by By Janet Stewart Branch Development Officer

Last week Scottish Electricity Branch reached an important milestone when they recruited their 2000th member.

Ashleigh MacKissack who works in Scottish Power's Customer Sales and Services Department (CS&S), was delighted to discover she was the 2000th member when she visited the UNISON recruitment stall on 2 November.

"Being the 2000th member is an added bonus to joining UNISON." She said. "I only started work with Scottish Power a few weeks ago and while I absolutely love my new job I know it's important to join the trade union just in case!

"My mum also works here and she's always been a member so I suppose I'm just keeping up the family tradition."

In March the Branch membership looked considerably different. Concerned about density and with membership fluctuating around 1250, Branch officials met staff, to plan the recruitment campaign. The initial focus was to be in CS&S and developing a long term organisational plan was to follow.

Branch Secretary, Tony Grieve said, "Back then I'm not sure any of us thought we'd hit the 2000 mark this year. It's a great result. We have our development weekend shortly and hopefully we can build on this good start"

Regional Organiser Gerry Crawley commented, "This shows what can be achieved when staff and lay members work together to a focussed plan. The employer provided us with up to date details of where our members were so we identified ongoing and local issues to recruit around.

"We also agreed a UNISON presence at induction courses. Along with CS&S Convenor, Janice Paterson, many staff attended the recruitment events"

Even more commendable, since Ashleigh joined, Branch membership has continued to grow reaching 2033 as we go to press. Maybe 3000 now looks achievable!

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