Relaunch case study 4 - Empower, empower, empower

A Friends of the Earth local group had been on hold for around a year when several interested people got in touch with the local contact through the website, who referred them onto me. Previous attempts at a relaunch had foundered on the fact that members of the group had primary commitments elsewhere or had demanding personal lives.

This – on the other hand – was an opportunity. :-)

• I became de facto coordinator for several months in the absence of a local person who could step in.
• We brought the new volunteers together with those from the old group able and willing to help and collaborated on an initial trial action – a colourful Valentine's-themed stall which went down very well.
• We then discussed a campaign for the coming year and decided on The Bee Cause, which the new volunteers in particular were very keen on.
• I suggested that the group host and help me with a training day on The Bee Cause for locals and nearby local groups.
• They agreed, and the new volunteers worked with me in a number of ways (venue, facilitation, publicity) to organise a fabulous event.
• Planning and delivering the Bee Cause day also became a springboard to empower them. It gave them skills, confidence, allies and a vision of what the group was for.
• It also found them new volunteers and creating a basis for future action on the campaign over the course of the year.
• In parallel with this we supported the handover of the coordinator role to one of the new volunteers with the strong support of the others. 

Relaunch case study 3 - The Power of the BHAG

This one isn't a Friends of the Earth group, but it's a very good example of how a vision can remind a group of their purpose in being.

• The chair of a local environment group had stepped down over a year ago, after several years of successful campaigning.
• While the group were still active – organising events and running campaigns – the leadership decided that a renewal of the group was required to ensure its long-term viability.
• They decided to head-hunt themselves a new chair.
• The chair worked with the committee to develop an ambitious vision for reducing the energy footprint of the local area, engaging communities and businesses, growing the group and raising money.
• He presented the vision to interested members at the AGM as an idea of what the group could do if it looked beyond the immediate future and sought to change the town.
• The vision also suggested a number of immediate steps which could be taken – it was both optimistic and realistic.
• The group are now in the process of taking ownership of the vision both as a programme of work for the future but also as way of sharing the group and its mission to others.
• They are also making a number of practical changes to their ways of working including:

• Increasing the number of people active in the inner circle by expanding the committee.
• Changing the meeting venue from someone's house to a public venue
• Looking at ways of improving their electronic communications.

Tim comments: if this was a Friends of the Earth group, a staff member could have also supported that visioning process, helped with the search for a new coordinator through volunteer advertising and invited national supporters to the AGM or an event

It's also important to note that they took this decision while they were still in a position to do so - too far down the cycle of activity into 'winter' and the best vision in the world might have fallen upon deaf ears.

Relaunch case study 2 - a real Dr Who style regeneration

A group with an ageing volunteer profile decided that they could not carry on with the current active membership, despite past successes. They put a call out for help to staff in Spring and planned for a make-or-break AGM in Autumn.

• The first thing they did right was to plan in a long-lead in time for a final decision.
• This allowed us to do two things book in a mailing to national supporters in the area inviting them to the meeting. This supplemented local publicity to the membership.
• We worked with the group to make the letter sound like an opportunity rather than a crisis.
• Effectively it looked like an introduction to/get involved in Friends of the Earth event.
• My team-mate also used the time to talk the group and get to know them a bit. This allowed him to steer his efforts strongly towards either nurturing any newcomers or recommending the group fold.
• This was because it was clear from speaking to the experienced members that while they had done exemplary service to the movement in the past they were no longer in a position to offer substantive support to a relaunched group or maintain a group on hold for a few years.
• When my team-mate went to the AGM they were able to meet prospective new members, one of whom subsequently became new coordinator.
• The group therefore decided to continue, handing over key responsibilities.
• My team-mate coached the coordinator through telephone and e-mail contact, and guided them towards public-facing actions requiring teamwork such as film screenings and stalls, to build up the active membership and contact list for the group
• They also supported the coordinator to attend training opportunities such as the next Regional Gathering.

Relaunch case study 1: Breakfast of Champions

When the coordinator of this group had to resign unexpectedly due to family health reasons, and could not arrange meetings, it was not clear whether the group would continue. No candidate for coordinator in the group's inner circle presented itself, and while the team spirit was good, energy levels were low.

Response:

• The outgoing coordinator took over the role of treasurer, which much better suited his time and commitments.
• I supported the group to have an open discussion of whether and how to continue.
• They decided to continue in the short term to see if continuing without the leadership of their outgoing coordinator was viable.
• The group agreed to work together on The Bee Cause (the campaign which most appealed to the inner circle) and specifically a summer event designed to attract new members.
• They went with a Bee Breakfast because the plans were already provided in the Action Guide and it appealed to the interests and resources of the members.
• They deferred the question of who would coordinate the group until after the event had been completed. People pulled together to organise the meetings in the interim.
• I helped publicise the meetings to the local members and beyond, and explained what they were working on. This drew old members and several newcomers back to the meetings.
• Working on the Breakfast brought this group together and raised morale – everybody picked up tasks which suited their time and inclinations.
• I supported the Breakfast through an invite to national supporters and developing publicity resources.
• Breakfast event successful – drawing in 30+ participants and greatly enjoyed by the team.
• After the breakfast event, we discussed new projects and I inducted and supported the new coordinator.
• The group continued its focus on The Bee Cause, shifting its attention to planting projects, film screenings and another breakfast over the coming year. An end-of-year social found them energised, happy and working well together.

Local campaign groups are like Timelords, so let there be relaunches!

'Relaunch' is Tim-speak for a local campaign group - lower on any of numbers, morale and energy than it would like - making a concerted effort over a few months to find people, esprit de corps and inspiration.

This usually has as its focus a shared campaign, project, action or event – something to work on together, providing a sense of common purpose and a point of attraction for newcomers.

It can also entail:

• Help from staff, as a catalyst for change and a coach, sometimes as collaborators
• Supportive, mentoring relationships between experienced and new members
• A reimagining of group culture combining the best of the old with new perspectives, although if experienced members are around less this can be a wholesale regeneration, Dr Who style.
• A passing on of the torch, with new members taking key roles in the key group
• A intergenerational renewal of the group

Image by Steve Collis via Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

A few words on when to relaunch: clearly, the best relaunch is the relaunch you don't need to do because your volunteer group is constantly renewing itself, you have kick ass induction processes, all your campaigns are accessible and involving etc etc. You're always centripetal rather than centrifugal.

However, back in the real world, my feeling is that every 2-3 years feels on average about right for a cycle of renewal, with healthy groups able to extend that cycle perhaps to closer to 5 years.

Staff often get asked to be involved in relaunches when the experienced members are close to giving up, or the group itself has become a 'zombie', existing in name but scarcely meeting, a shell of what it was. Needless to say, these aren't optimal times to affect change, but sometimes we can help turn things around.

I'd be keen to support groups to get on a cycle of renewal as a matter of course rather than rushing in at the eleventh hour, so part of my motivation for writing this post is to try and shift that paradigm.

The more immediate motivation is that I've been asked by the Watford group to provide some examples of successful relaunches for their upcoming AGM. So stand by for some case studies on the blog over the course of this week. All of them have involved some staff input, but the fundamental point is that they aren't doing anything you couldn't either do for yourselves or ask them for anyway.

Hopefully, this will give us all an idea of what happens when relaunches work, as well as of the different tools at your disposal.

Slade cursed, transformed into scary clowns

8 weeks to save the bees - trainee campaigners sought

Here's a volunteer advert we're running as Friends of the Earth in a few places around the country to coincide with the Government's consultation on the National Pollinator Strategy. I'll add another post over the weekend talking about the organising context to this, but for now let the ad stand on its own merits.

Big thanks to our placement student Zarqa Mahmood who helped me write it.

And if you like what you read and want to help, get in touch!

Or if you fancy using it in your own area, feel free. Remember that you can put free volunteer adverts up on sites like Charity Job and Environment Job, especially if you have a structured opportunity to offer.

Want to take action to protect and connect with nature? We are looking for enthusiastic volunteers to help with The Bee Cause campaign at a crucial time.

Bees are essential to our survival as pollinators of hundreds of different crops as well as of plants providing habitats for countless other species. In Spring 2012 Friends of the Earth launched a campaign - The Bee Cause - aimed at halting bee decline and highlighting the importance of nature.

We've had great success - the Government has just put out its National Pollinator Strategy this month (March 2014) setting out how it plans to meet this challenge. However, Friends of the Earth believes the Strategy is still too weak on issues like pesticide use, intensive farming, new housing developments and funding for bee-friendly projects.

We now have an eight week consultation period to persuade them to make it stronger. And we'd really love your help with this. Even one Bee Action in the next 8 weeks could make all the difference.

Things you could do include: 

- organizing an informal gathering of interested local people 
- a fun activity-driven campaign stall at a local event
- promoting or planting wild flower areas in your community. 
- or you might have your own ideas and we'd be really keen to hear them.

Who we're looking for?

We're looking for people who can self-start and who want to learn how to bring others together to take action in a good cause. Enthusiasm for nature and the environment is more important than experience.

How we would help you

Each volunteer would have a staff mentor who would help you plan your Bee Action through telephone and e-mail coaching as well as providing information and resources and connecting you to any other local volunteers. There would also be an opportunity to meet other activists at a Friends of the Earth training event in Taunton on April 26.


Do let us know if you'd like to take action with Friends of the Earth and we'll be in touch with you to help you get started.