The Campaign Company Blog

Have you Seen & Heard about this...?

I’ve previously blogged on these pages about our youth engagement work with BarnsleyHospital. Last night the Lord Mayor of York presented David Brannan and Brian Whitaker, two of the Trusts’ public governors, with an award recognizing these efforts.

The BT ‘Seen and Heard’ Awards are all about recognising young people that have made their voices heard and adults and organisations that have listened to young people. Barnsley Hospital was in the adult winners group for being 'a great example of how organisations can effectively listen to young people and act upon what they have heard'.

See and Hear Barnsley young people giving their views here. For more info on the BT Seen and Heard Awards click here.

Britain's first green eco-suburb in Newham

We at The Campaign Company are very happy to see that our friends in Newham are about to embark on the construction of Britain's first carbon-free 'ecopolis'. The site, built over the remains of an old toxic east-end gasworks, marks the first in a long line of regeneration activities in this area built to reduce carbon emissions.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2425241,00.html

We are doubly happy because we are set over coming months to do some work for the borough in engagement activities around the environment and recycling. So it's really refreshing to see that Councils are willing to put their money where their mouths are in terms of climate change issues, especially when there's so much 2012 money going around and the pressure's on to put on a world class olympic games.

Anyone got any good ideas how we could use this news to practically contribute to our upcoming work?

Falling off a blog...

Today is my last day working for The Campaign Company. It's been an interesting experience. When I joined I'd been freelancing for a while and so it was great to be part of a team once again. In particular, I've really appreciated working with so many funny and supportive people.

TCC is so much more than I expected. I spent ages trawling the web for direct competitors, but there's no one out there who has the same breadth and depth of experience and work areas.

One of the things I particularly admire about TCC is the lack of cynicism. It was built on a genuine belief that people really can be empowered to participate in democracy - from local forums to the global village - and make a real difference to their lives.

In particular, they are hugely successful at engaging with young people - quite an achievement at a time when young people are often dismissed as apathetic. No doubt this is due in part to the number of employees who can be described as young(ish). In fact, I remember scanning their website before my first interview, worried that you obviously had to be young and good looking to work here.

Which brings me nicely onto my final contribution. Having failed to upload the latest photographs of our team to the website, I'll post them here and maybe they'll find their way to the right place...

 

So it's goodbye to Jonathan.

Farewell to David.

 

And of course au revoir from me...

Energy Saving Week

The Energy Saving Trust is running Energy Saving Week to help us all do our bit to reduce global warming...

Monday 23rd - Buy better day An Energy-saving fridge-freezer alone could knock £45 off your annual energy bill.

Tuesday 24th - Boil better day If everyone boiled only the water they needed to make a cup of tea instead of "filling" the kettle every time, we could save enough electricity in a year to run nearly half of all the street lighting in the country!

Wednesday 25th - Green wheels day If all commuters left the car at home one day a week this would save enough miles to drive to the moon and back 35,000 times.

Thursday 26th - Turn to 30 day Turn down the temperature on your washing machine. With modern powders, you'll still look as good at 30°C and you'll use around 40% less energy.

Friday 27th - Light savers day As the clocks go back, save energy by swapping your ordinary light bulbs for energy saving ones. Energy saving light bulbs last up to 12 times longer and can cut energy wastage by over three quarters.

Click here to find out more about how YOU can save money and the planet

Blogging in the Balkans...

This is a first-a posting from outside the UK! David and I are back in Croatia working with our friends from the SDP helping them with their preparations for elections in November 2007.Whilst there is much that is different from the UK - it's still a relatively new democracy, it has PR and a list system,coalition politics etc. there is so much more that is the same.Principally the need to (in the words of Ivica Racan former Prime Minister and Party President) "Moramo biti sposobni odgovoriti na pitanje ne samo kako pobijediti na izborima, vec i zasto pobijediti na izborima"  - "we have to be able to answer the question ,not only how to win the elections but also why."

TCC will be working on a Training programme over the next 12 months looking at campaign message strategy and communications.www.sdp.hr

For more photos, view the gallery by clicking here.

Youth Action on Child Poverty

Youth Action magazine, published twice a year by the National Youth Agency, have used a shot of our Child Poverty Matter bridge-building exercise for their Autumn issue. The mag also includes article by the co-chair of the Young People Select Committee, Jenny Ginley, on page 17. You can download a copy of it from the NYA website website shortly.

Trustee Talk

A new blog designed to support young trustees has been launched today. Kay Ritchie, new chairperson of the British Youth Council will be 'dishing the reality' of her weekly experiences in her role as a decision-maker and trustee Check it out here

Berking up the right tree

This week we finished a 2-month long campaign to help raise election awareness in East Berkshire and identify candidates in the Royal Berkshire Hospitals NHS Trust's FT election. We needed at least two people for the election, but a grand total of eleven people put themselves forward; in a constituency not usually known for its interest in the Royal Berkshire Trust (Heatherwood and Wexham Park hospitals are more local), this was a fantastic result. A really well done to all field staff and candidates involved.

It does raise a broader question: when Trust's a required to engage with areas where they may have sites, but perhaps other more local hospitals are based and may at some point have been threatened with closure, how do you tap into people's consciousness in this area and actually encourage people that it does matter?

Not an easy thing to do. We found that working with patients and community organisations was the best thing to do; patients especially as they have at least some attachment, however brief, to the Trust.

Always on the look out for more ideas on this though so would appreciate your comments.

The Wall is almost there!

"Instead of some council official doing a boring report about youth facilities, why don't they let us make a video about what we want..."

With sessions in Harrogate, Richmond, Ryedale and Skipton, we have now completed 7 sessions with young people in all parts of North Yorkshire. Looking at local democracy, ideas about how the Council can encourage young people to "take part, take power" have flooded in. All the sessions have been bursting with energy and commitment and with local councillors joining in, we had the chance to start discussing how the ideas can be acted upon.

The discussion will continue at the final event on October 26th, at County Hall in Northallerton. All the young people's ideas have been summarised on huge "bricks", which will be used to construct a giant "Democracy Wall". This will then kick off discussions between representatives from all 7 districts and leading councillors and a plan of action will be agreed!

craftivism.com

I told you knitting is for cool people these days! Set up by a graduate of Sociology whose MA focussed on knitting, DIY culture and community development, this site is based on the idea that ‘activism + craft = craftivism. That each time you participate in crafting you are making a difference, whether it's fighting against useless materialism or making items for charity or something betwixt and between’. It's about the not-so-radical notion that activists can be crafters, and crafters can be activists. The site also has a blog, ‘documenting the crafty life. Stitch by stitch by political stitch’.