The West Suffolk Conservative Association Annual General Meeting took place on Thursday 4th June 2026 and saw a number of changes to the management of the Association. Rachel Hood had completed her term as Chair of the Association and was elected Honorary President. In her place, Andy Drummond was elected Chair of the Association with Simon de Laat elected to Deputy Chairman, Political. Robert Nobbs remains in place as the Deputy Chairman Membership and Finance.
We said goodbye to two members of the Officer Group - David Palmer and Ben Greening - and welcomed Joe Mason, Graham Cone, Terry Wood and Ilona Karpanos to the Officer Group for 2026-2027. David Roach continues in his role as Safe-guarding Officer and Honorary Vice President and Sarah Pugh continues as Data Protection Officer and Agent for the Association.
Our guest speaker, Lord Mark McInnes, gave an excellent speech and took questions from the floor as did the MP, Nick Timothy. Ben Greening gave a presentation analysing the results of a survey Nick Timothy had recently undertaken, to help understand what we need to do to win more of the vote share and return more Conservative Councillors. Both he and Nick took questions from the floor.
The outgoing Chair made her final presentation of the Jill Simpson Award which this year was shared between Andy Drummond and Nick Clarke, whom she thanked most warmly for their unfailing support during some very difficult times in her term of office.
The meeting closed at 19.36.