Computerised Conference seems to be working?

As promised earlier in the week I can report modest success with UNISON's online Conference system. The deadline for motions for National Delegate Conference is imminent so I hope other branches have found the same.

I accessed the system easily enough via "my unison" and was then able to submit the motions and Rule Amendments agreed by my branch. It is slightly irritating to have to enter the branch details afresh for each submission but a colleague with better understanding of information technology tells me that it would require quite a lot of a system to remember my details like that. (I hope that whoever does the submission of the dozen motions and several Rule Amendments agreed by the National Executive Council took adequate breaks whilst typing the same information over and over again!)

As well as an email receipt to myself other branch officers also received notification of the motions and Rule Amendments submitted. The wording of these notification emails (which don't require any action and are just there to make sure a Branch Secretary doesn't submit something which the Chair knows wasn't agreed by the branch) could - and I hope will - be clearer, but the basic idea is sound.

The Standing Orders Committee have not yet been computerised so the wait to see how many of our submissions make it as far as the Preliminary Agenda remains reassuringly twentieth century - and there is no automated system for ruling motions out of order. Nor any plans to introduce such.

I hope.