IMPACT held its first ever campaigning summer school earlier this month. Planned by lead organiser Joe O’Connor, the event was aimed at aspiring and accomplished union activists, and sought to provide them with a toolkit for their next campaign idea.
The summer school was formally opened on the Friday evening by IMPACT deputy general secretary Kevin Callinan. He provided an overview of the growing campaigning capabilities of the union.
There were four sessions on Friday.
Chris Rose, a campaigns and communications expert, delivered the first talk. He emphasised the need for meticulous planning before undertaking any campaign activities.
Ethel Buckley, divisional organiser at SIPTU, then shared the experience she gained working on the ‘Justice for the Clery’s Workers’ campaign and on a successful effort to organise Ireland’s women’s football team.
Next, the NUJ’s Seamus Dooley, along with Sandra Irwin-Gowran of Educate together, discussed what they had learned while working on the successful ‘Yes Equality’ campaign in the lead up to 2015’s marriage equality referendum. They focussed on the need to form strong alliances.
IMPACT’s communications officer, Niall Shanahan, then gave a presentation on influencing the media. He stressed the importance of gaining an understanding the changing dynamics and habits of the modern newsroom before attempting to influence it.
On Saturday, there were five sessions.
Pat Montague, director at Montague Communications, began the day with a talk on effective lobbying. He explained that understanding the arithmetic of any particular Oireachtas is central to understanding how best to go about influencing it.
Pat was followed by Viv Chambers and Dave Fanning whose firm Bricolage carries out research for campaigning organisations. Both Pat and Dave are trained as qualitative researchers and their emphasis was on approaching a problem from a wide range of angles and with a wide range of research methodologies.
The next session included Twitter’s Ronan Costello, Lee Daly a consultant who often works with Facebook, Claire O’Dowd of SpunOut.ie and IMPACT’s Lughan Deane. The focus of this session was on campaigning on social media.
There were then two parallel sessions – one given by architect Mel Reynolds on the housing crisis and one by IMPACT’s Ciairín de Buis on the childcare sector.
The final talk was given by Michelle Thomas, an expert on training for public speaking. She spoke about how to appear as confident when delivering presentations to crowds.
Members in attendance at the event found it very useful. One member said that the “insight and guidance [she] gained from the speakers is invaluable” and that she was “already looking forward to next year’s camp.”
Another member said the event was “excellent and informative.”
