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John C Wilson
John progressed through the ranks of the Trades Union movement and was Seconded on a full time basis when elected Branch and District Secretary to the Union?s largest branch of over 8.000 members, and to the National Executive of NUPE.
In 1961 he became a member of the Labour Party, then in 1977 was elected to the City of Edinburgh District Council, and remained a Councillor until 1996 having spent the previous four years as Deputy Lord Provost. John was elected to his present position as President of the Scottish Old Age Pensions Association (now SPA) in 1997. The National Pensioners Convention (Scotland) was inaugurated in 2003 and John was elected Secretary, a post he still holds.
John is also a Justice of the Peace, was a member of the Scottish Secretary of State?s Justices Committee, and served on the Bench of the District Court for many years. He is a Director on the Board of Edinburgh Leisure, and President of the Edinburgh/San Diego Sister City Association. John is married to Theresa, they have four sons, ten grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.
When he became President of the Scottish Old Age Pension Association SOAPA in 1997 he noticed that it appeared to be stationary and losing its campaigning thrust. Also despite a number of applications to the Inland Revenue, SOAPA was unable to achieve charitable status. The organisation?s traditional source of funding, the Trade Unions and Local Authorities were unable or unwilling to continue with grant aid, and membership was dwindling.
He realised that SOAPA had to move forward, to reinvent itself.
With the help of colleagues he prepared some proposals for a
change of name and constitution. Those proposals were put to
the national conferences of 1999 and 2000. In 2001 the term Old
Age was dropped and the Scottish Pensions Association as
is it now known was granted charitable status.
John is very aware of the considerable fragmentation that exists
within the pensioners? movement in Scotland and fully supported
the formation of National Pensioners Convention (Scotland) in
2003. He believes that the NPC is the best organisation to
represent older peoples interests in Edinburgh and Westminster. Because of his involvement with SPA and NPC Scotland he is well placed to continue to advocate harmony and unanimity nation-wide whilst retaining the autonomy of other groups. |
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