Memorandum to the Board
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INFORMATION REPORT BWB3440D MEMORANDUM TO THE BOARD MARKETING & FUNDRAISING REPORT – MARCH 2012 Report by Marketing & Fundraising Director 1. PURPOSE 1.1 To inform the Board of developments and issues in the Marketing directorate (which includes boat licensing policy and fundraising). 2. HEADLINES 7000 attend Bingley Five Rise Open Day (3.2) Drought affects boating – we step up communications (8.1) 2 new BT adoptions this month (Milton Keynes & Watford) (5.1.3) Almost 400 apply to become volunteer lockkeepers (5.1.2) New education brand complete (5.2.1) Montgomery Canal HLF bid ready to go (10.4). 3. COMMUNICATIONS 3.1 Opinion Formers We sent our latest edition of our newsletter to riparian MPs, waterway societies, third sector partners etc with details of the new contract for the Trust as the main item. Our other focus has been on preparation of written and oral evidence for the Efra Select scrutiny of the Transfer Order. An oral update will be given at the Board Meeting. 3.2 Media relations All board members and trustees should be receiving our weekly news update, please let us know if you have any difficulty receiving it. The most important announcement has of course been the Trust’s funding contract with government, which has received a tremendous response in the waterway and online media. There has been growing media interest in the drought affecting the midlands and south of England. Whilst canals aren’t at the top of the media agenda (public water supply and farming are the most commonly reported angles), there have been regular reports of navigation restrictions as well as the concept of using canals as part of a national water grid to transfer water from the ‘wet’ north to the ‘dry’ south. We’re stressing that the majority of the network remains unaffected by the drought and that the action we’re taking now will increase the water supply and make the resource available go as far as possible. Highlights since the last board report include continued and extensive coverage for BW’s winter maintenance and repair programme – with the Bingley Five Rise stoppage alone attracting widespread regional and national coverage (and over 7,000 visitors). The BBC’s flagship environment programme, Countryfile, was broadcast from the Bridgwater & Taunton Canal while the 200th anniversary of the Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal generated good coverage in Wales. Brian Blessed’s backing of our volunteering lock keeping campaign was particularly well picked-up by both the local and national media and well received by the public with over 300 applications to help out across 50 locations. It is summer holiday booking season and a number of the national papers have featured the delights of canal boating holidays in recent weeks. 4. MARKETING 4.1 Marketing campaign McCann, our appointed agency, are working on the marketing campaign to attract more of our target audience to visit their local canal and river. Popular canal areas which have a high density of the population meeting the ‘donor profile’ have been selected: Milton Keynes (Banbury and Tring) Bath to Devizes Birmingham (Hatton and Fradley) Leeds (Skipton, Bingley and Standedge Tunnel Chester (Ellesmere, Anderton and Pontcysyllte) Worcester (Droitwich and Stourport) These areas are also the ones where fundraising teams will be deployed, so once we drive people to these locations we will encourage them to become ‘Friends of the Trust’. The campaign will comprise a mix of doordrops and poster ads and the key message is around ‘connecting people with nature and history’ as a reason to visit and get involved. The campaign will go live to coincide with the launch date. Creative will be available soon. 4.2 Rebranding Signage: Thirty areas have been audited by volunteers for updating signage with Trust branding (largely fundraising destinations, launch event and marketing campaign sites). A whole mix of different size, shape and make of signs has been identified and we are currently matching sign sizes to identify how many vinyls are needed at each site. The next step is to remobilize volunteers to re-cover the old branding at the time of launch. We will also be asking our people to re-cover signs that are not on the priority list; this will be a more gradual process. Uniform: Every member of staff who wears a uniform will be given their very own Canal & River Trust branded uniform pack in time for launch. Whilst the charity is still in its infancy the main marketing aim of the uniform will be Brand Awareness, and so we will focus on having a logo on the front and back of all work wear. Volunteers will also be provided with newly branded uniform, but these will have a ‘get involved, join us’ message on them. Old BW uniforms will be collected for recycling. Any proceeds of this will be donated to the Trust. 4.3 Digital We are on the final stretch of developing and designing the new website. The site has been designed with five core goals in mind: Increase awareness of the charity Increase visitor numbers Encourage and take donations Promote and recruit volunteers Provide general information about CRT (boating, trading arm, governance etc) We have started training a broad range of people to add content to the site, including Waterway Partnerships. We are on target to release the site as a ‘beta’ (test site) to staff and close stakeholders, followed by interested members of the public around a month before launch. This will enable us to gain feedback and make any necessary tweaks in good time. The web team has also been working to ensure that the new customer relationship management system (ThankQ) can ‘talk’ to the website. This means that we can have a single sign-on for customers and supporters to enable them to manage their contact details, volunteering, donations and newsletter mailings etc. via the website. In a wider context we are using digital media to enhance people’s visit to a waterway. At Bingley, on the Montgomery Canal and at Bath we have a mix of QR code and Audio trails which use Apps and links to specific web pages to provide further information and entertainment. 5. PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT 5.1 Volunteering 5.1.1 Understanding Volunteers E- Learning Programme This has been rolled out to Directors, Senior Managers, and Line Managers in the past 2 months. Other staff will have the opportunity to participate in March and waterway bank staff in April. There are special measures in place to assist with bank staff completion of the exercise ensuring logistics and IT competency concerns do not hinder completion. 5.1.2 Volunteer Lock keepers 2012 January saw the launch of our seasonal volunteer lock keeper campaign, recruiting volunteers to work at 61 sites around the country. A hugely successful press launch took place on 16th Jan and headed up by actor Brian Blessed (free of charge). The campaign generated 546 enquiries and 390 completed applications, reassuring us that our initial volunteer welcome is good. The waterway and volunteering team are working hard to coordinate interviews, train and induct all volunteers. It is likely that we will engage all 390 volunteers in some way. 5.1.3 Adoptions with BT Discussions have been held with representatives from BT offices in Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham, Milton Keynes and Watford regarding local canal adoptions. Launch dates have been set for MK and Watford in March with regular dates given for monthly activities. Within each BT team, the local representatives will act as lead contacts, promoting the adoptions internally and working with the local BW team to plan the activities. Recruitment of the volunteers will be done by BT’s central volunteering team. 5.1.4 Thank Q There has been continued development of supporter care database Thank Q with testing by the Volunteering, Education and Web teams. Training of these teams and the new Supporter Care Team member is taking place with Thank Q set to be launched in April. 5.1.5 E-induction tool Volunteer Mick Moreton has developed an e-induction tool for BW volunteers to support their induction. It includes information about BW/CRT, safety induction, customer service standards, Minimum Safety Learning Standards films and our Fast Facts details. A test version is on Gateway to get feedback from both volunteers and their task managers. It can be used as a presentation as well as being used at home by the volunteers as an extra resource at their leisure. 5.1.6 New roles New recruitment campaigns have been launched for a ‘Moodle’ (an e-training tool) Volunteer Developer in the Learning and Capabilities Team, roles within the engineering and building surveying teams and ‘Orchard’ volunteers on the River Severn lock islands. 5.2 Education and Interpretation 5.2.1 Goodbye WOW – Hello Explorers Following last year’s evaluation report, testing with children and their teachers, discussion with partners we have new name for our education offer Wild Over Waterways (WOW). Our new name is Explorers – which can then be supplemented by the inclusion of Canal & River, Waterway or Glandwr (Welsh for Waterside). Considerations in selecting the name; Explorers came out very strongly when tested with children; they recognise the word and feel very comfortable with it. 'Explorer' strengthens and enhances the main Canal & River Trust brand and ensures the education offer is connected to the trust. It’s an active word which inspires investigation and activity - it fits with our focus on promoting a national, but local waterway network with free volunteer led sessions. The flexibility in use of canal, river and waterway enables the brand to be used by long standing partners, in particular the IWA.