South East Edinburgh Greens (SEEG)

This report covers SEEG (South East Edinburgh Greens) sub-branch activities over
the period June 2025 to May 2026.

Membership

Our sub-branch membership grew nearly 40% from 221 to 308.

We have 77 members in Liberton/Gilmerton ward and 231 members in
Southside/Newington ward.

As well as a growing active membership, we have some non-member volunteers who
were active in the Holyrood election campaign.

Meetings and events

Regular sub-branch meetings

Our monthly meetings were mostly occupied with Holyrood election campaign
planning, Green News delivery, and Branch events (e.g. the Sub-branches Away
day). They were all in-person at Nelson Hall (hybrid meetings don’t work well
because of the room acoustics).

Our Southside-Newington councillor, Steve Burgess, gives a regular update on
both city-wide and local Council matters. We also get occasional Community
Council updates and have discussed progress of the Friends of Holyrood Park
initiative.

We tried out a new format, intending to have full meetings and more relaxed
discussion groups on alternate months. This has been well-received, although
election campaigning meant we only had two of the social discussion type. We
will get back to these when election campaigning pressure eases off.

Green News

We delivered 6,000 copies of a Summer 2025 edition in Liberton/Gilmerton, and
10,000 copies of an Autumn/Winter edition in Southside/Newington.

The Holyrood election campaign plan didn’t include Spring editions.

Our delivery organisation network is a bit patchy. We no longer have local
delivery organisers to manage volunteers in some parts of Southside/Newington,
where in previous years we regularly delivered 12,000 to 14,000 copies. However,
our capacity has improved in Liberton/Gilmerton, where in the past we sometimes
only managed 3,000 copies.

Holyrood election campaign

We held a 'Let’s Get Started' meeting in October, which attracted some new
people, both members and non-members. From there, we started running canvassing
sessions, holding two in late 2025, then gradually ramping up frequency to two
per week by April 2026.

Our canvassing operation had to start from scratch, as we previously relied on
the late John Palmer to organise and lead sessions. Also, we had done very
little canvassing in Southside/Newington ward for several years (apart from the
Westminster 2024 campaign). However, we gained experience and confidence, and by
the end of the campaign had a solid group of experienced canvassers.

Our canvassing, leaflet delivery, and polling day operations generally went well
- it was certainly our biggest-ever campaign. Volunteer numbers increased as the
campaign progressed, but were still a constraint limiting our activity. The most
visually impressive part of our campaign was getting Vote Green posters up in
windows, particularly in the Southside.

The successful election campaign has greatly boosted our confidence and
capacity, standing us in good stead for the forthcoming Southside/Newington by-
election and the 2027 Council election.

Appendix - Office Bearers 2025-26