Cardiff and Vale RCN Branch AGM Review of 2011

1. Cardiff and Vale RCN Branch AGMReview of 2011 Rachel Hart 15/11/2011

2. Aim • To reflect on the previous year and plan for a productive and organised year ahead

3. What went well? • This section asks us to reflect on areas such as regular meetings, increase in number of activists/ members attending, successful fund raising, successful conference and study days, involvement in lobby or campaigning. • Monthly meetings were held; • Introduction of tea, coffee biscuit at meetings; • You will hear in a moment reports form representatives how extremely busy and hard they have worked this past year dealing with outcomes of organisational change due to the financial situation ; • The increased number of volume of cases each representative has managed;

4. What was not so good? • Reduced number of members/activist at Branch Meetings; • Challenges with organisation and communication; • Recruitment; • Need more representatives • Poor attendance to branch by members and activits some meeting were not quorate(held anyway)

5. Why! • Staff, RCN members, activists generally low motivation at present due to current financial climate and organisational change; • Better communication systems.

6. Proposals and plans for future activities and events using the RCN’s ‘Strategic Plan’.

7. What is the strategic plan? • The RCN strategic plan for 2008 to 2013, Forward Together, was launched at Congress on Monday 28 April 2008. • The strategic plan defines what is important to the RCN; setting out the organisation's aims and aspirations. • The strategic plan continues to support the RCN's overall mission to represent nurses and nursing, promote excellence in practice and shape health policy

8. There are 10 key goals focusing on: • Building an organisation which values both the professional and trade union functions; • Engaging members and staff and their clinical and workforce talents and experience; • Strengthening the RCN as the leading authority on nursing on health and social care; • Embracing the wider nursing family and furthering strategic activities in our membership, our networks and with employers; • Campaigning for nursing, health care and patients;

9. Cont... • Strengthening accountability in our governance structure; • Maximising the RCN's contributing to improving the health and wellbeing of the national, EU and international population; • Enabling structures and processes to value diversity; • Building the RCN as a business; • Communicating the responsibilities the RCN has given its current charitable status and consider how this should develop in the future.

10. Ideas from this strategic plan • Run a member campaign • Run a representative recruitment campaign • Contact local forum groups and develop joint activities • Arrange a study or branch conference • Network with adjacent branches and plan joint events • Identify a local issue and focus on this • Promote branch to any independent sector • Develop a branch newsletter • Working with Learning Reps to Organise study days / study event at a branch meeting • Presentations by RCN reps regarding a committee that that sit on • Attending Congress and submitting a resolution

11. Current Campaigns

12. Campaigns • Frontline First