General Secretary Blog : Where will your 'now' lead you?

Your future,
Funny word.
It determines your life.
It's the creation of what you do now.
Laila M. Beard. "Who Will You Be?" Family Friend Poems, Jun 2017

These are the words of an 'Eighth Grader' (aged 13) written for her end of year ‘graduation’. Wise words from someone so young - although, we know many a wise word comes from the young.

I am particularly struck by the idea that the future is the creation of ‘what you do now’. Now being a word that I used within my election statement and the word I am going to bring to the fore again. Now is the time that members are invited to stand for election on our National Executive Committee (NEC). That time came for me in 2018, when I stood for a 'general member' seat.

My activism in the AEP had a slow burn. Initially, I became local rep because...
a) nobody else had volunteered and;
b) my partner was becoming active in his union and was both enjoying it and finding a strong sense of meaning through his involvement but... (mainly) because nobody else had volunteered.

At first, there was little needed of me in my role as rep - I went to a couple of conferences and regional meetings where I met fellow local reps. I valued the connections I made with EPs in other workplaces and found it helpful hearing what was happening elsewhere. However, what truly sparked my passion for union participation was realising the difference I was able to make to members’ lives.
I was involved in helping members have their continuous service recognised (at the time when the full three years of doctoral training came to be included in this important feature of local authority work). I supported members to have their voices heard through a workplace restructure. I gave individual members support through a range of different issues. The AEP staff and fellow reps were always at hand to help!

Roll forward to a very nervous me, at the 2018 conference in Manchester, about to deliver a seminar. Doubly nervous (heart pounding) when the Association Secretary, said he needed to speak to me about my nomination to the AEP's NEC. I’d been elected! I was thrilled (though, it made concentrating on my seminar a little challenging)!

Like any role, being on the NEC had ups and downs. For me, the downside was the occasional difficult conversation that occurred in meetings. But I can say that any disagreements stayed in the meeting and often fuelled healthy debate. I have made lasting connections - and friendships - with EPs from across the UK through being on the NEC. It has also been amazing being in the room with key changemakers and giving the EP profession a voice – speaking to civil servants, NGOs, other unions & more. It was a privilege to be part of making decisions about how the AEP operates and achieves its goals and representing the many EPs I worked alongside. I have had a passion for our profession and being involved at a national level stoked those fires and helped me experience a sense of belonging and solidarity with all EPs.

The rest, as they say, is history. I was encouraged to consider standing for General Secretary at the 2022 local reps conference in Brighton. It was already something I was thinking about, but without the experience of being on the NEC and the support of EPs everywhere, that thought would have remained just that – a thought.

Now...back in 2018, when I printed off the NEC nomination form and asked for support. Little did I know the future path ahead -  leading me to my now - as the AEP General Secretary and a whole new world of belonging and solidarity with the wider trade union movement.