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Running a good group
- 1. Running a good group A year in the life of an Amnesty group Amnesty International
- 2. What’s your problem! Introduce yourselves to each other, say what you love about being in a group, what problems your group faces or you think other groups might face and think of some possible solutions together.
- 3. Recruiting members • Promote your stall • Stall rota • Quick and easy action to make it memorable • Information about your own group's activities and information on Amnesty in general. • Show why amnesty rather than any other group • Emphasise that knowledge is not required. • Send a short welcome email to new addresses asap • Order amnesty banners and stickers • Small leaflets about amnesty and your first meeting
- 4. What if… the group is still fairly small? • Don’t give up! • Emphasise the benefits of a small group by making it more friendly and informal so it’s more like a group of friends. • Tailor your activities to the number of people you have available – try to get Amnesty mentioned at somebody else’s event, write an article for your student paper, or run a simple event by yourself.
- 5. First meeting • Background information on Amnesty International • What student groups do and what you’re members can get involved with. • Information about some past successes • Show the benefits for them – like Action for Change! • Atmosphere – unintimidating (both the information and the people!), informative, approachable, allocated times for questions , encourage ideas. • Have an action people can do so they feel involed. It could be as simple as brainstorming.
- 6. Meetings • Set an agenda with a mixture of activities • Welcome any new members and find out their name and if they have any questions at the end. • Have a facilitator who keeps time and makes sure everyone gets heard and no arguments happen. • Allow some social time. • CAKE
- 7. Communication • Don’t swamp people • Don’t make the emails too long • Use your facebook group • News items (such as upcoming events, action that people can take or information about Amnesty). • Make sure people who miss one meeting don’t get left behind by telling them what you did in the meeting and tell them how they can catch up next week.
- 8. Events • Rough calendar for the year– international ‘days’ and amnesty termly calendar • Combine fundraising with campaigning. • Set goals, plan ahead, delegate, set deadlines and check your progress as you near those deadlines. • Ensure any materials use accurate information. • Evaluate afterwards – Keep written records of lessons learnt. • Never let anyone make anything up – query cards. • Team up with other societies and other Amnesty groups whether local, student or youth.
- 9. Elections • Encourage people to stand, it can seem intimidating • Make sure you’ve told everyone what each role entails, perhaps with a short t job description. • Delegate throughout the year so people feel involved enough to stand when it comes to elections.
- 10. Committee handovers • Handover meeting separate from any elections. • Throughout the year you need to be evaluating your work and noting down useful contacts, locations or techniques. • Few months before most people have exams so that you allow time for the new committee to ask for your advice while you are still around, and also so that they have time to plan properly before the start of the next academic year
- 11. End of the year • Celebrate your success! • Look back at videos or photos from the year • Run a mini-awards ceremony for your non-committee members.
- 12. Other Dos and Don’ts • Do use any help your union or guild offers, whether it’s funding, publicity, use of equipment, storage space. If you’re not sure what they can offer you, arrange a meeting. • Do remember to re-affiliate. • Do keep Amnesty and STAN updated with what your group are doing so we can celebrate you’re achievement and spread your ideas. ( Contact details in a min)
- 13. Need help? • Student pages of amnesty.org.uk • Education & Student Team: student@amnesty.org.uk or 0207 033 1591. • STAN Committee: Student Action Network on Facebook. Amnesty International
- 14. ?
Editor's Notes
- This is a idea-sharing workshop mainly designed for committee members or those who are planning to be on a committee. We are going to go through the common stages of a group’s year and ask what your group does and any advice you have for the others, then we are going to show you some of our own tips that we made earlier.
- How do you recruit members? What do you think are important aspects of recruiting? Eg. a big smile, remembering names, showing people what events you’ve done, leaflets What makes people choose Amnesty rather than any other group? Do you recruit throughout the year? Make yourself visible – media coverage, public events. Make yourself accessible – make it easy to contact your group (at least have an email address that you include with all publicity and display at events) and give yourself a human name and face (have committee members who know how the group works at your public events for people to talk to). Be friendly and open towards anyone who approaches you; any stranger is a potential supporter invite them to a committee meeting, but make it clear that they do not have to make such a high level of commitment if they do not want to.
- What kind of activities suit different size group? What are the advantages of having a small group?
- What are the aims of a first meeting? What to people need to know when they start working with amnesty? What will persuade people to come again? Run an intro meeting and then the next meeting start with planning events and things Don’t assume knowledge of amnesty
- What information do you include in your updates? Facebook or email or both? Twitter? Websites? Difficult to make and maintain but blogging, photos, info for those not involved in the group, minutes Groupspaces.
- How do you decide what events to have when? How far ahead do you plan? What key features do you have at every event (eg. Amnesty branded materials)? Do you do any follow up? One model that is good for involving new people is to have a string of varied events in the first term (between freshers’ fair and Christmas) and during that time to plan for a larger focussed campaign in February and March. The old committee can then worry about planning for the first of these two periods and about recruiting new people and getting everything running smoothly during that first period, and then you can engage new members who want to get more involved in planning the big campaign for the second period.
- When do you hold your elections? How can you encourage people to stand for election?
- What methods do you use to pass on knowledge from one committee to the next?
- Any other end of the year activities?