A large number of volunteers were involved in the sub-branch campaign, peaking
with 41 people out and about on polling day. Members from NEL were also involved
in key roles across the branch, including comms, finance, volunteer management,
events, candidate support, and even one of the lead campaign officers.

Door-knocking was the most popular campaign activity, with 15 full sessions
taking place and myriad additional mini-sessions hosted by Kate Nevens and other
candidates. Attendance ranged from 6 to 17. We recorded a total of 1247 doorstep
conversations, of which 681 (55%) were rated G1 or G2.

We took the approach of splitting door-knock organisation into different roles:
Route Wizard, Doras Wrangler, Marketing Maven, Clipboard Juggler, and The Face.
Special thanks to Soh Xi Ken for organising the most door-knocking days. Pauline
Ward much improved accessibility for door-knocking by conducting access surveys
in some key areas of Forth.

Over 30 thousand campaign cards, posters and canvassing cards were hand
delivered.(This does not include targeted letters or freepost sent by the
party.) Deliveries were ably coordinated by Lennie Sefton, Ian McCormick,
Mariusz Cebulski and Ian Cowan.

Special campaign events included a Let’s Get Started campaign launch at St James
in Leith in September, and an all-day stall at Leith Police Box the weekend
before polling day which featured live music by Rosie Bristow and Toni Santoyo
McLeod as well as the brand-new Edinburgh Greens-branded gazebo. NEL members
were involved in the branch fundraiser Celidh, the Queens for Greens drag night,
the Songs of Care concert, a community meal at Hibs Stadium, and a variety of
engaging Green Talks.

A-boards were provided by the branch and were cleaned and fixed up together with
East Edinburgh Greens. Ian McCormick acted as coordinator for distribution,
creating routes to maximise efficiency for distribution and collection.

On polling day, Ian and Katherine McCormick kindly hosted a NEL HQ in their
flat, creating a space for volunteers to collect materials, refuel and recharge.
Jula Kinross organised snacks and drinks for volunteers, culminating in dinner
for twenty in the evening.

The three most key polling stations were attended continuously from 8am to 8pm
on polling day, with volunteers handing off materials in relay. Other polling
stations were covered on a more flexible basis, with volunteers collecting
materials from HQ and attending as availability and energy levels allowed. A
camping chair was available to assist with attendance, and polling-place staff
granted access to baby-change facilities at Leith Library.

We undertook GOTV tactics for the first time, which involved revisiting people
who were previously door-knocked to remind them to vote and address any last-
minute questions. Most of the routes were done twice, once in the morning and
once at 5pm.

On count day, five NEL members were involved in ballot sampling and gathered
valueable data which can be used to further optimise campaign activity going
forward.

Green News

The sub-branch wrote and delivered two editions of Green News during the year
period.

Finances

The sub-branch budget for January to December 2026 is £350 and we are projected
to be in surplus by the end of the year.

The largest expense is meeting-room hire at £150 annually.

A gazebo was purchased using the branch participatory budget.

Plans for the coming year

The coming year is included in the Strategic Plan for 2026-27.

The influx of new members and volunteers represents an exciting new opportunity
for the year ahead, which includes a Council Election with the potential to
elect a record number of Green councillors. The sub-branch aims to capitalise on
and continue this momentum, making it easier, more accessible, and more fun than
ever before for members and volunteers to get involved, and promoting the
wellbeing of those who choose to do so.