Consultation: | Young Greens AGM 2020 |
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Agenda item: | E.2. Non Portfolio Officer |
Proposer: | Thomas Hazell (Oxfordshire) |
Status: | Withdrawn |
Submitted: | 07/19/2020, 00:41 |
NPO9: Thomas Hazell
Which role are you applying for?
- Which role are you applying for?:
- Non-Portfolio Officer
Candidate Statement
I’ve spent the last year having a great time (and working hard!) as Young Greens co-chair. I’m a bit busier this year, and so I’m looking to carry on the struggle for social and climate justice in a less time intensive and more flexible role. That’s why I’m running for non-portfolio officer, and aiming to take up the role of comms and political output officer.
My first priorities, should I be elected, are centred around the use of our comms channels. As we build a mass movement of Green and progressive young people and students, our comms channels must remain professional and effective in getting across our message.
This is something I think we have done well this year. A key role for our comms efforts is communiating about the fantastic events we run to mobilise our members and supporters, and it is clear from our social media channels and members’ email inboxes that we do this effectively.
However, there are still ways we could improve the efficiency of our comms. While the content tends to be strong, the use of our social channels is still a tad ad hoc and the promotion of our campaigns and events is often not based on proper planning.
To that end, I will:
Build and consistently employ a comms grid.
Work with the leads of projects (such as issue campaigns, election campaigns, or events) to create a comms plan at the start of each project based on the core scripts we produce (see below!).
Communicate with the regions, liberation, and local groups, as well as our councillors, to promote the key work that they do.
Work with the staff member to develop clear policies for our comms work – for example, ensuring we always have a coherent strategy for each project’s comms, ensuring our comms is completely accessible, and outlining our processes for reaction to unfolding major events or requests for media comment.
Ensure that liberation groups feed into our output – in particular, I want to continue to ensure the content of our comms remains sensitive to issues of oppression and that it is always accessible
My second priorities are centred around our political output. This year, I think we’ve focused our comms work a little too much on internal communications – that is, letting our members know what we’re doing and trying to get them along. I’d like to see us build on the work that we’ve started over the last few months to build our unique narrative and show-off the excellent politics we know we have.
My plans for this involve:
Working to extend the idea of ‘core scripts’. Core scripts outline our principles around specific issues and allow us to build a coherent and persuasive narrative.
The core script EC worked on around the Coronavirus crisis underpinned our successful series of online events and was key in the excellent quality of our comms over the last few months.
I would ensure each project and campaign has a core script while also working to create general and event specific core scripts allowing strong political reaction that mean we always come across as the radical green movement we are.
Building on our experience of the benefits of a political rapid reaction comms team, which this year has been an informal group made up of our co-chairs, campaigns, press, and comms officers with the goal of reacting to unfolding major events and requests from the media.
This year, the team has been used sporadically, but when it has been used it has been effective, so I plan to work to ensure it is consistently used and build up best practice in the way it is used.
Ensuring liberation groups feed into the political side of comms – be it elevating the voices of marginalised group (in our party, for example, there is work needed to ensure the voices of Black people, trans people, disabled people, and working class people are heard) or ensuring our core scripts reflect our intersectional politics.
Particularly important for that first set of priorities, I have built up experience in running comms both on the South East Young Greens committee, where I ran the twitter and Facebook accounts and was in charge of promoting many of our projects and events – such as the 2019 Summer Gathering and our successful 2019 local elections campaign, and on EC.
This year, I’ve taken on roles relevant to comms on many projects. For example, most recently I have led on and run the comms for our programme of events related to the Green Party’s internal election, as well as doing the graphics, updating the website, and writing the emails for our programme of online talks of training.
With respect to the second set, my year as co-chair has given me a huge amount of experience setting political priorities. I’ve worked on the political strategy for our general election campaign, sat on the rapid reaction comms team and had comments in the media, and developed the plans for our political events (such as our recent series of webinars), for example.
Our politics as a movement are radical, anti-capitalist, and rooted in the fight for social and climate justice. I’m standing for comms and political output officer because I want that to shine through in our external facing presence. I hope you agree – and if you do, please vote for me first preference for non-portfolio officer.
Links
- Facebook:
- https://www.facebook.com/greentomhazell
- Twitter:
- https://twitter.com/thomashazell1
Supporters (minimum 2 required)
- Supporter 1 Name:
- Rosie Rawle
- Supporter 1 Local Party/Affiliated Group:
- Oxfordshire
- Supporter 2 Name:
- Ellen Parry
- Supporter 2 Local Party/Affiliated Group:
- North Surrey
- Local Party:
- Oxfordshire Green Party