At a rough reckoning my 5 nights in Bournemouth will cost at least £600, before I’ve bought food or sipped a glass of red, which is roughly half the price of my 12 night holiday in Barbados. If cost was the only consideration I’d be in the caribbean anytime rather than a slightly decaying British seaside resort.There’s the nub though – Federal Conference is not just the cost. for me it’s meeting up with old friends, making new friends, the fringe meetings, the training, networking, the exhibition etc etc.

So I guess that I’ll make the best of this year’s autumn conference as it might be my last for a while as my employer retires next year.

Ok, for this example, you have to be prepared to leave at
06:45 Depart Newcastle, Neville Street
Arrive London, Victoria Coach Station 14:00 1 seat = £1.00
15:30 Depart London, Victoria Coach Station
Arrive Bournemouth Uni, Talbot Campus 18:15 1 seat = £1.00
So you can get to conference for £2

Can’t search for return times at the mo, but usually £12.50 is the most expensive fare on megabus/train.

You don’t have to stay in the conference hotel, there are other perfectly comfortable places that are more affordable.

WOOD LODGE HOTEL
Relax and unwind at this centrally situated beautiful hotel.
Bed & Breakfast £29-£50
Half Board £44-£65
THE HEDLEY HOTEL
Ideally situated close to the B.I.C., pier, beaches and town centre.
Bed & Breakfast £25-£44

Why do I do it? Because I meet up with like minded people, get excellent training for free, manage to make contacts, find new ways of campaigning and at the end of the conference I go home rejuvenated that I believe in something that others do too.

As for the venues I am always happy to travel to new places. However, I would never return to Blackpool. It is a nice seaside town but with the venues being so far apart, the low standard of the accommodation (sorry, I like the sheets on the bed not to rip and the shower not to be covered in mould) and the lack of places to eat. That is unless you want to live on a diet of Kebabs and Fish and Chips.

Brighton, finally I have found a way to make Brighton cheaper and we are not going back for a while. I rented a house that had three double bedrooms and shared with two like minded friends, cost £200 a head. The original house had a flooding issue this year so we ended up in the Marina, not ideal but it was still much cheaper than normal. I have also tried staying in Travelodges out of town but that just crippled me in 2am Taxi fairs.

Harrogate, a great venue, although not enough restaurants, everything is in walking distance and the hotel and venue are next door to each other. That is a major miracle in my eyes.

Liverpool, I found the distance between the conference venue and the hotel a problem, especially in heels. The cost of accommodation was high; I actually found it was cheaper to stay in the conference venue than book elsewhere and pay for 2am Taxis. The service and people though were amazing. The reason I would go back – the people. The conference venue acoustics need to be resolved and the emptiness of the venue, not of people but of things – it was a conference in a box.

I do remember way back in the dim distant past going to Scarborough – it was the walk up and down the hill that got me, but I was 3 months pregnant with my eldest child.

Now, there are other issues on conference that I could rant on about. I took my children for the Saturday for Brighton but was not allowed to show them round the venue without paying for them to have conference badges, needless to say they did not see inside the venue. The cost of the hotel bar is another, but I guess that is par for the course and outside our control.

Tim Young
Ribble South
5457459

Starting a Conference on the Saturday to make maximum use of the weekend is a great idea, maybe it is worth investigating getting a mini leaders speech on the Sunday afternoon, to attract a weekend crowd, the only disadvantage I can see is the inevitable decrease in TV news coverage on the evening news.

Duncan

The subject revisits an old centralisation/devolution debate upon which a position was taken within our party long ago, but which is only gradually evolving in practice.

Perhaps the slack could be taken up were more emphasis placed on our seasonal and regional conferences.

Did anything ever come out of that?

I’m another Londoner, and frankly find Brighton to be amongst the worst place in terms of cost and relative standard of accommodation.

I liked Southport, love Harrogate, am intrigued by Newcastle and Manchester, and loathe Blackpool with a passion for a whole range of reasons too lengthy to go into.

However, Duncan and Andrew have made some entirely reasonable comments, and whilst I wish it wasn’t so, I fully understand their dilemma.

Chris Paul suggests that we fund delegates from local party funds, and whilst this is superficially attractive, it does tend to imply that said delegate votes the ‘line’ (Chris, you are proposing to tell me that mandates are a thing of the past, aren’t you? ), and fails to acknowledge the greater income available to Labour Party constituency associations.

It is, perhaps, an idea that we could have a fund to support delegates from Local Parties that might not otherwise be represented. The question is, how much of a grant would be required, and how would you conclude that someone was eligible? It isn’t a job that I for one would want…

For a very minor input into the party’s democratic process, this doesn’t seem good value. In fact I expect to be at fringe events most of the time, which may be better value. But persuading the family that there is some point to abandoning them for a week is not something I could put my heart into again.

Ann, I think you’re misreading, and I have to wonder why. Duncan’s response is fair, balanced and explanatory. The party would like to have more northern conferences. The FCC would like to have a better selection of venues.

For a variety of reasons they either aren’t available or unsuitable, but they continue to look and welcome suggestions. That’s fairly clear from pretty much every comment made by someone involved. I’m not sure why you’re so disappointed, your points have been answered and FCC is looking for more options having acknowledged it is a problem they would like to solve if possible.

Rob said: getting better and better … a testament to the hard work of [staff and] the many volunteers

Um, weren’t you one of those volunteers last two conferences?

Joe said: I don’t expect to go in future

They’re always looking for volunteers to help out stewarding or on the registration desk–it’s the only way I can afford it as well.

I do like the tone of this discussion overall though, some good comments from people in the know–a credit to the site and it’s utility, really.

I will be going this year, largely just to have done it once, but I don’t expect to go in future. A week off work and the cost of 5 Focuses does not seem good value.

It has a defining feature of a democratic party, or society or pressure group that it is goverened by an annual conference, exclusive thought that is, because there has never been an alternative. And such conferences have never been very efficient – sitting in a large room, listening to one person at a time, who may be a total bore, is not a great way to make decisions.

We should be finding ways to export some of the democratic processes of the party from the annual conference to an online process. Of course the internet is also exclusive. Not everybody has access. But it is much, much, much, much, much less exclusive than a physical conference.

The net of course is not as inspiring and motivating as processes that involve interacting with real people. So it is important not to try to do on the net things that aren’t suitable. I would certainly keep a weekend conference, possibly distributed over multiple locations. But we can, at last, do so much better than was possible a few years ago.

Ultimately attending conference will come with a cost and in my experience the bulk of it is in accommodation rather than transport, something which I can’t see an easy way round. There are things like LDYS booking hostel accommodation but that is probably not desperately attractive to people above a certain age.

The party conference season is itself pretty anachronistic though – really it’s a silly time of year to hold it as some groups (teachers, some university students) can’t attend as they have other commitments at that time of year.

I can assure you we do negotiate hard but unfortunately we do not negotiate from strength. Both the towns and the venues can get far more money from commercial conferences. There is another tough negotiation we face – an internal one. The more expensive the venue either the less the surplus that goes towards financing the party or the more registration rates will rise. I don’t want either of those to happen so we need to keep venue costs down. We will continue to pursue new conference venues. I am ‘from the South’ but would prefer to go to Northern venues. We are currently looking at Manchester, Birmingham, Gateshead, Southport, Scarborough, Edinburgh and Glasgow to name a few.

Andrew Wiseman (FCC Vice-Chair)

I agree that there is a problem with the cost of conference for someone on a low income who can’t work as a steward or get a subsidy (or take advantage of the reduced cost of registration and the travel discounts available by very early booking). But then many other groups of people are excluded, for example, teachers, who normally can’t take time off during term. And I’m chronically ill — I could probably have found a way to pay for conference, but I know going wouldn’t do my health any good so I’m not, this time. Am I really being discriminated against?