A very long time ago, the BBC decided to cover Green Party conference on Live TV. The chairs started a minute attunement, a tradition of holding a minute's silence at the start of a meeting. It did not go down well! The BBC cut the feed and had a bit of a panic about it, and basically stopped bothering.
A lot has changed since then. We had Members of European Parliament, we won them in many regions. Then we left the European Union and continued to increase the number of Green Councillors, approaching 900. The only remaining proportional seats are 3 London Assembly members and soon some in Wales, and there are 4 Members of Parliament. Even in those areas, they are very focused on target seats. That means not making a big splash, not relying on newspaper coverage and air time, but getting on with the job of delivering local Green News letters, speaking to voters on their doorsteps, and really focusing on the local community.
Most parties have a "conference season" where parliament has a quick break and they head to seaside locations or big convention centres in Birmingham and Manchester. The big 2 parties are professionalised and the conference can last around a week.
By comparison, Greens and Liberal Democrats spend time debating motions and voting as members. They tend to have 2 national conferences a year. The trouble is, "Spring Conference" always used to clash with the election campaign! The timing varied, but it was generally before a local election, which is really important to the Greens. But there is very little benefit of a conference towards winning elections: debating policies that seem disconnected from pot holes and dog poo, applauding leaders speeches delivered by people who most people in your patch have never heard of and can not name, because we get so little TV coverage as a smaller party. Green Party conferences sometimes make money but the cost is borne from the individual and it tends to end up in a different pot of money. If people don't buy enough tickets, it makes a loss, making the staff team incentivised to sell tickets rather than do their job of getting greens elected. Conferences I have attended have meant sleeping on floors, drinking and socialising late into the night, but early starts to set up and get to workshops. So I usually spend about a day or a week afterwards recovering from infections (though since covid I only attended online, I've seen the talk of who has the lurgy) and catching up on sleep. Since leaving Policy Development Committee I've decided it's not a good use of my time and energy and just given someone else my proxy vote and watched from the comfort of my desk at home. It meant less networking and socialising, but I already know people, and I already know a lot of conference regulars.
For instance, the Young Greens used to make money from Workers Beer Company. But a major stream of income for them has often been the Young Greens quiz, which includes a raffle. Because many people leave half way through, the Young Greens got to keep a lot of the raffle prizes. I had a great book by Sian Berry for a while.
For years, there was talk of what a bad idea it is for a party to up sticks and send its main people to a "spring" conference just when they should be focused on local campaigning, or going to places where there is local campaigning. In Brighton that wasn't a problem: they had a stand and you could pick up a round of newspapers and deliver them in your own time, in fresh air! In Yorkshire, we went on a little peace march, just conference participants. Some conferences had a photo call. But these are generally resource-intensive.
Some people attend conference and focus on governance and organisational matters. Others find this boring stuff irrelevant and really want to get stuck into policy motions. Some are controversial, others go through without much opposition. At some point they introduced "fast tracked" motions.
I have tried attending conference Thursday through Sunday. Usually on Sunday the time gets extended 1 hour from the chair. Sometimes conference has run into Mondays.
I think there's always been a sense we should abolish spring conference and one day we actually did it. A motion came to abolish spring conference. Members pushed it through.
All the while, there is policy fest, sometimes 2 a year, that is really useful and focused on policy.
As well as that there is the AGM which for some reason the powers that be set the quorum level too high, so when we turned up on the zoom, nothing could be decided.
The idea was to use the time saved at Spring conference to have regional conferences instead. We did one in London; that was only the 2nd one we ever did. It takes time, effort and resources of the busy volunteers and activists that run things. It was a pleasant change from the many online remote meetings we have had.
In conclusion, Spring conference was abolished for good reasons. Conference, which is a tiny minority of even the active membership, voted to bring back Spring conference. But this is only if it is approved by the executive or something like that. That way, if we can't afford it or don't feel it's appropriate, we aren't forced to have one. This has created uncertainty and the regional council has been on hand to advise whether or not to bother planning a regional conference.
I have attended many conferences. I have been told by the real professionals in the party they are often the same. I just wonder if the time and money would be more effective spent elsewhere. For me it is all the work missed, which is particularly busy on a Friday. I also don't like the way I am expected to work on a Saturday, as a Jewish member, and Jewish Greens meetup is little comfort being away from home. If I were a candidate I would probably be encouraged to attend. If I were Policy Development Committee I would have to attend. There is a conference access fund but it has limits on how many times it can be used and there is not enough to go round. It can not cover things like food, recovering afterwards, and missed work.
If it is brought back, decision-makers should consult everyone effected and think of the welfare of the party as a whole, its members, local and regional parties. They could ponder what is the point of a conference that gets barely any media coverage, that spend a day arguing about one governance report, and that is easy to access for an unrepresentative minority of members.
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