I am emailing you to update you on the outcomes of UNA-UK’s General Meeting held on 24 November 2011.
I am delighted to inform you that at the meeting members voted overwhelmingly for the adoption of our new four-year strategic plan, Striving for Change, which was developed in consultation with the membership over the past 12 months.
General Meeting
The General Meeting also voted by a large majority – over 75% – for UNA-UK to merge into a new charitable organisation, along with The UNA Trust, subject to Charity Commission approval. The new organisation will continue to use the name ‘UNA-UK’.
The strategic plan and all other documents pertaining to the General Meeting are available at www.una.org.uk/generalmeeting (members who would like hard copies can contact Hayley Richardson on 020 7766 3454 or richardson@una.org.uk). The draft minutes of this meeting are available by clicking here.
There was a healthy debate on the proposals at the General Meeting, which I welcome. It is good to see the passion there is within our organisation. The Board and I understand from the meeting that a number of questions remain about the direction the organisation is taking. I hope that some of these questions will be addressed in the document ‘UNA-UK General Meeting on 24 November 2011 – Update to Members’.
I also hope that the convincing majority achieved for the proposals, both at the meeting and in the feedback we received from the membership prior to that, will be seen as evidence of the strong support we have from the wider membership to move forward in this way. It will now be up to the Board and Executive to implement the decision of members in the most effective way possible.
UN Forum 2012
Finally, I wanted you to be one of the first to know that the date for UN Forum 2012 is now confirmed as Saturday 14 July and the location will be the Institute of Education in central London. With over 1,000 attendees expected, this prestigious one-day UNA-UK event will be one of the largest civil society conferences on the United Nations to be held in the UK in recent decades. Registration will go live in early January and UNA-UK members will receive a generous discount on tickets. There will be strong demand for this event so if you would like us to send you and anyone you know a special email as soon as booking opens, please complete the form at www.una.org.uk/first2know.
I look forward to working with you all in making UNA-UK ever more relevant to global trends in the second decade of this century.
Yours sincerely,
Sir Jeremy Greenstock GCMG
Chairman, UNA-UK Board of Directors