Job role: secretary

A strong and dynamic CLP Secretary can ensure an outward-looking and vibrant local Labour Party. This role suits an organised individual who can work as part of a team, show initiative and able to juggle many responsibilities.

As Secretary you will act as a Labour Party figurehead in your constituency and it will be you who makes your party a strong, vibrant, welcoming and effective unit.

Key Responsibilities and Tasks

  • Work with other officers to put together a 12 month development plan, covering specific targets such as elections, campaign organising and capacity building.
  • Set up effective digital and traditional communication systems.
  • Maintaining accurate contact details for members through MemberCentre and providing membership information to other officers as required.
  • Working to ensure your CLP is welcoming and friendly to new people, well organised and an open and fair place where members feel involved and have a stake in the direction of the CLP.
  • Supporting the CLP to be an active, campaigning local movement where local members are encouraged to get involved as much as possible.
  • Developing a strong and consistent communications strategy, making sure that all of your members are well informed on party activity.
  • Ensuring Standing Orders are up to date and comply with Labour Party rules. For more advice and help on this, you can contact your regional office. Information on where to find their contact details is in the useful links and contact details section below.
  • Working with branch officers where appropriate to ensure they are confident and supported in their roles.

Activity

A rich variety of activity throughout the year will not only ensure that the party will have a strong presence in your area, but will also make sure that everybody gets the most out of their membership.

All officers of the CLP have a duty to provide opportunities for others to become involved, and to make sure community events and activities are organised to involve people in the local community.

You should aim to have a range of different campaigning activities, social events, coffee mornings and policy discussions. You should try to bring guest speakers along to events as well as making sure every member has met your MP or candidate.

Meetings

 You should work along with your CLP Chair to arrange the time, date and venue for meetings in good time. You will have a lot of functional business to go through at your meetings, but please make sure that they are interesting and welcoming.

It is important to have political discussions and lively debates at meetings.

However, it is also the Secretary’s responsibility to ensure that meetings and discussions relate to the following key functions of the CLP:

  • Campaigning – campaigning for change in the local community and campaign to get our candidates elected at elections.
  • Membership work – welcoming new members, recruiting new members and finding new supporters.
  • Fundraising – making sure your CLP has the money it needs to campaign by confirming a programme of social events as well as other fundraising activity. You will need to work closely with the CLP Secretary and Treasurer to do this.
  • Policy discussion – make sure this is interesting and engaging.

As Secretary you should ensure that comprehensive minutes of the meeting are recorded and circulated afterwards. You may also wish to distribute copies of any relevant correspondence in support of your minutes.

Working with Branches

CLPs with a branch structure should work with and offer support to branch officers to share out tasks and ensure information is disseminated through the CLP. Particularly in larger CLPs, delegating work to branches will make your job easier and lead to a more effective and cohesive CLP.

  • It is the responsibility of CLP officers to ensure branch officers are fully supported and confident in their roles. You should ensure that important information is cascaded down to branch level, and that any training opportunities are also offered to branch officers.
  • Organise one-to-ones with new Branch Secretaries, so you can talk through the role and pass on any important information.
  • Branch Secretaries and Branch Membership Secretaries are able to access MemberCentre for their branches, so make sure these roles are up to date on MemberCentre and that they know how to use the system. This should save you time too as you won’t need to provide membership lists to branches.
  • Ensure you communicate what CLP meetings will be covering with branch secretaries in advance, so this isn’t duplicated at branch meetings and so important information is discussed at branch level.
  • Think about appointing branch captains or buddies who can help with member engagement work and to welcome new members.
  • Get good communication systems in place and regular meetings with branch secretaries so that important information is passed on– this will make your job easier too.
  • Share out the information in the Membership Action Report with branch secretaries and branch membership secretaries so branches are aware of new members and resigners in their branches.

MemberCentre

 As CLP Secretary, you’ll have access to MemberCentre, Labour’s online membership database, to access and update information about your CLP. You can use MemberCentre to update members’ details, run membership reports and maintain information on CLP roles. You can access the full MemberCentre guide here.

It is the responsibility of the CLP Secretary to keep CLP roles up to date on MemberCentre, and this will ensure all CLP and Branch Officers receive the right information relating to their roles.

Useful Links and Contact Details

This role isn’t open to job share.

 

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