Fórsa hosted its annual campaign summer series event last weekend. Led by the union’s campaigns director Kevin Donoghue, the event aimed to equip senior union activists with the skills and tools they need to lead local campaigns.

The summer series offers opportunities to discuss and debate on some of the pressing issues of interest to Fórsa activists across a range of economic, social, equality and environmental topics.

This year there was a heavy focus on real-life scenarios and the best way to combat these situations. The two-day event kicked off with founding director of ‘Uplift’ Siobhán O’Donoghue leading a session on campaign development.

This was followed with lobbying training from Chloe Manahon, who is political advisor to Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik,  and media training from Fórsa’s head of communications.

Participans were asked to create a campaign using the skills learnt through the workshops. They were then grilled from makeshift politicians, councillors, journalists, and radio hosts all played by Fórsa staff. The event illustrated how a misplaced comment or quote can change the narrative in running a campaign.

Kevin Donoghue emphasised the importance of being prepared in all aspects when working on campaigns:

“It was important that members felt like this summer series gave a glimpse into what can happen when things go wrong. It was all about learning the skills from our expert speakers and putting them into use.

“I’d like to thank all the members who attended and hope they took home a lot of new information that perhaps they hadn’t known before. The event was certainly a success, and we hope to continue with more events like the summer series in the coming year,” he said.