In July Alex (Co comms officer) and Eleni (International officer) attended UNISON’s branch officer training weekend at Croyde Bay in North Devon.
Alex writes:
I really enjoyed the communications officer training, and it was great to meet other comms officers from across the region and across different sectors.
I spent a lot of the weekend feeling very proud of our branch – we were often cited as an example of an active branch, and we even got a round of applause when the result of our pay consultation was announced! I was excited to show off our website and some of Mia’s excellent Instagram posts.
We had sessions on the importance of notice boards (expect more posters soon?), peer to peer texting (expect more annoying texts soon?), and training on how to use Canva.
There was also an interesting discussion about which social media platforms a branch should be using. Recently I was one of the people encouraging the branch to move away from Twitter/X in response to Elon Musk’s corruption of the platform, but some in the session were making the point that journalists still rely heavily on Twitter/X to discover news which they will then report on.
As a branch that is working to produce press release-style updates for the media (for example, our recent post on the pay consultation result) I think this leaves us with a dilemma about whether to take advantage of the platform to try and reach as many journalists as possible. It’s something we’ll have to keep discussing.
I strongly encourage any branch activists to take advantage of any opportunities to attend courses at Croyde Bay. The beautiful surroundings are a huge bonus – it’s a surreal experience to be able to take a swim in the sea between training sessions!
