The SDLP has made a huge and indelible mark on the political landscape of this island. Under the visionary leadership of Mr John Hume, we have taken the values of the civil rights movement and the theories developed within the party and made them into a practical reality.
It hasn't been easy. There have been many times when we have been operating on a budget which would make a shoestring look lavish. Often under threat of physical attack from both republicans and loyalists alike, we held the line, condemning that which should be condemned from whichever quarter.
But it was worth it. Along with the many lows there have been sweet victories, and tremendous achievements. Our analysis of the conflict and the possibility of ending it have become the acceptable political currency.
The changes to the party structure which have been required in order to prepare us for the challenges ahead are well under way. We have a growing number of gifted, passionate and ambitious young people who are coming through the ranks, eager to build their own political careers.
Looking back over our history, it is clear that the SDLP philosophy of building a society where no one side takes victory over the other is now in the process of development. There are major difficulties ahead, but the foundations of the society which those who voted for the Belfast Agreement desired have most definitely been laid.
For those of you who may not remember the heady days of the civil rights movement and the birth of our party, let me furnish you with a short potted history.
Faced with a dominant and unbending unionism, Northern nationalism until the 1960s had pursued a policy of minimal involvement in public life. The civil rights movement, followed by the political upheavals of the late 1960s and early 1970s, produced an imperative for a fundamentally new approach.
The SDLP, formed in August 1970 by leading civil rights activists, gave voice to that approach. It argued that a solution to political division in Ireland required not domination by one community over the other in Northern Ireland, but a new partnership between both, together with a completely new basis for relationships between North and South.
This approach challenged the "winner takes all" mentality of unionism and militant republicanism. Both had failed to bring Catholic, Protestant and dissenter into any kind of positive relationship, in Northern Ireland or in the wider all-Ireland context. It also challenged southern indifference to Northern Ireland and British obduracy in treating Northern Ireland as a "domestic" matter.
The SDLP approach represented the first practical articulation of the principle of "consent" as the basis for a solution to the crisis in Northern Ireland and to new North-South relationships. Informed by its commitment to social democracy, the SDLP brought to this policy of partnership a whole new way of thinking - in Northern Ireland politics - about justice, as well as about social and economic issues. European social democracy, with its commitment to European unity, was the source of much of this inspiration. In 1979 the party called on the British and Irish governments "to promote a joint . . . process of political, social and economic development within which the representatives of the two traditions in Northern Ireland would be able to work in partnership".
The first objective in the SDLP's strategy was achieved when the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement signalled the launch of that initiative. The British government, for the first time, also formally accepted the possibility of a united Ireland.
The SDLP now had a powerful argument for the next phase of its strategy of achieving a comprehensive settlement. Approaches in 1987 to the SDLP to engage with Sinn Fein were met with a willing response. The SDLP aimed to convince Sinn Fein that progress could only be made by persuading the unionist community, who were the real opponents of Irish unity, of the need for change. But persuading unionists to change had no chance of success if pursued at the point of a gun. When Mr Hume once more embarked on talks with Sinn Fein leader Mr Gerry Adams in 1993, both leaders declared they were engaged in "a political dialogue aimed at investigating the possibility of developing an overall political strategy to establish peace and justice in Ireland". The statement's significance lay essentially in the shift it signalled in Sinn Fein's stand on the key question of consent.
The traditional Sinn Fein view was that unionists could enjoy no right to override the will of the majority of the "Irish people" in expressing their right to self-determination. Instead, the Hume-Adams statement argued that a settlement would be "only achievable and viable if it can earn and enjoy the allegiance of the different traditions on this island, by accommodating diversity and providing for national reconciliation". However, bringing the process to that point would not have been possible without the commitment and determination of the SDLP under Mr Hume's leadership. In the lead-up to that agreement our role was to push, pull, bully, cajole and plead with those whose differences, whether consciously or not, had prolonged and exacerbated the conflict. Some would say we had less to lose; that it was easy for us to pontificate while the unionists and republicans had to make the compromises.
But what if the approach which we had so painstakingly built had failed? What if the agreement had not been reached?
Surely then we would have been proved incorrect in our analysis and been utterly discredited. Worse still, the methods of others may well have once more come to the fore. That didn't happen, and our entire society has reaped the benefits. From 1979, when Mr Hume was first elected to the European Parliament, the party has been leading the way in outward-looking attitudes in Northern Ireland, stressing not just what Europe can do for Northern Ireland, but - especially now, as we emerge from conflict - what Ireland as a whole, North and South, can contribute to Europe's future.
I'm not saying that all in the party's garden is rosy. The party has needed to modernise itself. But that work is taking place, and those faces are ready and waiting.
This party, you will discover in the next 12 months, will be full of invention, hard work and ambition. Recently we launched a drive to make sure that the hard lessons learned in the housing markets of Dublin and London are acted upon in the North. We have pioneered exploration of the practical workings of a North-South economy which will benefit all.
Our party has also launched papers on disability and equality, and recently Mr Hume launched an anti-racism protocol which all our public representatives will sign up to, working to make sure that the atmosphere of racial disharmony which is steadily emerging south of the Border will not be tolerated in Northern Ireland.
The SDLP has also battled hard to make sure that the proposals put forward by Mr Chris Patten on the new beginning for policing are adhered to.
While others contented themselves with chanting slogans as unworkable as they were fanciful, we looked at the reality with a clear eye and set the agenda on an acceptable police force for the community which we represent, and indeed for society as a whole. Our three Westminster MPs, Mr Hume, Mr Seamus Mallon and Mr Eddie McGrady, have taken on the British government's seeming inability to grasp the importance of the policing issue for the generations yet to come.
Now, with an Assembly party of 24 and 120 councillors, with five ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive and a key role to play in the North-South Ministerial Council, the SDLP has new challenges to meet which will test the party's commitment to building a new, socially just society in Northern Ireland and new dynamic relationships between North and South. We have rich inspiration in the party's record of service over the past 30 years.
Mr Sean Farren is MLA for North Antrim and Minister for Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment. He joined the SDLP in 1973