Saturday, November 22, 2014

Introduction to campaigning #2 - notes and links

On Sunday 16 November in Newcastle we ran hopefully the second of a number of 'Introduction to Campaigning with Friends of the Earth' half-day trial training sessions. Thanks to everyone who came along, to Carla for co-facilitating and to Campaign Organiser Carol for doing an excellent grounding meditation to break the ice and get us started.

Our aim was to support new and existing activists to explore campaigns and engage their community. Here's the resources we shared and used on the day

We also showed participants these rather spiffing videos from The Bee Cause and Schools Run On Sun campaigns.



We got four people including Carol – which is less than we had expected based on e-mail replies and Facebook. But  they were all interested in supporting a Friends of the Earth group in Newcastle, so it definitely felt like the beginning of the rebirth of the group. 

And one was the local Greenpeace rep, so there was some networking and alliance-building right there. The material fit snugly but well into the time we had, and participant feedback was very positive. 

So, we’re still looking for further opportunities to trial this session – so do get in touch if you’d like to either give it a go yourself or arrange a collaboration with me on it. 

I think one big learning point from me from Newcastle is the importance of having someone in-situ like Carol around whom others can coalesce for the future. For future trials, I’d also like to be able to guarantee 2 or 3 participants from a local area before we go ahead with additional promotion. 

We’ve been lucky in both test sessions so far in terms of just enough people coming in to make it work, but I don't want to push my luck too hard. :-)


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