Organising Local Activity

Before we look at the types of meetings, here are some general tips to consider:

• Keep your meeting to between 60 and 90 minutes – this helps keep things focussed and means everyone knows how much time they need to commit.
• Make sure the meeting starts and finishes on time, and when choosing a date, try to avoid clashes with other events members may be attending such as CLP meetings.
• Invites should be sent at least seven days in advance, but give more notice if you can and make sure you ask Head Office for the most recent list of members. If you want to have a speaker you should give them as much notice as possible.
• Zoom meetings are more accessible to a wider group of members, and you don’t need to have the internet to take part as you can dial in. If you have four meetings a year, we suggest that three of them should be on Zoom.
• Try to minimise the amount of administration that you do at branch meetings. For example, could the officers meet 5-10 minutes before the meeting starts to discuss any branch admin that doesn’t need to be agreed by all members? That way members can get stuck straight into the great event you’ve organised instead!
• You don’t need to take minutes! The Secretary may want to take notes that can be shared with members afterwards, but this only needs to be a short list of the actions people agreed to do after the meeting.
• If you are organising an in-person meeting, make sure that the venue is accessible and open so everyone can attend. You could ask members to let you know of any access requirements they have in advance so you can make sure they can part.
• Branches are an important way to learn from other members and share our experiences. The best branches also help bring people together in a social setting, so if you are planning an in-person meeting, try to incorporate an opportunity for members to get together nearby for a cup of tea after the meeting has ended.

Digital First Approach to Meetings

We're asking branches to make their meetings digital first by default. In our recent member survey, 87% of members were supportive of either having all or most meetings online. You can read more on the survey results here.

Members have told us that online meetings were easier for them to attend, and they had a better experience when compared to in-person meetings. Many branches have also reported higher attendance, and as you only need a landline to take part in our Zoom meetings, they are also more accessible to members.

Although most meetings should be online, you can still have in-person meetings, and we know the cup of tea afterwards is an important social element for many members!

This is a suggested timetable that you can use, taking account of any elections, conferences and other deadlines. All of these meetings can be held online using Zoom, but you can also choose to hold one in-person along with a social event.

The sections below will give you more information on planning each of these events. As always Party staff are here to support you with your meetings, including arranging speakers and using our Zoom accounts.

Spring Meeting: AGM, Planning & Speaker
January, February, March or April

• As well as electing your officers and delegates, your AGM should let members plan a programme for the next year and agree what everyone is going to do.
• The AGM will also discuss upcoming elections, endorse candidates and agree campaign support.
• You should also ensure you have a speaker for after the formal AGM - for example someone from the co-op movement to help educate members and let them know how they can support the movement.
• Encourage members to attend our Spring conferences in the regions and nations.

Summer Meeting: Policy Meeting & Elections
May, June or July

• Your branch should take part in our policy process - in 2023 this means discussing and agreeing our policies on housing - you can debate yourselves, but make sure you invite a speaker to help lead the discussion.
• Hold this meeting after the local elections in May and you can also invite any new councillors to come and talk to your branch about their campaign.

Autumn Meeting: Campaign Session
September or October

• Organise a session to plan a local campaign, officers and members should agree in advance what you want to focus on, for example food justice or community assets.
• At the meeting, use our resources to bring members up to speed - and agree a plan of action, e.g. who is going to submit a motion to the CLP, write to the local Council, etc.
• Encourage members to attend our Annual Conference online in September.

Winter Meeting: Candidate/Representative Speaker and CLP Delegate Reports
November or December

• If there are local elections in your area in 2024, this meeting is a great time to organise a 'Be a Councillor' session - Head Office can send a staff member to explain the process and the support we provide.
• You can also use this meeting to invite an MP, MSP, MS, councillor or other elected representative to discuss some of the Party's recent work, and ask members to support their campaigns.
• You can also use this meeting to get a report back from your delegates to the CLPs - the delegates should tell you what they've done to promote the Co-operative Party and any opportunities for the two parties to work close together.

Our member-led policy process means that the Co-operative Party’s policy platform is decided by our members. In 2023, we asked members to vote on the topics they felt where most important to focus on – and you chose housing.

In the run-up to our online Annual Conference in September, members and branches now have the chance to help shape the Party’s policy in this area by sharing your knowledge, experience and research.

Even if you don’t know a lot about the topic, taking part in a local policy discussion is a chance to learn more and find out about the difference co-operative policies can make. Plus, these are topics that affect all of us, so we will all have an opinion on how we can make them better.

What you need to do:

You don’t need to be a policy expert to organise a local policy discussion, and we’ve developed a range of resources to help you lead a local debate and encourage members to share their views.

• Start by deciding which policy area you want to look at. If you want to do both that’s great, but it’s best to do them as two different meetings! Click here to read our Policy Briefing with our existing policy in this area along with questions to consider at your meeting to help lead the debate.
• Click here to view our Policy Process presentation – this is a handy set of slides you can share with members to help take you through the meeting – they include a summary of our policy and the questions to consider.
• You should invite a speaker from the co-op or labour movements to introduce the policy area, for example a housing co-op or a Co-operative councillor who has worked on housing. Contact your Organiser for help finding a speaker.
• You don’t need to take minutes, but the Secretary or another member should take brief notes of your discussion to feed them back to the NEC and influence the final policy (you can submit your notes here). You might also want to agree other actions, such as tasking members with feeding these ideas into your local Labour manifesto.
• We think these meetings work best using Zoom and should be no more than 60-90 minutes. Using Zoom allows you to invite speakers from anywhere, and is often more accessible than physical meetings, so you may hear from a more diverse group of members. Remember, you don’t need to be online to use Zoom as, anyone can take part by dialling in. An Organiser can arrange for you to use a Party Zoom account.

Check list:

• This meeting should ideally held online.
• Read the Policy Process briefing for 2023 to find out more about the topics and the questions for members to consider.
• Agree a date and what topic you want to discuss and invite members with lots of notice – remind them they can join by phone as well as online.
• Contact your local organiser for help using a Party Zoom account or arranging a speaker who can talk about the topic.
• After the meeting, submit your notes so the NEC Policy Committee hears you views, and your members’ discussion is considered in the final document at Conference.

Campaigning is central to what we do as a Party. It helps deliver real change in our communities, it provides a focus for our activity, and it helps bring new people into our Party and movement.

We have a range of national campaigns which you can opt into or you can choose to campaign locally on an issue relevant to Co-operative Party aims and values. There are some general principles which can be applied to all campaigns, and then individual actions will vary depending on the campaign you adopt.

Key in any campaign is to agree on what you want to achieve and then to draw up an achievable plan with a range of actions that those in the branch can do.

Actions might include writing letters to the local papers, lobbying your representatives, hosting an online petition, speaking at a council meeting, and as it is deemed safe to do, a range of in-person activities. Remember: we want to achieve visibility as a Party, not just win campaigns.

What you need to do:

Start by agreeing a topic for the branch to campaign on for the year. Our national campaigns include our campaign against modern slavery, food justice, assets of community value, not part of the job, and will growing the co-operative sector.

In addition, it is always possible to campaign around our established policy, for example seeking to embed community wealth building into your local council’s procurement policy. However, you may also choose to campaign on a very local issue.

At the earliest possible opportunity do involve your elected representatives who are likely to have much to contribute to your activity Don’t be overambitious: focus on one issue and a limited number of achievable actions for the year. Finally, make time to review the campaign 6 months on to see whether there are follow-on actions.

• If appropriate arrange a speaker on the topic who will be able to provide background to the issue and help you successfully plan.
• Write down the actions and distribute them between volunteers in the branch.
• Involve your local elected representatives from the start.
• Make some noise: tell local people what you are doing through Facebook updates and through the local papers. It is absolutely crucial that local people know about what you have been doing.

In practice, this might look like:

1. Agree to campaign on food justice.
2. Invite a speaker on the topic. This might be a member of the national team, or you might choose to invite the person who runs the local food bank. Also ask your local councillors to attend.
3. Agree an action plan. The actions might include:

• • taking our model motion to the branch of CLP asking for a Food Champion in the Council and a Food Partnership
  • promoting the FoodJusticeFinder.com in the local Co-op and Labour Parties are encouraging people to lobby their council leader
  • writing letters in the local paper about the need for action on food poverty
  • asking councillors to take a motion to council asking them to promote Healthy Start Vouchers.

Each of our national campaign have different aims. You can find out more on their respective pages, and you can tailor your particular aims to what exists locally. For instance, your council might have a Food Champion, but not a food partnership in which case your campaigning should be around encouraging your council to do even more than it is.

Check list:

• Check out our national campaigns.
• Invite a speaker.
• Involve your local elected representatives.
• Check the local situation and tailor your asks accordingly.
• Draw up an action plan and review progress 6 months on
• Make some noise: make sure local people are aware of what you have been doing.
• Don’t be downhearted if at first you don’t succeed. Some successful campaigns take years.

Resources

You don't need to be an expert in these policy areas to organise a campaign in your community. To help get you and members up to speed we've developed some short presentations you can show during your Zoom meeting:

• Grow the Co-operative Sector
• Modern Day Slavery
• Food Justice
• Fairtrade and the Co-operative Movement

Meetings with Co-operative Party elected representatives are a great way for members to learn more about our work in politics, discuss future campaign priorities and encourage members to stand for election themselves.

The Co-operative Party has representatives at all levels of government that you can invite to your meeting - depending on where you live there are Co-operative MPs, MSPs, MSs, AMs, mayors, police and crime commissioners and councillors at all tiers of local government. If there are no representatives or candidates in your area, your Organiser can help arrange someone from eleswhere in the country to come and talk to your branch.

Inviting a MP, MSP or MS is a good way to bring members up to date on important work the Party is doing in the three Parliaments to support and develop the movement.

You can also invite local government representatives in your area, for example Co-operative councillors. These meetings are important because they allow the councillors to report back on the work they have been doing, as well as giving them a chance to talk about the campaigns they would like members to get involved with.

Meeting with existing councillors is also a great way to encourage members to stand as joint Labour and Co-operative candidates in future elections, and to discuss the policies that we would like to see in the next local manifesto.

Finally, if you have upcoming local elections in your area, why not invite Party staff to do a 'Be a Co-operative Councillor' session - this explains the process of becoming a joint candidate, and the support available from the Party for you candidates.

What you need to do:

• The meetings should be positive and focussed on the future and how the branch can better support representatives in their area.
• Remember these meetings are a two way discussion, allowing the representative to give a update on their work, but also let me members know about the campaigns they need their support on.
• To help everyone get the most out of the meeting, you might want to build your own Co-operative Manifesto - ideas of co-operative ideas we can deliver in local government and some of the areas your branch can support.
• If you are inviting councillors, try to make sure that it is held in good time to influence the local Labour manifesto in the electoral cycle.
• Agree a few key outcomes to support their activity. This might include an in-person canvassing session, a Dialogue session, agreeing to write supportive letters to be paper about their campaign, agreeing to do a leaflet round for them.
• If you want to focus on increasing the number of candidates and councillors in your area, ask Head Office to help run a 'Be a Councillor' session.

We are the political movement of the co-operative movement with thousands of co-ops and millions of members right across the UK.

Our role is to promote and champion the movement and show the difference that co-operatives can make. Branches have an important role in helping develop local co-op economies and help educate members more about the movement.

A good way to do this is to invite a local co-op to come and talk to your members, this helps the branch learn more about the movement, and hear about the kind of things that members and elected representatives can do to support them.

For example, you could invite a Member Pioneer or a representative from you local co-op society to talk about their work in the local community and opportunities for members to join, trade with and support them.

As well as the big retail co-ops, there are also many smaller co-ops in your area, that includes things like community pubs and shops, housing co-op, football supporters’ clubs, co-op schools and worker owned businesses. You can find co-ops in your area in Co-operatives UK's online directory.

Many areas will also have a local credit union, a financial co-operative that is an ethical and community alternative to high street banks and pay day lenders. If you don’t know what credit unions are in your area, you can search here.

If you would like a more general introduction to co-operation and our history, you can contact our Principle 6 Officer John Boyle to talk to your members, or you can also invite the Co-operative Heritage Trust and Rochdale Pioneers Musuem to arrange for a virtual tour and talk about the movement's history.

As always if you want some help finding a specific speaker or co-op, contact your local Organiser for some ideas for co-ops to invite.

What you need to do:

Check the Co-ops UK Directory for local co-operatives and email to invite them in good time.

Check list:

• This meeting should be held online.
• Decide what co-ops you want to engage with co-operatives.
• Consider opening up the meeting to members of nearby branches or to Labour Party members in the area.

AGMs are an important way for members to shape the activity of their local branch by electing officers or putting themselves forward for election. They are also an important opportunity to engage your members in the Party’s work. But they can be procedural especially if your branch covers multiple constituencies and off-putting to newer members.

So, alongside the elections, you should make sure you arrange for an outside speaker who can give members an update on our policy, campaigns or other activity. This will also help shape a discussion about what members would like to see the branch do over the next year as part of their development plan.

The AGM is also an opportunity to refresh the branch’s links with Constituency Labour Parties. Where they have a delegate structures you will be able to receive feedback from Co-operative Party delegates; where there is an all-member structure without delegates, we encourage branches to nominate a ‘CLP Liaison Officer’ to co-ordinate work.

What you need to do:

• Start by reading our AGM Guidance – this talks you through all the formal things you need to be aware like rules around voting, gender balance and when to invite people.
• Think about how the AGM can be used to launch the branch’s work for the year ahead. You can do this by leading a discussion with members on what campaigns or policy areas they would like to focus on, and plan for any upcoming election.
• Invite an external speaker as a good way to engage and inform members about policy, campaigns and the wider movement.
• Give lots of notice to members and let Head Office or your regional Organiser know.
• After the meeting, submit the results of decisions to Head Office or your regional Organiser.