Getting people involved
Successful campaigns often start out with just one or two people determined to change things. As a campaign gains momentum it inspires more and more people to get directly involved. And a campaign that can claim widespread support from local people, community organisations and local businesses will have greater credibility with local authorities and with the media.
By setting up a local action group you can:
Build local support.
Build consensus between different interest groups.
Increase your credibility with the planning authorities.
Get help – training or financial – from national organisations.
Grab the media's attention.
Spread the workload!
What are you campaigning for?
You can help make your campaign a success by having well thought out aims. Your campaign objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-specific.
Organising meetings
Choose a regular place for meetings that is easily accessible by public transport, such as a community hall, the local library or a room in a pub.
Publicise meetings well in advance with posters in public places and headline the main theme or purpose of the meeting.
Appoint a chair (this could be rotated at each meeting) as she/he can keep the meeting focussed on the agenda and make sure that everyone gets a chance to speak.
Make sure meetings cover the main issues by providing an agenda in advance. Use any other business at the end of the agenda to deal with unexpected items.
Some people attending the meeting may want to become more involved but are excluded through lack of knowledge or confidence. Try out different ways of including people, for example by splitting into smaller groups to discuss a particular issue and then feeding back to the whole group.
Catching the attention of the media
Media coverage of your campaign can be an essential ingredient for success. To let journalists know about your campaign or a specific event you are going to hold, you will need to provide press releases. Your press release should start with an eye-catching headline with all the important information in the first paragraph. It should finish with names and telephone numbers of preferably two people able to answer media questions.
A newspaper or radio station is more likely to sit up and take notice if there is a 'human interest' story to hook on to, rather than just general information about your campaign. You could create the story by organising an eye-catching stunt. Women in Finsbury Park, an area in north London overrun by traffic, dressed up in black and white and lay down on the road to create a zebra crossing. You may want to temporarily block your road and invite local residents to have breakfast in the street. Publishing the results of a traffic survey you have carried out and presenting them to the local council or mayor could be another hook.
A quick media checklist:
Find out the deadline for local papers and aim to post, fax or e-mail press releases to arrive a few days in advance.
Follow up your press release with a phone call to make sure the paper or journalist receives it.
Find out in advance if a reporter will be covering the event. If so, plan whom you want them to interview.
If a journalist is unable to attend, provide a press release immediately after the event (you can draft this in advance) and if possible provide photographs.
Don't forget to send a press release to local radio stations, as they are usually very good at covering local and regional events.
Cultivate your group's relationship with sympathetic journalists. That way you won't be starting out cold every time you want some publicity.
Take advantage of 'quiet' times in the media, including Christmas, Easter, July and August, and Bank Holidays, when journalists are looking for stories to fill their pages.
