London Transport Region held a training day for branch membership secretaries on 26 July. Thanks to everyone who came along and took part. The day seemed to go very well, and I hope everyone got something out of it.

As well as training the membership secretaries, we managed to also generate quite a few ideas and plans, as follows:

Regional Council to:

• repeat the training for those branch membership secretaries who were unable to attend (I'll email them to work out an appropriate date)
• draw up a useful format for membership information to be printed out for activists who are going out round workplaces on recruitment/organising activities (Dave R to liaise with Membership Department)
• commission/produce an attention-grabbing poster for workplace noticeboard encouraging members to notify RMT of change of personal details (I've asked our usual design/print company for a quote)
• establish a clear list of branch 'spheres of influence' in the Region (I'm working on this!)

Branch membership secretaries to:

• do their best to attend the Regional Council's Organising Team meetings - quarterly, second Tuesday of March/June/September/December, 13:00, Unity House
• propose branch recruitment/organising plan to next branch meeting
• think about how to best use their agenda slot at each branch meeting to promote recruitment and membership activities

We would like the union nationally to:

• run its 3-day training course for membership secretaries in London, for those unable to attend Doncaster
• adopt a system for allocating members to correct branch (I have emailed the General Secretary and National President about this and discussions are ongoing!)
• (re)introduce to the membership database a field that records the negotiating area in which a member works (eg. station group), as well as their specific workplace
• better resource the freephone Helpline
• ask that Stage 1 union reps' training places more emphasis on recruitment