Put the afternoon of Saturday 16th March into your diary: 1-5pm at Augustine United Church Rooms, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh, EH1 1EL. Please come and bring your friends with you – especially if they haven’t quite made up their minds about Scottish Independence yet.
- Doors are open at 1pm. We’re hoping to have some video footage of the Glasgow Pensioners for Indy Warblers choir. During Burns Week, they sang at three Burns Lunches for pensioners in Glasgow.
- The formal business of the AGM will begin at 1.20pm. We will also be announcing our plans to expand our activities – encouraging and supporting new P4Indy groups around Scotland, more street stalls, training, and organising national events.
- Tea Break will be at around 2.25pm
- Followed by our three speakers
- Ashley Graczyk, Edinburgh City Councillor
- Paul Kavanagh, blogger extraordinaire and Yes! activist
- Joanna Cherry MP, QC
Ashley Graczyk was elected to Edinburgh City Council in 2017 as a Scottish Conservative in the Sighthill / Gorgie Ward. But after a year, she quit the Conservative Party and now sits as an Independent. In 2014 she voted No to Scottish Independence but is now a Yes supporter. We’ve asked her to speak about her journey from No to Yes. This is how she described some of what led to that charge of mind:
Along with all the other City of Edinburgh councillors, we have the privilege to govern the Capital city of Scotland, and in my first year as a councillor I saw with my own eyes how we run our city via the council. We also received some insight into the various roles MSPs and MPs have due to working cross-government on various issues. Over time, it became more glaringly obvious to me the absurdity of reserved matters being dealt with by Westminster and not by the Scottish Government (bear in mind I voted No in the 2014 independence referendum), as Scotland is capable of governing on reserved matters too. I became more convinced that Scotland needs political independence to build a different and better Scotland.
The Scotsman
Paul Kavanagh is well known for his blog Wee Ginger Dug – Biting the hand of Project Fear. And since 2014 he has made many, many appearances at Yes! events. This is a photo of the Dug at the anti-Trump demo in Glasgow last year. He was being very patient as Paul kept being stopped by people expressing their appreciate of what he does for the Yes Campaign. Of course we’re hoping the Dug will be with Paul on the 16th March.
Joanna Cherry is MP for Edinburgh South West has been in the news recently amidst all the Westminster Brexit Bourach. Here she is giein’ it laldy to Sammy Wilson of the DUP (from 3 minutes into the video) with Jacob Rees-Mogg looking dumfoonert.