UCL Conservative Society

The next part of my Manifesto of Principles, which I am publishing on the UCL website for members to comment on.

Section 5: Distinguishing Conservative Future Members

Fertility of university & college branches
Some of the most active branches can be found at universities and colleges, and these are where many of our future members come from. We need to provide more support for these branches, but we also need a far more effective way of collecting their membership data. We need to recruit more members into our organisation and on into the Party and maintain contact once they leave higher education. I want a more user friendly system for the Chairman/President to collect this information. It would also be nice for every CF member to actually receive a membership card!

Make it easier to collate and use membership rolls
I want CF to provide these societies with the ability to manage their membership lists. We also need to recognise the prevalence of students not studying in their home town: each society member could potentially be a member of two branches and we should use this as a base to extend our membership range. I intend to establish an interactive service which will allow much greater information management for each Branch and Area.

Free Party membership for university and college branch members
We will also run a system of free Party membership for all members of university and college branches. This membership will be predicated on their providing both a term and home address. This information will then be passed on the Party under my proposed scheme for information sharing. This will make a great impact and help to rapidly grow our membership.

My plan to significantly grow our membership requires two main changes: I firstly will lobby the Party to move the upper age limit of CF to 35. By the age of 30 many people are just getting on with adult life: starting to earn a higher wage, finishing paying off student debt, and looking to the future. Many CF members have never been to university or have graduated many years before their CF membership expires: we need to cater for their tastes and interest too. Once again the answers come from local sources but further support for national events for young professionals needs to be demonstrated by the NME.

The second change I will lobby the Party for is the membership fee issue. I want to have free Party membership until the age of 25, and then £10 till the age of 35. If we are serious about expanding CF then we should be dismantle all barriers to membership.

Improve the management of transition from CF to Party membership
The final part is to help the transition from higher education to full Party member. Collecting the home address is part of this, but I will also work with the Association geographically closest to the Universities or Colleges in question to get the society involved with a local CF presence; whether this is the association CF branch or just the association if there is no CF branch. This will be key in holding onto our members and helping the membership to grow.

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