The details for most of the 3-yearly Area Activist Meetings which elect the Area Activist Committees are now on the UNITE web site on the same page as the industrial and equality conferences.
There's been some confusion about who can attend these meetings, but the following clarification has been sent to Regional Secretaries:
The short answer is that any member of the union in the particular area has the right to attend.
The last Rules Conference adopted an Executive Council statement on Rule Six, which read in part: "…membership of Area Activist Committees should not be restricted in the way prescribed by Rule Six and should be open to all activists, including those who cannot be workplace representatives because of their circumstances." Clearly, if that is the case regarding the AACs to be elected at the forthcoming meetings, it would also have to be the case at the meetings themselves. Given that the term "activist" has no rulebook definition at all, this must mean any member in practice.
However, it should be noted that AACs are divided into constituencies, and only those members attending from a particular constituency should be allowed to vote for the AAC seats from that constituency. In particular, retired members and community members attending should only vote for the two seats allocated to each of those groups of members on each AAC, in the event that the number of nominations requires an election.
It remains the case that any member delegated to attend the Regional Committee from any AAC must be a workplace representative in the terms of Rule Six.
In terms of notification, branches should be advised as to the arrangements for each Area Activists meeting, and told to notify their members.
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