Guild latest

I can't believe it is a month since I updated my blog. My apologies for the delay, but it has proved a somewhat busy period and having a week off on holiday hasn't helped either.
Council met in London at the end of last month. We progressed various issues, notably planned new rules which will be put to the membership early next year for approval at the annual meeting, the date of which has been set for March 14.
Essentially these are a tidying up of the existing rules and make the organisation more business-like. The deal with retired status, resignations, council's structure and regional groups, although we have in the process also made the language simpler to follow.
I continue to be disappointed at the lack of progress on awards and have asked the council sub-committee responsible to come back with definitive plans to resurrect both the Stuart Seaton Award for Provincial Newspapers and the Horticulture Award. I can't understand why it is taking so long to achieve this and used the meeting to express my considerable frustration. I hope to be able to report progress after the next council meeting on December 7. Watch this space. No movement on either is simply not acceptable.
Regionally the Guild needs to do more, but the issue is getting members to do take this forward themselves. It is not the responsibility of council to set up regional groups, rather the initiative for this has to come from those in the regions themselves. To that end I would like to hear from anyone in the north of England, essentially Manchester to the Scottish border, to try and develop some type of regional group in the north of England.
Copyright issues were discussed in full at the October council meeting. I have to express considerable disappointment that only five members viewed this issue as important enough to respond to the Guild's offer to hold a course on the matter so that publishers could no longer fleece freelance members.
With only five responses it simply was not worth council taking the issue forward so, once again, apathy reigns supreme. Just what do we have to do to get members interested?
I did, however, ask that the Guild publish new pages on the website, www.gaj.org.uk, to provide information on copyright. Those are now there along with numerous handy links. To those who see copyright as an issue I would ask you go and look at these pages, or else place a size 14 boot firmly up the backsides of your sleepy colleagues to awake them from their slumber so we can take the issue further and prevent more falling prey to what I am told are the bully boys in the magazine publishing sector.
The Guild is also contacting the Creators' Rights Alliance which represents a variety of organisations in copyright matters. The response from it has, so far, been slow and far from convincing that it is worth us spending any money on. That it took three weeks to get a response from them in the first place is frankly appalling.
I've been to Dublin in the last fortnight to meet David Markey, the former chairman of the All-Ireland Guild and current president of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists.
It proved an interesting evening. He's given me several ideas that I would like to take forward, including courses on professional development and conferences/meetings.
Before I ask council to do this though I think we need a better understanding of what you, the membership, actually want from the Guild. Many of you complain we don't do enough, don't communicate and don't hold events. Part of the reason for this though is the apathy from you because when we do ask your views or seek to hold events on your behalf you can't be bothered to respond.
I'm therefore going to ask council in December that we survey all members to find out your views, warts and all, on what you want of the organisation and the direction you would like to see it headed.
I'm very keen that nationally we do more to hold meetings that actually give members copy. A prime example would be the Midlands group meeting the other week which looked at local food issues. That it ended up reported on the front page of my own Farm Journal speaks volumes about the calibre of speaker involved in this event. Well done to the Midlands for hosting it.
The other big issue to take have taken up my time recently is Direct Debit. You all may recall that council agreed to move to the regime and that we promised we would write to you at the end of September/start of October with the necessary forms.
A spanner in the works has, however, slowed the process and there is a delay, the source of which lies entirely outwith our hands. Not helping were our new bankers loosing the necessary forms and Don and Tim having to sign them again.
Suffice to say your chairman has drawn on his contacts at said bank. They have now promised progress. I await with interest to see what that is.
In the meantime the Guild is still committed to introducing Direct Debit from January 30, 2008, one of the main reasons why we have had to rewrite the rules.
You should all receive the Guild's latest e-Alert this week. It will update you on the situation.
As soon as we have a resolution on Direct Debit it will be communicated through the e-Alert system. I know many of you don't like receiving e-mails, but the sooner more of you accept the communications business has moved on from the pigeon post and snail mail, the better.