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Follow us on twitterGeneral Election 2010 -- The Aftermath
9th May 2010 16:31 | by Peter Brett
The war may have barely begun, but what's important is that this battle is over, and the Pirate Party has successfully demonstrated that we mean business. We've stood a good set of candidates for election, and proven that people out there are willing to vote for us.
As I'm sure you're all aware, no single party has managed to obtain an absolute majority in Parliament. Past experience suggests that we'll get the chance to do all of this again soon!
There's no time to waste. Once we've all caught up on sleep again, we need to hit both the streets and the Internet, to raise awareness of the party, gather new members and rebuild our campaigning funds.
So what went well during the election campaign, and what could be improved? I'm still waiting for feedback from most of the candidates, but at this stage it's already becoming clear that we got most votes in constituencies with a strong local campaign team who worked closely with the candidate. We also had some real problems with the timely design and production of publicity materials, as well as in regular and effective contact with the media. In my opinion, my plan for decentralised campaigning didn't work very well; not only did it result in quite a lot of duplicated effort, but candidates didn't have a good feel for what levels and variety of support they could reasonably ask for from the national team. In future, I think the party should have a much clearer and more centrally-directed campaign strategy.
Some of you may recall that Philip Hunt agreed to step down as Campaigns Officer after the election. In order to make sure that the Campaigns Office continues to run while a replacement is elected, the NEC yesterday appointed me Acting Campaigns Officer.
The first thing I intend to do is to appoint three Deputy Campaign Officers, subject to the approval of the NEC. If you wish to take on one of these roles, please note that you must be available on Monday evenings for the weekly NEC conference call, and that you need to be able to commit 6-8 hours weekly for party business.
Universities and Colleges Officer. This officer will be responsible for promoting and assisting with the formation and running of student Pirate activist groups in universities and colleges nationwide. Candidates should have relevant experience, having ideally set up a student Pirate group in their own institution.
Publicity Materials and Merchandising Officer. This officer will be responsible for coordinating the design and production of publicity materials and merchandise for promoting the party. This will not only include flyers and the printed manifesto for election campaigns, but also banners, rosettes, flags, badges, t-shirts, etc. Candidates should have experience in graphic design and/or procurement.
Member Communications Officer. This officer will be responsible for communicating with the party membership at large, and for keeping less-engaged members interested and motivated to support the party's campaigns. Duties will initially include the production of a fortnightly e-mail newsletter, and supporting Regional Administrative Officers in setting up regular communication with members in their areas. Candidates must demonstrate an excellent ability for written English and a history of involvement in the party membership community.
As you can tell, these are all jobs which really need to be done well if we're going to continue to successfully grow the party into a political force to be reckoned with in the UK! If you want to know more, please send me an e-mail or a message on the forums.
Congratulations again to all our candidates and campaign teams! I look forward to doing even better next time.
16 comments
In this role I would like to organise a UK-wide Freshers' campaign to kick start our uni presence, help co-ordinate student groups and arrange events, and liase efficiently between the campaigns office and student groups, something I think would greatly help around election time, especially in constituencies with large student populations.
martindevans wrote: Who's your friend at Birmingham uni, is he on these forums? I go to Birmingham uni too, and I'd love to join a pirate society there.
I got an email from a guy called Sam Stratton the other day, he's set up a group called Insoc, or Information Society. They have a facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=193752465094&ref=ts
This also raisies an issue: It might be a good idea to have a "Universities and Colleges" bit on the website, so people could find their local Pirate society, or if there wasn't one where they were, to be put in contact with other people interested and for me, or whoever is selected to be the Unis & Colleges Officer, to help them set one up. Something to think about in the no-too-distant future when we have a few more societies set up.
finlay_a wrote: I'd like to put myself forward for Universities and Colleges Officer. I currently run a pirate society at my university, and have been in contact with a student at Birmingham University who is setting up a similar group. My friend Andrew Paliwoda, who would also make a good candidate for this office, will be transfering to Glasgow uni and setting up a student group there and is in contact with a potential student group at Napier uni in Edinburgh.
I'd like to second this -- either Finlay or Andrew would be excellent at the job.
In this role I would like to organise a UK-wide Freshers' campaign to kick start our uni presence, help co-ordinate student groups and arrange events, and liase efficiently between the campaigns office and student groups, something I think would greatly help around election time, especially in constituencies with large student populations.
You're right. Recruiting students ought to be one of our top priorities over the next year (retaining existing members is also important).
I expect that students, and those who've recently graduated, will be among the groups most likely to vote Pirate. Incidently, we mustn't forget that as well as a Scottish parliamentary election, there will also be Scottish local government elections; we're especially likely to do well here because (1) the student vote is often geographically concentrated, and (2) the elections are held under STV, so people can risk voting for us without the danger of it being a "wasted vote".
finlay_a wrote: This also raisies an issue: It might be a good idea to have a "Universities and Colleges" bit on the website, so people could find their local Pirate society,
The quickest way to implement this would be for every university society to have a page on our wiki, which could have a link from the appropriate regional page.
cabalamat wrote:finlay_a wrote: This also raisies an issue: It might be a good idea to have a "Universities and Colleges" bit on the website, so people could find their local Pirate society,
The quickest way to implement this would be for every university society to have a page on our wiki, which could have a link from the appropriate regional page.
I think this should have a link directly from the main part of the website as Finlay suggested.
glambert wrote: I think this should have a link directly from the main part of the website as Finlay suggested.
Cheers. Of course it's always best to explore all options. Wiki is useful for putting info up, but we need a way for potential new pirates to find it. Link could maybe come under "The Party" tab? I'll leave it up to the webteam, I trust their judgment
Not too urgent seeing as we only have about half a dozen or so potential student groups.
Of course we also need an option that should someone's uni not be mentioned, they have a "set up your own" option that would link to a short giude on setting up pirate societies, and how to get in contact with other pirates in the area, as well as myself.
This will be the start of something awesome.
featured areas with direct links on the wiki is to-do. But I need a wiki manager...
\/ \/
borgs8472 wrote: ^ ^
featured areas with direct links on the wiki is to-do. But I need a wiki manager...
\/ \/
Surely we need a wiki manager.
andrewtindall wrote: As no one, to my knowledge, has come forward yet, I am now putting myself forward for the role of Member Communications Officer.
I didn't realize there was such a job. But then again, people are what they do; we make roles real by playing them. Good on you for volunteering. As nobody else offered, let's hope you're quickly endorsed through a hearty and enthusiastic response on this thread. Better still, just start doing it and don't stop unless someone complains. And even then don't stop until there's lots more complaints. Waiting to be vetoed seems to be more effective than waiting to be voted for. Pirates are better at complaining about things they don't like than encouraging what they do like
epriezka wrote:andrewtindall wrote: As no one, to my knowledge, has come forward yet, I am now putting myself forward for the role of Member Communications Officer.
I didn't realize there was such a job. But then again, people are what they do; we make roles real by playing them. Good on you for volunteering. As nobody else offered, let's hope you're quickly endorsed through a hearty and enthusiastic response on this thread. Better still, just start doing it and don't stop unless someone complains. And even then don't stop until there's lots more complaints. Waiting to be vetoed seems to be more effective than waiting to be voted for. Pirates are better at complaining about things they don't like than encouraging what they do like
It's in the blogpost! And I already am - just writing the first newsletter now.
andrewtindall wrote:epriezka wrote:andrewtindall wrote: As no one, to my knowledge, has come forward yet, I am now putting myself forward for the role of Member Communications Officer.
I didn't realize there was such a job. But then again, people are what they do; we make roles real by playing them.
It's in the blogpost! And I already am - just writing the first newsletter now.
Right you are! For some reason I mentally categorized the jobs as 'deputy campaigns officer' and forgot they had specific titles.
And now that I think about it, I wouldn't associate managing members with the Campaigns function. I'd stick it under Treasury, on the basis that the Treasurer has lots of data on members which the Campaigns Officer doesn't - it oversees the membership list - and because an effective Treasury team both must and should be handling a lot of key communication with members e.g. the initial on-boarding process, wooing members for more money, chasing subs renewal, dealing with change of address and contact details etc.
I hope this isn't yet another sign that people are underestimating the work/purpose/potential of a properly-run finance team.
Then again, maybe the Campaigns Officer does now have visibility of all the data on members. I'd have thought Campaigns would naturally be perceived as an outward-looking role, but I'll leave it to our worthy Data Controller to judge who should and should not have access to personal data in our highly privacy-conscious party
Anyhow, to avoid causing a ruckus about what may or may not be the ideal org chart, let me simply ask that if you're going to take on this job would you please bear in mind what I've just written and try to work closely with the Treasurer as well as the Campaigns Officer.