SYG 2022-23 | July Newsletter
Hey everyone, I’m Evan Macdonald (he/him) and I’ll be taking over the newsletter from the amazing Sophie Brodie as your newly elected Membership Officer.
I’ve definitely got big shoes to fill but I’m extremely excited to get started working on all things membership!
It’s been internal elections season within the party and I’d like to give a massive congratulations to everyone who stood for a role, no matter the result you should feel proud of what you achieved and remember there’s always next year! We managed to get many of us youths elected, including a fully young green membership committee, which is incredible! (Hope you don’t notice I was elected to it too and my blatant self praise here!). Excited to see what all of us can achieve after our Young Green wave.
GET INVOLVED
Stuff you can do to join the crew
Due to being busy with elections, we haven’t been able to plan many SYG events or things (Don’t worry, still much to come my friend). In the meantime, make sure to join our Slack group!
In Slack, we’ve got it all: The chance to meet and chat to other young-greens, be the first to find out about upcoming events, frequent engagement posts in the #blether channel and Custom. Young Green. Emojis! So be sure to join to get all the young green goodness.
(P.S. We’ll be having an emoji competition to create a new one, so make sure to join to have the chance for your emoji to be created!)
UPDATES
❗ What’s been going on? ❗
Of course our main update here will be our great Green Govan AGM which saw our new committee stand and be elected. (*In election returning officer voice*) The full list of candidates elected along with their roles is as follows:
Co-convenor: Sophie Brodie (@sophiebrodie99)
Co-Convenor: Alyson Mackay (@Alyson_K_Mackay)
Secretary: Edan Hughes
Elections & Campaigns Officer: Niall McGeechan (@NiallMcGeechan)
Welfare Officer: Harry Quinn
Social Media Officer: Daniel Hooper-Jones (@danhojo)
Website & Content Officer: Neil Watson (NeilW96)
Membership Officer: Yours truly, (@EvanFM03)
Policy Officer: Ryan Kelly (@Ryryster)
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Officer: Heather Gilda
International Officer: Cameron Garrett (@CameronG_1702)
Events Officer: Eryn Browning
Ordinary Member: Stewart Rooney (@_stewart04)
Ordinary Member: Kaelan Donnachie
I’m sure all of us are really excited to begin our SYG term and are looking forward to all the amazing things we can achieve this year, I know I am!
WE HEREBY STAN…
📢 Shout-outs for seriously fantastic folks
For my first shoutout of the Young Green newsletter there is nobody I can think of but my amazing predecessor Sophie Brodie. Sophie has done so much during her time on the SYG committee from being the SYG god of Slack and supporting young green candidates in the local elections, all the while running as candidate herself in Armadale and Blackridge ward where she over doubled the Green vote share.
OPPORTUNITIES ‘N THAT
Represent, consult, write!
🧠 FYEG Mental Health Activity
The FYEG are looking for Green members to take part in its closing conference “All Politics is Mental Health Politics: FYEG”. The activity will focus on mental health among youth and will take place during the 11-13 of November. They are looking for 70 people to come join them in Brussels. Click here for more info
❓ SYP exams consultation
The Scottish Youth parliament is looking for people ages 12-22 to share their views on the future of qualifications and exams in Scotland. Check out Zainab’s tweet to get in touch.
✍️ Call for Green writers
FYEG are looking for writers and contributions for their independent and participatory magazine The Ecosprinter. This years printed edition is all about food and will feature a collection of articles, stories, interviews and even comic strips from across Europe about the different impacts food has and were we get it from. The deadline to sign up is the 30th November and you can do that here. Would be great to see lots of SYG projects in the printed issue!
GOOD NEWS!
Eurovision 🎤
I’m sure you’ve heard that Eurovision is coming to the UK next year and if you’ve been on Twitter at all lately, it’s truly enraptured with debate on where the camp contest should come. I’m sure many of you reading will feel very strongly about this as well.
There’ve been calls for it to go to Edinburgh, Glasgow and there’s even been a Twitter account set up for it to come to Dumfries. I’m, personally, still holding out for Eurovision in Dalkeith Country Park, but it’s not looking too likely for me.
Still, wherever it ends up being I’m sure many of you will be sitting in the online checkout queue to get tickets, ready to go the length and breadth of the country to see the contest in real life and I wish you people the best of luck!
EVENTS
Fill your diaries!
Events will be posted in the #event-announcements channel in the Slack (in case you needed anymore reason to join)
For now, make sure to sign up for the party’s next AGM in sunny Dundee! It’s on the 15th of October and runs over to the 16th. This is a great opportunity to meet party members if you’re new, to vote chance to vote on party motions and help shape our party or even for a night out with some fellow Greens afterwards. You can register here to go in person or online here.
We also understand that some people who wish to go to the conference IRL may not be able to afford it. To alleviate this, the party has allocated a Conference Access Fund to cover the costs of transport, accommodation and more. Please check out this link for more info.
Thank you for reading my first newsletter. If you enjoyed there’s plenty more to come.
I wish everyone a happy August with a one last reminder to join Slack!
Evan Macdonald (he/him)
SYG Membership Officer 2022-23
@EvanFM03