Conference 2007

Friends of the Earth Conference 2007 was held between the 7th and 9th of September in Reading, and was a great opportunity to network, learn, party and be inspired. Some of the highlights are below, together with a record of formal proceedings.

Speeches

Guest speaker Hilary Benn MP

Welcome and review of Friends of the Earth’s progress over the last year:
Audio (MP3 format - 24MB) and Transcript (PDF - 67K)

Executive Director, Tony Juniper's speech and Q&A:
Audio (MP3 format - 37MB) and Transcript (PDF - 108K)

Hilary Benn MP's speech at the John Preedy Memorial Lecture:
Audio (MP3 format - 33MB) and Transcript (PDF - 84K)

Panel debate with speakers Daniel Mittler, Lucy Pierce and Tom Burke:
Audio (MP3 format - 45MB) and Transcript (PDF - 109K)

MP3 is an audio file format. To listen to MP3 files, download a free MP3 player like Winamp (Windows), MusicMatch Jukebox (Macintosh) or xmms (Linux)

Earthmovers Awards

See the results of the 2007 Earthmovers Awards, presented at Conference.

Motions

The Motions chosen for this year's debate via the prioritisation ballot are detailed in the Motions Paper, along with an Emergency Motion. The Standing Orders for Conference allow for Emergency Motions to be proposed after the submission deadline, but they will only be accepted if the Chair of Motions and Conference Organising Committee consider that they relate to the entire network and to events that have occurred after the deadline.

The Chair of Motions and the Conference Organising Committee agreed to accept this Emergency Motion and as a result, it was debated at Conference along with the 6 prioritised Motions.

The results of this year's debate are as follows:

• Motion 2 - Energy Policy: Passed
• Motion 4 - Information Sharing between Local Groups and Campaigners: Passed
• Motion 6 - Food Production: Passed
• Amendment to Motion 6: Failed
• Motion 8 - Transport Campaign: Passed
• Motion 9 - Contraction and Convergence: Failed
• Motion 12 - Biofuels: Passed
• Amendment to Motion 12: Failed
• Emergency Motion - Corporate Partnerships: Passed

Passed Motions become Conference Resolutions. The Board’s response to this year’s Resolutions is detailed in the Motions Resolutions Paper 2007, and in the Implementations Paper for Motions to Conference 2007, which is their progress report on the implementation of each Motion, published in August 2008.

Elections to the Board

The new Board members elected at Conference 2007 were:

• Dave Coleman, Manchester Friends of the Earth- North West region (re-elected for a 2nd term)
• Mark Hammond, Rugby Friends of the Earth - Midlands region (re-elected for a 2nd term)
• Hilary Griffiths, Guildford and Waverley Friends of the Earth - South East region (newly elected)

Workshops

Presentations and write-ups from the workshops held at Conference will become available and added to gradually, so please do keep checking back.

Capacity building resources

Many of you at Conference said you liked the flow charts on display and would like to be able to download them afterwards. So here they are but please bear in mind that they were designed to be read on conference stands!

• All the work is done by 1 or 2 people! (PDF - 99K)
• How do we raise the profile of our group? (PDF - 83K)
• How can we get children/young people interested in our campaigns? (PDF - 62K)
• No-one in our group has enough time to do anything (PDF - 75K)
• How do we get more press coverage for our local group? (PDF - 73K)
• How do we attract more members? (PDF - 80K)

Pictures and Quotes

Below are some comments from delegates:

A very worthwhile use of a weekend

Enjoying one of the workshops

A great opportunity for discussion

One of the many stalls at Conference 2007

Hugely informative and thought provoking

Taking the opportunity to network