Labour Together Submission Labour Party Community Organising Unit

Topline

Since January 2019, the Community Organising Unit has:

1. Trained 1 1,500 activists, members and non members in leadership and community organising before the election. Helping identify and develop leaders to build Labour power in communities.

2. 17,500 people engaged in ‘round table’ listening campaigns with communities leading to social justice campaigns including: taking on bad landlords, to reclaiming community centres, to keeping open NHS surgeries to saving recycling centres.

3. During the General Election we trained over 7 500 party members and supporters in persuasive canvassing providing members with the confidence and skills to listen and talk to the electorate.

The Community Organising Unit launched in June 2018 with an first cohort of 6 community organisers. This grew to 20, with 9 digital community organisers in place by 2019 - taking the team to 29 in total. During the general election, 17 community organisers and 4 digital community organisers worked across the UK (with 5 members of staff seconded to the Member Mobilisation team). Over 100 CLPs have had training to some level in community organising or persuasive canvassing since the unit was set up.

Background

For the Labour Party to win the next election and beyond, it has to rebuild in its heartlands: win back Scotland, swing coastal towns and hold firm in the cities - building an alliance from London to Leigh and Lanarkshre. This presents a big challenge - to achieve it community organising must be at the centre of Labour’s rebuilding strategy.

The phenomenal growth in Labour party membership was recognised to be disproportionately city based and simply mobilising members was not a solution, or even an option in areas where membership and vote share had been hemorrhaging for decades, particularly across the Midlands, the North and Scotland. Knocking on doors and asking people to vote Labour one more time was simply not an option. A longer term solution was needed. Equally, with a growth in membership in metropolitan cities like London it was recognised that it was critical to invest in the membership and equip people with the skills to organise and campaign giving the Labour Party deeper roots in communities.

It is within this context that Community Organising Unit (COU) was set up with the ambition to rebuild the presence of the Labour Party in areas that were suffering the worst effects of austerity, low wage employment, child poverty and inequality.

Over the last 12 months from Yorkshire, to the East Midlands, London and South Wales a small team of Community Organisers spent time rooted in communities, building relationships with party members, connecting the party to organisations fighting austerity and the effects of austerity, whether trade unions, food banks or faith institutions or small business owners. This was not about mobilising the converted but building relationships and often trying to weave networks of people together. People that had spent years feeling disconnected from politics and the Labour Party. Community Organisers didn’t just ask people are you voting labour they sought to build a sense of collective leadership and power in communities necessary to fight the impact of Tory Cuts and that was decades in the making. During this period the Community Organisers, also fully participated in two local election campaigns, a European Election and a General Election running campaigns and mobilising thousands of members.

What are the COU’s aims?

● Build the power of the Labour Party by re-imagining and rebuilding Labour’s relationships with communities - leading to a deep, two-way relationship. ● Be relentless in the search for talent and the development of grassroots leaders - increasing the participation of people from working class and black and minority ethnic backgrounds to organise with the Labour Party. ● Provide training that equips members and non members (supporters) with the skills to build power, win campaigns and transform communities. ● Build powerful alliances between the Labour Party and Civil Society. ● Support communities to identify and build campaigns, with the Labour Party that make a tangible difference to people’s lives. ● Bring the party together to fight for the things that really matter. ● Make winning a habit.

Theory of Change.

Communities hit by decades of austerity, low wage employment, child poverty and inequality have also been hit by a sense of powerlessness. It is why ‘take back control’ resonated in many former industrial areas.

Community Organising is about transferring power from the elite to ordinary people. It is about recognising that decent housing conditions and Living Wages are achieved by getting Labour into government but people impacted by these issues have a critical role to play in fighting to win on these issues right now. Like the Miners of Tredegar organising together for universal healthcare or the Mums taking on dodgy landlords because their children are struggling to breathe because of toxic mould in their housing block or the fast food worker galvanising co-workers to fight for a £10 an hour - The Labour Party’s power comes from people. Community Organising aims to address that sense of powerlessness directly by identifying and developing the leadership skills of ordinary people to build power together to win the change they need in their lives.

In Hendon from the Labour Party members organising with local residents to build the power to take on a Tory Council to a ddress inhumane housing conditions t o residents in Carmarthenshire organising together to overturn t he closure of a recycling centre. Community organising is about building power, power that will - given time and resources - turn winning campaigns into winning elections.

Community Organising to Election Mobilising

Community Organising and Election Mobilising are traditionally viewed as mutually exclusive approaches. Electoral campaigns tend to focus on creating a temporary voter turnout machine that disappears when the election is over. These campaigns, by and large, aim to win without investing in building ordinary people’s capacity to make change.

For community organisers, the focus during elections becomes mobilising the people we’ve trained and built relationships with prior to elections and to enable members to own election strategy. Ahead of the short campaign for any elections, community organisers switch to getting constituencies they work in election-ready.

Organisers kickstart election campaigns with General Election Emergency Meetings (Barnstorms), to share the strategy and recruit members to take up volunteer roles for the duration of the election.

During the General Election, Community Organisers ran Persuasive Conversations Training to equip members with the confidence and tools to persuade residents to vote Labour in the first two weeks of the campaign. Persuasive Conversations Training was the means by which we wanted to achieve mobilising large numbers of activists. These sessions are

designed to act as a ‘hook’ to non-active members through which they are motivated and energised into canvassing (barnstorm/motivation). Activists were introduced to canvassing and why we do it (direction), and then given the skills to do it well. The training took place predominantly in the first two weeks and was advertised to new activists. As a team we trained over 7500 in persuasive canvassing. This also means our canvassers are skilled and changes the depth of conversations activists can have on the doorstep - a very useful addition to Voter ID and contributed to the only Labour gain of the election, Putney.

Organising and mobilising are critically different. Organising is about building depth. However, within the context of the Labour Party, through the identification and training of hundreds of leaders we were able to build big teams ready for an election, when it was called. This type of change is not going to happen overnight in a political party and it takes time and support to embed new methods of organising into our structures. Our Community Organisers had limited time - just 18 months yet in this time so much has been achieved.

Before Elections:

In a period in which people feel a deep cynicism about politicians, Community Organising has the potential to change the relationship between people and politics. By developing grassroots leaders, building relationships with civil society, building capacity within our own membership and winning social justice campaigns across the country. The Community Organising Unit has sought to prove that the Labour Party is not simply a political party that knocks on doors at election time but one that can reinvigorate democracy and people’s belief in the power of change from the bottom up. It has sought to build Labour as a vehicle for social justice and social change all year around. By building a strong presence in key constituencies and reimagining the relationship between the party and citizens - it would give the party a better chance of electoral success and enabling the Labour Party to mobilise a larger base of support in any given area.

● Community Organisers have held 7400 1-2-1s prior to the general election (From January 2019). 1-2-1’s are opportunities to find people with the energy, fire, and leadership skills. They are critical for identifying potential leaders; building relationships with civil society, local trade union branches, BAME and faith institutions and organisations fighting austerity. From 1-2-1s trust and relationships are built,issues are identified, people are trained, leaders are uncovered. Each organiser aims to have 15 1-2-1s per week.

● Training and developing grassroots leaders - 19,000 people trained in community organising ready to train others, be skilled confident canvassers, lead community campaigns, become councillors or even future candidates.

● Identifying issues with communities and building winnable campaigns at a local and national level, see examples below & case studies in appendix

Examples, to name but a few!

- Housing: Housing is one of the most significant issues impacting on people’s lives. In Putney and Hendon we organised with social housing residents against rogue landlords - forcing families to live in terrible conditions - and conservative councillors and MPs to get wins worth millions of pounds to improve tenants homes. In Westminster, the Duke of Westminster, the world’s youngest billionaire planned to demolish a local estate. We brought the community together, trained residents and helped them to win the right to return to their homes. - Football Fans: Football fans are rarely organised but in Newcastle we brought together football fan groups to take on Sports Direct billionaire club owner Mike Ashley. T his resulted in the biggest boycott in premier league history giving away over 10,000 free season tickets (worth in excess of £3m) to fans due to the empty seats damaging commercial revenue for advertising. Fans are now working together on a Living Wage Campaign. - NHS: In Wolverhampton, we organised with patient groups, local residents and Eleanor Smith MP to s top the closure of a Tettenhall Medical Practice. - Community Space: In Rushcliffe, we worked with newly elected councillors and an alliance of community groups to save a local community centre from being sold off and instead it was awarded status as an asset of community value.

We ARE listening...But we need to do it more.

It was levelled at the Labour Party during the General Election that it wasn’t listening enough. Whether this is fair or not it is clear that for too long the culture between the Labour Party, members and communities has been too transactional. Internally, when meetings tend to be about ‘minutes and motions’ there is limited opportunity to build relationships across political viewpoints and identify the big issues impacting on our communities. Too often, new and old members are put off and don’t come back. And externally, how much time do CLPs spend listening to people in the local community about the pressures they face and the potentially solutions we can work on together.

To kick off community organising within each constituency we held ‘People-Powered Mass Meetings’. Unlike most CLP meetings, or party rallies our People Powered Mass Meetings are set up with round tables so attendees could listen to each other, build relationships and share perspectives in a non factional or hostile way. It is the people within communities that understand the issues they face every day the best, and we regularly found that they have potential solutions to those issues too.

This has been transformational for the Party’s approach to bringing people together. On average 40-50% of attendees were not Labour members. The meetings were diverse with people coming from local businesses, civil society organisations, BAME and faith groups. Many of whom had never previously attended a political meeting or would consider themselves political. Through this approach we were able to bring together thousands of people.

Importantly, the information gathered from these events has both helped to shape local campaigns and influence national policies and manifesto development. For example: John McDonnell used ‘Transform Your Town’ local economy events to shape Labour’s economic offer and Rebecca Long Bailey, developed much of the Green Industrial Revolution through listening to local communities. But these were also critical spaces to develop local grassroots campaigns that brought people together from across factions - some of these are illustrated below.

What is unique to our People Powered Mass Meetings are the Call to Actions. Often these are the start of a broader listening campaign, sign up to do Community Organising training to build the skills for effective organising and a game plan for how to win local campaigns that will radically improve people’s lives.

During Elections:

Ahead of the short campaign for any elections, organisers switch to getting constituencies they work in election-ready. Our CO’s were able to mobilise the deep relationships built and trained prior to the election.

Running Persuasive Canvassing Training (which includes upskilling activists, recruiting first timers, how to do Voter ID and persuasion) was the means by which we wanted to achieve mobilising large numbers of activists.

In Putney, We found that by investing time in training the membership, we would get a higher number of hours and quality canvassers in return. A whopping 1871 people were trained here. Around 70% of the members we had trained were first time canvassers.

Case Studies

The journey from 1-2-1, developing grassroots leaders and winning campaigns - Westminster

Liza Begum: Taking on the Duke of Westminster I have lived in a beautiful part of Belgravia all my life, in one of London's most expensive areas, there is a small community of social housing residents that have been living in Walden House, some for as long as 40 years; home to such a diverse community, from the elderly, young families with children, rebellious teenagers to all ages and cultural backgrounds. However the Duke of Westminster had different ideas about us and planned to redevelop Belgravia, this meant the demolition of Walden House and the Cundy Street Flats next door. Most of my neighbours and I were resigned to the fact that in four years’ time we would have to leave our homes, our friends and our support networks which we had built through the years.

The 1-2-1 On the same day, I met with Aydin, a community organiser from the Community Organising Unit for a 1-2-1. I briefly mentioned the Grosvenor development towards the end of the meeting. Aydin noted down all my concerns and reassured me there was something we could do. I left feeling there was hope for us after all.

Listening and Bringing Communities Together In the coming weeks Aydin organised listening campaigns, contacted councillors and planned the first residents meeting. This meeting was attended by Walden House and Cundy Street residents, who are divided merely by a wall yet never interacted with one another. Aydin brought two different communities together at our first meeting and it was wonderful to finally meet and engage with a community that we had otherwise never rubbed shoulders with. A few weeks later I was chairing my first meeting. I have always been nervous about public speaking but I was encouraged by the mere fact that Aydin had faith in me. At this meeting I also had the opportunity to meet other members of the Community organising team - who were all extremely talented and motivated individuals. One thing which was very evident in all the Community Organisers was that they had a sincere concern for people.

Building Leaders and Training By the second residents meeting most Walden House and Cundy Street residents were acquainted with each other which resulted in a core team being formed of the most vocal and passionate individuals naturally got together.

The Campaign The campaign gained over 100,000 signatures on change.org who had picked up the story and with no team around I naturally had to take a lead. I was receiving calls from journalists and reporters, being out of my comfort zone I was on the phone to Aydin straight away who reassured me directed me support from the wider team. It was during this time that things had snowballed, and I was finding myself on national media and newspapers.

I soon realised that the Community Organising Unit not only assist people with issues that affect their lives but in the process they equip you with the knowledge that is needed, the skills that are needed and most importantly they empower ordinary individuals and make us realise that there is a leader within us and that we are capable of making change. If I had to encapsulate the aims of the Community Organising Unit, it would be to Educate, Empower, Connect and Assist.

I was told by a neighbour at the very start that this was a waste of time, that we were little people and could not fight one of the biggest developers in the world. How wrong they were! We not only took on them on but we also WON.

The Win In the four months that we have been running this campaign there has already been such positive developments, the Council informed us we now have the right to return. I had not envisioned such success for this campaign and I certainly did not think I would be spearheading the campaign. So, from working a 9-5 and spending most of my free time with friends and binging on Stranger Things I think I have now found myself as a community organiser, leading campaigns that make a difference.

Press: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7468261/The-Duke-Westminster-loses-battle-141- social-tenants-relocated.html https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9796467/britain-families-london-council-homes-westminst er/ http://camdennewjournal.com/article/duke-of-westminster-is-told-hands-off-our-homes

Bringing Communities Together - Broxtowe

Jane Marshall: Broxtowe CLP Chair. Brexit and the Tories have sought to divide the country along race, faith and nationality. But in Broxtowe, we used diversity as the glue to unite us. Despite being a diverse borough for too long the Labour Party had not reflected the ethnic, professional, geographical and faith and make-up of the Broxtowe constituency. The Labour Party in Broxtowe was majority white, older and and from one particular area Beeston (an area in the south of the constituency).

We knew that if we were to stand any chance of winning we would need to build a coalition that could win. This meant engaging with BAME communities, younger voters and those in the north of the constituency. But it also meant organising with grassroots leaders around their collective interests. We wanted people to organise in a way that they felt comfortable whether through their profession, faith or neighbourhood but ultimately we wanted to build a big diverse team that could transform Broxtowe and get Greg, the PPC elected.

Across the constituency we organised to name but a few: Muslims4Broxtowe which came about when Konnie, an Elderly Jewish woman who's parents were killed in the holocaust knocked on doors up and down her road and invited muslims to her house to speak to them about why they must get involved in the Labour Party. This led to Javed running for council in his local area and Shafiq leading an effort to get elderly muslims to register for postal votes and young muslims to register for voting for the first times in their lives. With the University of Nottingham close by, we also built Academics4Broxtowe who wanted to focus on registering european voters who were eligible to vote and one of the local wards created Bramcore4Broxtowe - a traditionally conservative neighbourhood - who met and decided that they wanted to research how government cuts were hurting the everyday lives of people in Bramcore. There were many more from Students4Broxtowe to Teachers4Broxtowe to Pensioners4Broxtowe and unions4Broxtowe we built a new sense of what community meant.

We brought all these groups together in a huge People Powered Mass Meeting with Jeremy Corbyn and the PPC for a roundtable listening event. Each group got the opportunity to meet each other and share campaign stories, create meaningful relationships and find opportunities to organise together. The whole community got the opportunity to have the Labour leader listening to them. We encouraged our PPC and visiting shadow cabinet ministers to join roundtable discussions and include what they had learned from the communities in their closing remarks. This style of event leaves everyone feeling listened to, uplifted and energised - but it also built a sense of community - that was not defined by the constituency - and a team committed to working together to win.

Listening Campaigns that bring together the local Labour Party and local community to win - Marsh Drive Hendon

Maymuna Osman, Community Organiser, London. Activists from Hendon Labour said that although they had been members of the party for many years they had never interacted with their wider community, so we did a series of 1-2-1’s and an intensive listening exercise focusing on areas with low-voter turnout and high Labour density.

In the early stages this involved attending existing meetings on regeneration of estates in Hendon. We quickly found that the regeneration was leaving residents in temporary accommodation with nothing but poor living conditions and uncertainty about what the future held. We decided to take this listening campaign a step further and do some deep listening in the affected estate, Marsh Drive. This involved 1-2-1’s with key residents and then door-knocking the whole estate. We worked closely with activists from Hendon Labour and residents, who I had previously trained to carry out this exercise. We designed surveys to collate evidence of issues facing residents and also a listening meeting with residents and the Parliamentary Candidate for Hendon to discuss issues.

The listening process is time intensive but is imperative to ensuring that campaigns are not superimposed by The Labour Party. The result of this was a grassroots campaign led by and for residents being affected by ‘regeneration’ and built trust with the Labour Party.

We raised the profile of The Labour Party and Labour candidate by securing the campaign features in the local press and national broadcast media. We facilitated meetings with the Shadow Cabinet and leaders of the campaign which appeared in the local press. We also worked with Labour councillors in Barnet to brief them on the campaign and introduce them to residents. Councillors then went on to raise numerous questions and issues at Council meetings and in local press. As well as ensuring that the candidate had face to face time with the leaders of these campaigns. This meant on key estates Labour had a strong presence before the election. Leaders of the campaign have joined The Labour Party and have presented on their campaign wins at AMMs. We also produced video content for the residents campaign; including an explainer video for canvassers to use on the doorstep to show people visually what the conditions in which the residents were living.

At the General Election, we did not hear ‘you only come to us during election’ on these estates. This cannot be underestimated in a ward where we lost three Labour councillors to Tories in 2018.

Press: https://twitter.com/VictoriaLIVE/status/1220276967846617091?s=19

Getting election-ready in rural constituencies - Wales In rural areas, building teams capable of distributed organisation is essential. Our organiser in Carmarthen West and South Pembroke worked with inactive branches in towns such as Carmarthen prior to the election, helping them to organise around green issues - with the Plaid-led Carmarthenshire County Council recently declaring a climate emergency - and provided persuasive conversation training to mobilise and skill up members. Lisa (former inactive member, now a branch chair): “At the end of the session Tom invited us to canvass. Many of the group had never done this before. I found the whole experience so rewarding that, with Tom’s support, I ran canvass teams throughout the campaign in my area. The whole experience was amazing”. The first week of the election provided an opportunity for branch leads and their teams to grow quickly. An emergency election meet brought 70 people together on a wet and windy night in Narberth. Our organiser worked with the local trainee organiser to provide a strategic overview for members, who were then given the opportunity to plan with their respective branch leads, leading into the first weekend of action. Jean, branch lead: “The emergency election meeting really sparked off the action on our branch. Before then it was the "faithful few” (4-5 of us) but the meeting was well attended and we ended up with a team of 26, almost all active either on-line or on the doorstep. We've never managed this before”. The teams built during the election are still active. In the first two months of 2020, each branch has attended CO training and developed their own listening campaign plans to re-engage with their communities. One branch identified an issue – the closure of a popular recycling centre by the local Plaid-led council – and has won a campaign with community leaders and residents from across the county.

Press: h ttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-51616999

Identifying and supporting candidates to stand for election - Calder Valley

Richard Dunbar, Community Organiser. At the outset of working in Calder Valley, working with the CLP, we aimed to build a core team to be geographically representative, inclusive of diversity and made of people who had the skills to develop communities and drive emerging campaigns forward. Two very strong women emerged early on following 1-2-1s. Through their community work they were well connected in their respective communities and had clear leadership skills. These two women became active in the core group, helping to not only organise the community organising launch event, but also to deliver community organising training. Our community-based and relational approach to organising encouraged these women members to realise that standing as a local councillor is a vehicle through which grassroots-led change can be achieved. When both were selected as candidates they used a relational approach to door-knocking outside of the short campaign.

They listened to residents, identified issues and built campaigns. At one training session, 50 members attended - they then went onto have 600 conversations in the local community. This all paid off as both women won their seats, which gave Calderdale Labour full control of the council for the first time in 20 years.

Local services saved for the community by the community - Wolverhampton. Zarah Sultana, Community Organiser (now MP for Coventry South): Tettenhall Medical Practice in Wolverhampton.

Tettenhall Medical Practice in Wolverhampton contains two GP practices, Wood Road and Lower Street. Although close to one another they serve diverse groups of patients and for the many elderly and disabled patients who used the Wood Road practise, the proposed closure in 2019 would have been a hammer blow to the community.

The starting gun for closure was fired by the GP practice itself – who had been seeking to close the site for some years to have one site and had failed previously following a vigorous local campaign. They cited various reasons at various points but the reality is that the decision was a financial one – NHS “reforms” have led to a complex internal market of agencies and companies trying to profit from one another and a culture of centralisation of services that is particularly problematic in primary care.

The surgery itself was understaffed clinically, but hugely well-regarded by the community for great, prompt, service and excellent GPs. Tettenhall itself is known for being the “Tory” bit of the CLP – all 6 the councillors covering the area of the constituency are Conservative and the electorate is quite elderly and homogenous – so posed some challenges from a Community Organising point of view as any campaign would have to be nuanced in terms of how the party engaged with the community.

NHS bodies are mandated to organise consultations, both physical and online, and these were well attended and had a high response rate with the overwhelming response being that the Wood Road Surgery needed to be saved. So there was a clear opportunity for organising in an area with a traditionally low-visibility Labour Party.

Community Organising staff had 121s with the numerous activists who had taken the original interest in opposing the closure, none of whom were members of the Labour Party. Despite this some real leaders emerged and in later stages of the campaign when more party members got involved we were unable to unearth some gifted activists who are now standing to be councillors in May 2020. The Labour MP, Eleanor Smith, was involved at the outset and as a former NHS nurse had a particularly useful story to tell.

Traditional campaign techniques were used: petitions, letters to the Express and Star (one of the biggest local papers in the country) but there was scope for Community Organising within that framework. A big listening event was organised. Local activists had 121s with local businesses who agreed to publicise the event. Whole areas were doorknocked and leafleted by the campaign team asking voters to engage with the issue, submit their views and attend the listening event. Activists did short videos telling their story and explaining the issue that were shared locally and regionally.

Under pressure from Tettenhall residents and the weight of public pressure, Doctors at the GP Surgery and the local CCG (Clinical Commissioning Group) agreed to face the residents/patients at a large listening event chaired by Eleanor Smith MP. A large crowd of several hundred turned up and filled a big church. It was moving to hear the personal stories of patients who told the room how much the surgery meant to them. For some who spoke it could be quite literally life-threatening and if not that hugely unsettling and worrying. This hadn’t been considered at all and the arguments in favour of closure took no account of the human impact.

The demand from the room was simple – think again and listen. It was clear that the surgery and CCG were taken aback by the anger, logic and organisation that had been brought to bear. All the arguments they tried to make were dismissed there and then - this lead to the announcement of a partial victory

Whilst not perfect the surgery was not being closed – leaving the door open for expansion in future. A large number of people got to see how the NHS often works in the 21st century, an undemocratic, marketized maze of competing bodies more interested in cost-cutting than patient care.

Without the work of the community and the guidance of the CO team (which was often strategic as well as practical) it is clear that the surgery would have been closed with a minimum of fuss and a service lost forever. Now the community know they can win. With more time we could have engaged on further issues in the area and won the community over to the Labour Party.

Press: https://www.expressandstar.com/news/health/2019/11/05/under-threat-tettenhall-gp-surg ery-saved-but-opening-hours-face-cut/

Creating Community Assets - Save Lutterell Hall

Shingai Mushayabasa, Community Organiser: Trent Bridge Ward, Rushcliffe. During the local elections, in which we gained 3 additional Labour Councillors - we undertook a listening campaign in Trent Bridge ward. It was from these conversations that it became clear that Lutterell Hall was under threat of being sold. Lutterell Hall is the only community hall based in West Bridgford. The rationale behind selling the hall was that the hall was a liability as members of the community had not been hiring out the Hall. It turns out the borough council was not marketing the hall for hire.

Following on from the local election, the Tory–led council Rushcliffe Borough council decided to hold an initial cabinet meeting to consider a motion for selling the hall. The weekend before the meeting an online petition was launched by the CLP chair, which accumulated 5000 signatures in the space of 4 days and raised awareness about the potential selling of the hall.

We then galvanised local Labour Party members and community members to hold an action. We attended the initial cabinet meeting where the newly elected Labour Councillors would be raising a question about the hall. We went with 50 members of the community whilst the motion was being passed. - Leader of the council realised that there was a deep interest in the community hall.

Following on from the motion for consideration being passed. I worked alongside Cllr Jenny and Cllr Bal who had been newly elected councillors, and councillors of the ward. We began having 121 conversations with various community groups about the sale of the Hall. We went to the neighbouring residential home, I remember one 80 year old sharing a story about how her children had used the hall 40 years ago, and how her grandchildren had also used the hall.

We also built a relationship with the Pre-School that uses the Hall during school term, it would be affected with the hall closure as they had pre-school bookings until August 2021. Helen, who is one of the pre-school teachers became a close ally and collected signatures from parents for us.

Councillor Jenny secured an appointment with Ken Clarke MP to present the 5000 signatures. We organised an action outside Ken Clarke’s office with 60 people. A choir that uses the hall, wrote a song which they sang outside Ken’s office whilst the meeting went on. Following on from the action, we noticed that Rushcliffe Borough Council began advertising the Hall for Hire on its twitter. Which was a great shift considering the advertising of the hall was poor.

We undertook a deep listening canvass session in the community. Through undertaking this listening event, we met a dance teacher who was going to be affected by the closure of the hall. Working with her we decided it would be good to bring to life the campaign in the Hall, not just in the corridors of the council.

Working with local local black and minority ethnic organisations, we put on a local awareness raiser about the potential closure and the impact it could have on the community. We had 20 BAME organisations in attendance and 137 people in attendance including PPC Cheryl Pidgeon. Following the event, the team applied for Asset of Community Value status for the Hall - which was granted.

Following on from the energy and success around the campaign, A group called ‘ Friends of Lutterell Hall’ was created, this campaign group is a mixture of Labour Party members, service users of the Hall ( the pre-school, the liberty singers, the yoga classes group), the councillors and community members. The group applied for the building to be listed as a Grade 2 building which was successful. It also held a community fundraising event, which attracted a donation of a piece of art which was sold for £5000. The campaign to Save Lutterall Hall is ongoing - as the council still seeks to sell it off. But the power of the community will ensure it stays with the community.

Press: https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/local-news/major-boost-fight-save-community-376 7013

Taking on the floods, through a Green Industrial Revolution, Yorkshire

Calder Valley is being hit hard by climate chaos. Tune into the news, it is already a shocking reality in Yorkshire. Through carrying out a mass listening exercise (using 121s, doorstep conversations and visiting a wide spectrum of business and community organisations) across Calder Valley and Colne Valley in the first half of 2019, we realised that the community at large were very passionate at responding to the harsh realities and real dangers posed by the climate emergency but unclear how to galvanise anger into action. People had amazing ideas but perhaps were not using the right tactics to pull the levers of power. One member of the community said “It’s like we need a festival of ideas, something that brings people together, something that inspires them into action”. It was from here that the idea of The Green Industrial Revolution Festival was born. We brought together 650 people over the course of the day!

Because of the relationships that we had built in the community links with the people to pull this off in a relatively short space of time.

• A music festival organiser • A digital specialist • A trade union organiser • A lawyer • A teacher • A retired senior council officer • A local councillor • A member of the local co-op • A member of the local flood defence group

Our organised and inclusive approach and created a wide range of workshops that a mini festival where we expected about 100 people to turn up to in a small village in Colne Valley ended up attracting over 650 people from all across the north of England. We had a market place of stalls including trade unions, local co-ops and community organisations that were doing good stuff on the environment locally as well as Shadow Cabinet and local MP’s

Whilst we clearly didn’t get the result we wanted in the General Election I am absolutely clear that the organising we did around the Green Industrial Revolution but this issue at the forefront of public consciousness and had helped turn a group of activists into a movement of organisers.

As well as revisiting the “Moors for the People, More for The Planet” group, the Yorkshire Team are currently working with groups around stop regional airport expansions and connecting up different local authorities and campaign groups to look at divesting the west Yorkshire pension fund from fossil fuel companies.

Winning in Putney Beth Foster-Ogg, Community Organiser, London

Background to the constituency - Three distinct areas;Putney, Roehampton and Southfields - 70% remain - 5 labour councillors - Hasn’t been labour since 2005

Before the election As a community organiser, I was working 2 days a week in Putney for a year before the election. The impacts of this on the election campaign are clear.

1. High retention rate 2. Voter registration 3. Relationships with key communities 4. Relationships and leadership development within the CLP 5. Profiling of candidate

Persuasive Conversation Training

As a team we trained 1,870 who were then attached to Putney as a seat. Running Persuasive Conversations Training was the means by which we wanted to achieve mobilising large numbers of activists. These sessions are designed to act as a ‘hook’ to non-active members through which they are motivated and energised into canvassing (barnstorm/motivation), introduced to canvassing and why we do it (direction), and then given the skills to do it well (training). The training took place predominantly in the first two weeks and was advertised to new activists.

We found that by investing time in training the membership, we would get a higher number of hours and quality canvassers in return. Around 70% of the members we had trained were first time canvassers. We followed up and found they were often people who were very committed to campaigning (often having canvassed that day or all week) and wanted to increase their skills. Of the new canvassers 60% said they would never have actually canvassed before coming to the training but would after attending.

In terms of turnout, there was a huge desire to attend these events. For the first three weeks these events were oversubscribed and in most cases we had to accommodate extra numbers of people. We committed to monitoring this and stopping the training once the numbers declined. This didn’t really happen so the natural end to the training cycle was when the short campaign began and we just didn’t have capacity.

The training content included explaining why we canvass, exploring best practice for the doorstep, practising how to talk about the manifesto and communicating values.

Understanding how to actively listen and deal with difficult questions. The high energy, participatory nature of the training gives people a really positive and enjoyable experience of the Labour Party. In a survey of activists taken at 4 post-election debriefs 8/10 people said the training was the highlight of their election campaign. A key part of this strategy focused around the follow up with attendees.

We trialled an initiative in Putney appropriately named the Putney Persuaders (PP) that recruited experienced canvassers and sent them on canvasses which specifically targeted undecided, liberal democrat, and green voters. This proved extremely successful in Putney, helping to secure the only Labour gain in the last election with a majority of 4,774 and with the 3rd highest Labour Party contact rate in the country suggesting that community organising, persuasive conversations training should be embedded into the election campaign culture alongside Voter ID if we are to replicate these wins.

Press: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/clyde-house-residents-death-trap-14070046 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/putney-election-result-labour-fleur-ander son-tory-will-sweet-a9244801.html Emergency general election team building - Hastings & Rye When the election was called, we organised two General Election Barnstorms to build urgency and energy around the campaign. Over 140 members and supporters joined for both events, which provided an opportunity to share inspiring stories about why this election was the most crucial one in a generation. We also shared our top-line strategy and focused on volunteer recruitment - we had sign-up sheets with specific roles listed and a call to action to join our canvassing WhatsApp group, which grew to 170 regular canvassers over the campaign. We ran weekly phone-banks, initially calling members and then voters. Within the first two sessions we called 1,600 members, raising hundreds of pounds and signing up hundreds of members to get involved. Training covering a variety of topics were held at our main campaign HQ, including persuasive conversations, board-running, election agent and polling day training. By running ‘Train the Trainer’ sessions, members learnt the materials and delivered training to dozens of more members themselves. On top of weekly canvasses, we organised rallies and mass-canvasses on some of the top policy themes - like the Green Industrial Revolution, housing and the NHS. We held these rallies in busy public places to raise our visibility and presence in the constituency. Spotting leadership qualities and providing development opportunities was a critical part of building sustainable and effective teams to lead on different campaign activities. For example, a member who showed leadership during the phone-bank was supported to run the phone-bank, which he successfully did. Post-election he’s stood for councillor and is now a key activist in the local Party.

FAQ’s

● How do you measure the impact of community organising? - Through evidencing; The Community Organising team are doing a data analysis of our impact. Once published we can ask that this is circulated widely. - Through number of 1-2-1’s held, numbers trained, turnout at events held and campaigns fought and won with local communities, 1-2-1’s Identify and develop leadership skills amongst activists, we have held 7 428 of these meetings with members and the wider communities, and through the training over 19k people in community organising

Examples in case studies

● Were community organisers part of a strategy that misdirected activists into unwinnable seats?

No, the target and early selection seats were designated by the regions and elections and campaigns directorate.

Were community organisers trained in/focused on Voter ID/GOTV/use of Contact Creator during the short campaign?

Yes. Ahead of the short campaign for any elections, organisers switch to getting constituencies they work in election-ready. Please note - persuasive canvassing training includes Voter ID and GOTV. We also ran board running training.

● Were community organisers working with / coordinating with regional organisers and regional office teams?

Yes, The Community Organising team worked with the regional directors to recruit staff, agree the key seats across the regions to work in and the development of the strategy. This included work carried out during the general election. All CO staff report to their RD’s along with COU team management.

● How are the costs of community organisers recorded in any election returns? Have any individual candidates had to include costs for those organisers on their returns?

Yes this is accounted for, like all Labour Party staff, community organisers were recorded in election returns for individual constituencies. The amount was calculated with the Regional Director and agents to agree a total, based on the amount of time spent in a constituency, and how much was member-facing.

● How many community organisers are there?

There is confusion about the number of community organisers. During the general election there were only 17 community organisers and 4 digital community organisers working across the UK (with 5 members of staff seconded to the Member Mobilisation team). However there were trainee organisers working across the country. This created confusion with people thinking that trainee organisers were also community organisers. This is not accurate.

● Do community organisers deliver traditional Voter ID/GOTV door knocking operations?

We do both. P eople Powered Massing Meetings are essentially another name for member mobilisation events. We use this as a hook to create curiosity and encourage attendance. Organisers would usually attach mass canvasses after training so members could get out straight away and put what they learnt into use. Our training content includes Voter ID, GOTV and board running. But also explains why we canvass, exploring best practice for the doorstep, practising how to talk about the manifesto and cover how to actively listen and deal with difficult questions.

● How were seats assigned to community organisers?

The COU worked with the Regional Directors to recruit staff, agree the key seats across the regions to work in and the develop the organising strategy. In general, community organisers were placed in attack seats however they offered and delivered training to over 100 constituencies, Labour Party conference and at regional conferences around the country.