Too much excitement is bad for a girl

Well, here we are at conference and already I have had to retire through injury. Not as I may have misled you with the title because the excitement proved too much but because the chest infection I had hoped was just a minor annoyance has turned into a full blown infection, bah.


BTW thanks to one loyal follower who told me she is enjoying the blog and that I shouldn't worry about being too grumpy (see first blog), it makes the more upbeat ones even better. I started to thank her before realising there hadn't been any upbeat updates and realised she was indeed accusing me of being grumpy. Hmm.


Despite chest infection, I was heroically in conference nearly all morning to listen to the tense debates around important structural changes. What! I hear you cry, What tense debates were those then??? Well there was one debate which made the morning more interesting but sadly that was it. So little debate has there been that we were well ahead of time by lunchtime and headed for an early bath. Either this morning was a testament to the quality of consultation that has taken place or branches have just lost the plot. Not sure which, frankly, but methinks its probably a bit of both. Not that anyone wants to return to the days of terrible scenes at the rostrum with constituencies being bitter and twisted about each other but a bit of considered debate wouldn't have gone amiss.


Thinking of considered debate, the most lively one was the internal debate I had about whether or not to go the joint WAC and RAC fringe meeting. Having not gone to the Equality do last night (tucked up by 11, much good it did me) I kind of thought I should. But then I looked at the flyer. No subject, no speakers, just come along and hear what work the committees have been doing for the past year. Did that last year and really wasn't too impressed at the reports such as the conference working party of the WAC who decided how many chairs were needed for delegates to sit on. I like to think I take an interest in all the equality committees but especially the WAC. I'd love to hear what they've been doing all year as I have yet to see any outcomes. There has been debate around proportionality but no lead on this issue from the WAC or any of the other committees. Isn't it time they decided if they want it, if so what form it takes and then plan how they are going to achieve it, or change the rule if they don't want it at all? The committees are under attack and yet have not taken the opportunity presented by conference to prove their worth. Turkeys and Christmas come to mind. So rather than go and be depressed beyond measure I went and got my prescription and headed back to the hotel. I will check with sisters later but hope that turned out to be the wrong decision, though I suspect not.


For the record, I am dropping my position on reserved seats. I actually believe that more fundamental change is needed and also that until the sisters start getting their act together, deciding what they want and actually putting some work in to achieve it, I have done all I can. I will still support women throughout the union as I generally think I have, but time to bow out of that debate.


The most interesting thing for me about conference and the agenda is that of all the worthy (but generally inaccurate, ill conceived or misguided) papers that were floating about over the last few months and spawning facebook pages etc., have just died a death. They are not reflected in the rule changes nor are they really reflected in the general conference agenda. I could speculate about why not but am guessing this blog has already got me in enough trouble...x