Account of the day

Feedback meeting comments about the day

Ideas for next time

FOOD

Vegan Campaigns supplied the food (vegan and mainly organic).  All food scraps were composted, along with the disposable cardboard food containers

Vegan Campaigns provided the food, which went down very well.  It worked really well, with little help from the organising collective – they made all the food, brought it along and cleared up rubbish.  (We got them two urns from the venue.)

We’d be happy for Vegan Campaigns to do it again.  Need to wipe down the café tables.

CRECHE & KIDS ACTIVITIES

We ran a crèche all day.  A seed-bomb workshop was also targeted at kids. There was a Youth and Civil Liberties legal advice workshop for older children.

Tony Bluto ran the crèche and pretty much did all the organising for it.  It seemed to go pretty smoothly.   

Seedbomb making workshop ended up carrying on all day long (rather than just being an hour-long session) and worked really well.  

Could offer more things for kids next time (e.g. face painting).  And maybe workshops for older kids as part of the main event.

Kids’ films could be run throughout the day, rather than just in the morning. 

MUSIC

A local folk music collective played for a few hours in the afternoon.

Despite apprehensions before the day, it went well.  Most people liked it.

We could have different types of music next time (e.g. Latin American), as long as it’s acoustic and no vocals.  Just background music.

DISPLAYS

There were a number of banners draped around the building, from local groups past and present.  It brightened the place up and gave a sense of history to Haringey campaigning activity. 

Also, there were display boards with cuttings and leaflets of Haringey activism which also gave a context to the day and people showed an interest in them.

We should encourage more groups to bring banners next year and get more display boards.

WORKSHOPS

Workplace organising workshop – a solid project emerged to inform typically non-unionised workers (e.g. shop workers in Wood Green) about their rights.

Some were sparsely attended, particularly in the first session, although workshops can sometimes be more successful with smaller numbers.

Although we suggested it in our invitation, few groups co-hosted meetings or had meetings that did little more than set out their stall.

Youth & civil liberties workshop poorly attended, but worked well for those who turned up.

Have fewer workshops in the first session.  

More workshops about developing skills for campaigning groups – e.g. dealing with the media, facilitating meetings. 

Have more themed workshops – ask groups to suggest themes (e.g. why aren’t there more people from BME groups?). 

OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES

Could have a wider range of stuff, but should be careful about watering down the politics.  Less overtly political stuff, e.g. seedbombs, history walk and bike maintenance, do still have political content, so shouldn’t be dismissed.  

PUBLICITY

From January, we distributed about 25,000 flyers around borough, in community centres, shops and door-to-door, although the bulk were probably distributed in the month prior to the event. 

We put up about 100 posters in shops, cafes and community centres – again the majority in the weeks before the event.

Artwork wasn’t very clear (need better contrast between text and image background). 

Probably too much text on the back.  If we get groups on board earlier and decide on themed meetings, we can put some of this detail in a column down the side on the back. 

Would have been worth spending a little more time over the artwork, to get it right, especially as the bulk of the publicity went out so close to the event.  

We handed out 25,000 of the 30,000 leaflets we printed.  Realistically, we can’t hand out many more.  

Leaflets about the Youth and Civil Liberties workshop sent to schools in the week before the event. 

Produce translated material. 

Contact schools and Citizenship teachers earlier in the year, then they could even build it in to their curriculum.  Even have assemblies about it. 

Have a brief programme available nearer the time (e.g. on the back of the A5 flyer).  

Have actual meetings advertised on the poster (like Marxism publicity).

Produce targeted material: e.g. for young people, old people, publicising the films and themed meetings, and produce it earlier.

FILMS

Films went on throughout the day.  Haven’t had much feedback on how they went, but audiences of about 30 for most films. 
A couple didn’t work!  

Problems with HIC having to schedule the films in to the hour-long slots. 

Problems with communication channels between HIC and the organising collective. 

The films attracted less politically active people. 

Lots appreciate short films, but good short documentaries are hard to come by.

Also would be good to publicise the films more widely beforehand, as it can bring in people who are less politically active. 

Suggestion to have discussions after the films, if we can find a way to make it work. 

Need to test drive all DVDs before the day.

STALL LAYOUT

Some stalls suffered a lack of people coming up to them, because of where they were located.  e.g. SSAW, who were at the far end on the ground floor, next to the lift. Also, at the back of the room upstairs, it was quite quiet, as they were blocked off a little by the musicians and the café.  But the basic layout was fine. 

Some similarly minded groups were located near each other, so that stallholders could look after each other’s stalls if they were at meetings etc.  However, this meant that stallholders probably spent too much time talking to people they already knew. 

We could consider forcing people to go round the back upstairs to get to the meetings.  

Next year, we should mix the stalls up more, which will encourage links between groups who don’t know each other.

STALLS (range of groups)

We had 30 different groups having stalls at the event, mainly from Haringey-based groups.  However, where there wasn’t a similar group in Haringey, we invited London-wide groups or groups from neighbouring boroughs.

Most people thought the stalls were a good mix.  

There was a lack of stallholders from BME groups (either specifically BME campaign groups or as activists involved in other groups).  However, we shouldn’t resolve this by watering down the political basis for inviting groups.  But we should also be aware that some BME groups might be involved in activities that don’t immediately strike us as political.  We need to create a dialogue.

We could consider inviting specifically BME groups from outside Haringey, where they are interested in helping set something  up in Haringey. 

We should try to get BME groups involved earlier if possible. 

REGISTRATION

Everyone was asked to sign in and give their contact details, so that we could email them a report of the event and any outcomes.  We also gave everyone a programme, a feedback card (to feed in to the final networking session) and a flyer for the evening’s social..

We had over 230 people sign in.  (We’d printed up 300 programmes.)  

The registration desk was positioned on the wrong side and many people walked straight through without stopping at the desk. 

Position the desk to the right of the door as people come in.  Or find a way to make sure they don’t miss the desk where it was.

NETWORKING SESSION (and cards)

About 30+ people attended the final feedback and networking session. We split people into groups to feedback about the day and think about ways to improve networking and community activism in Haringey.

Network session went well.  It was good to get feedback from everyone. 

We should email out results of feedback session to all attendees. 

Action points from final networking session need to be carried out.

NETWORKING TOOLS

We had boards up where groups and individuals could put up things they had to offer or wanted.  There was also a calendar of upcoming dates. 

It was a good start to increasing communication between groups in the borough.   

Re: offers/wants board and calendar – many people didn’t even see them.  They were only mentioned in the intro text in the programme.  

Some of the organisers didn’t get much of a chance to network during the day (but others did). 

Consider having more skill-sharing workshops. (HAVCO may fund some.) 

Need to publicise the networking tools (offers/wants board and calendar) more widely. 

Have adequate volunteers during the day that people don’t end up multi-tasking too much. 

Going forward – improving network should be done organically, acting on some of the suggestions from the final session.

ORGANISING

We did pretty well.  However, despite starting with about 12 people at the initial meeting, the organising meetings dwindled to about 4-5 in the run up to the event.  

We also had difficulty getting enough volunteers for the day, although everything turned out well in the end.

Invite all groups who came this year to the initial organising meeting. 

First meeting should not be in a pub.  Have it facilitated, possibly by someone outside of the original organising collective.

Have working groups to organise the different aspects of the event, hopefully to guard against having only a handful of people organising.