Photo: Labour Behind the Label
Saturday, London: Labour Behind the Label were holding a campaigners weekend and asked Rhizome to deliver some of the skills training.
To that end we ran short sessions on using the media and another on successful street campaigning. The latter’s one of my favourite workshops.
Photo: Labour Behind the Label
How difficult can handing out a leaflet be? For answers we looked at the participant’s own experience of on-the-street interactions, whether with leafleters, beggars, Big Issue vendors, or the notorious street fundraisers. Sadly people have a wealth of negative encounters to draw on. Then we practiced with a focus not just on what we say but tone of voice and body language. Then back into thinking mode for sharing strategies for dealing with ‘awkward’ people. Then back into roleplay mode with participants trying out some of those awkward roles and the strategies needed to deal with them effectively.
The weekend was evaluated at the end of Sunday. I’ll be speaking to LBL staff soon to get some feedback.
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Just did some handing out of flyers (on Palestine). Went well largely, based on smiles, eye contact and so on. As I’ve gotten old(er) I have slowly learnt it is better to say less, ask questions to people about what they already know etc. And always, you need to have plans for the various kinds of time-wasters/ideological opponents etc. But great to hear you did role play etc, and experience-share. More power to your elbow!!
Nice to see that your experience tallies with the learning I try to draw out of this kind of workshop. And thanks for unwittingly creating the opportunity to give a quick plug for our short briefing on the subject on our new resources page!