Recruitment and Communication, XR as a leaky Barrel

🤝 Movement Building
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#1

Hi all,
Legends all! Keen to start/continue a discussion…
Thank you a billion for being here. Here is an exceprt from Arie McFly’s “Full SPectrum Resistance” (much recommended).

What do people think our barrel looks like atm?
I would say Fundraising is definitely the leakiest - and our approach to money in general is interesting.

But what i also see as critical is our communication and recruitment zones. I think we have awesome potential to do well here- and we certainly HAVE TO - and currently i would say this zone overlaps with Welcoming, Website/IT, Outreach/Mobilisation which all are areas fortunate to have great skills, experience and a few people with a lot of time in them as well… We Can Do This.

Screen Shot 2021-04-07 at 8.54.42 am Screen Shot 2021-04-07 at 8.54.47 am

Here is a separate post about Recruitment in particular which I’d invite you to look at too

Recruitment

#2

How about a jobs board?

I think we should have a public-facing jobs board as a collaborative project between groups.
Like this:

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3 Likes
#3

I’m taking the ‘public-facing jobs board’: back to website working group. There was some input needed from welcoming around the management of it. Luckily Val is part of both groups :slight_smile:

#4

For me, its useful to differentiate between:
Recruitment > Welcoming > Onboarding > Retaining

Recruitment - doesnt sit anywhere
Welcoming - sits with welcoming
Onboarding - sits with the groups (local or working)
Retaining - sits with the groups (local or working)

This is what I was talking about in terms of identifying what the issue is.

In terms of onboarding and retaining, I think we’ve got a pretty good thing going with the Website WG (I would say that).
We have

  • clear communication with welcoming about the roles we’re looking for
  • potential group members given a zoom meeting overview of the team
  • come along to a website working group meeting, held weekly (sense of belonging and support, also good place for discussion and decisions)
  • training sessions on the specifics of website processes and platforms for all new joiners
  • open dialogue and discussions on our own mattermost channels, open to input from all
  • projects ‘allocated’ on the basis of interest and experience
  • Quite a bit of looking after each other / offering or taking on a task when it isn’t able to be done for whatever reason
  • Check ins when it feels like someone hasnt onboarded or is stepping back

You guys might be operating exactly the same or completely different with success. It would be useful to understand how other teams operate as the contexts will be different.

2 Likes
#5

Could we (do we?) have ‘welcomers’ at actions?
A specified role where a person susses out newbies, and has some pre-planned ideas for ‘next things’ for the newcomer to do. That ‘welcomer’ could share their email address or phone number, or ideally take down the contact info of the newbie.

Make suggestions of next action to get involved with, how to join a local group, a talk or training to attend which is coming up soon

#6

We had a very easy to manage one briefly on the Base, it looked like this:

It was up for a week or so and was getting used in that time but was taken down and replaced with one that was hidden and fell into disuse. A board like this can be put up, linked to, and made editable by people easily enough.

#7

This page exists, its just not publicised anywhere.

ITO getting the posts up, that would be a matter of requesting it from the website working group. We’re set up to action those requests.

The management I referred to was around the contact info which to date has been an individuals email address. We’ll be discussing this at website working group on Friday and will be going live with it as soon as the group has a consensus on the process.

#8

there would be a request coming back to ‘the base’ for a jobs board for roles which should not be advertised to the public.

#9

This is a huge area – some thoughts to add in to the mix of ideas.

Welcoming WG makes sure that new rebels get the info and “vibe” they need to have the motivation to stick around and also find their ways into preferred XR roles. Worse case is when a Rebel signs up and gets no contact except State wide newsletter if this his available] .

New Sign up Rebels

Welcoming tasks include:

-Rebel Ringing,

-following up Rebels after T and T,

-following up rebels who reach out to xrmelbintegration@protonmail.com

  • setting up automated emails for new sign ups

  • working with new and existing LGs to enhance LG "ownership of postcodes " because only rebels who live in postcodes connected to a LG in AN can get access to LG emails -. This is huge part of welcoming.

  • supporting LGs to send out regular newsletter emails and social media posts for their local local rebels.

  • sharing Welcoming ideas and resources with other states / territories

Who does what;

  • Much of the above is best done by LGs who have the local knowledge.
  • Currently, there are NOT ENOUGH people in the welcoming crew to do this welcoming without help from LGs.

Recruiting to WGs

Above – AND

  • Talking with WGs to identify roles needed.
  • Working with WGs to ensure that referred rebels are on boarded effectively – unfortunately this doesn’t always happen when WGs are so overloaded already.

System Support

This crew meets 1 X week

Providing a support crew to manage zoombookings, Talks, Training and Events publicity, effective use of Action Network, Rebel Ringing, enhance interconnection of Web WG with other XR systems

System Support crew identifies gaps in XR infrastructure to support successful recruitment, welcoming, on boarding and retention of Rebels.

Once a gap is identified the System Support crew looks at who we can work with to get things working better. Of course , at present, the need is much bigger than the capacity to put solutions in place. Let’s reverse that. A good example is the establishment of , and support of the Web WG that is doing such a great job at helping the website to be more able to respond to XR needs.

#10

Note that the Rebel Starter pack could be (possibly is) sent out to new rebels.

It is also available on the website (though currently hidden on the https://ausrebellion.earth/resources page - accessible via footer link)

#11

Reading the above post - I have not covered social media . Reckon this absolutely has a huge role to play. Lots of Rebels let us know they have social media skills - challenge is how to support the Rebels to take on this role in XR - both in terms of the Rebels doing the social media work - and in terms of the interconnections between socail media and other parts of XR.

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#12

Yep, Rebel Starter Pack is included in the first automatic email that is sent out when anyone joins XR. Here is the series of 3 emails - 5 days between each

#13

Thanks Val, for the link to the National email. Anthony @amorph set that up and shared with Action Network national admins.

Here’s the Google doc draft of the Vic series of three emails, each 5 days apart, that Anthony has set up for new rebels in Vic.

Of course Anthony has also shared with all the other Action Network Administrators for the different states and set up something for the NT. :slightly_smiling_face:

#14

I think what’s worth pointing out is that we may have WG’s currently that exist based on the name of the w.g. *cough Media and Messaging but don’t actually have a clear function and accountabilities. That may be why it is hard to recruit to different w.g’s

Just perusing XR UK Glassfrog Operations Circle…

Instead of Outreach they have Communities with many things inside.

This contains LG Development circle which has the purpose

To help grow the movement in line with XR UK’s strategy by directly supporting existing Local Groups (LGs), and by working towards the creation of new LGs in cooperation with other UK-wide, regional and national teams.

Which is probably as close to Recruitment as you’ll get.

And also the Talks and Training team has some ‘recruitment type’ accountabilities namely:

Proactively organising talks, trainings and workshops across the movement

They also have Stories which is separate to Media and Messaging FYI

Interestingly as far as Social media goes, in the Media and Messaging circle the only reference to socials is with the accountability:

To sort out social media plan – twitter facebook etc and put it into practice.

It’s funny how we have big social media teams - nationally and in each state plus locally people spend a lot of time on Socials, arguably a lot of active rebel time is spent volunteering on the socials, but how do those w.g’s or individuals doing that connect in with the rest of XR ?

=

#16

In my opinion this page is doesn’t perform its function if it’s not publicised anywhere and if working groups aren’t referring to it.

The very fun role of “Action Designer” has been up there since September last year and we haven’t received a single applicant!

#17

There was some pushback (before this incarnation of the WebsiteWG) to make the page viewable. Looks like we’ll be pushing live onto the website, once we’ve agreed on the process within the group

#18

I’m in national social (unofficially) so might be able to shed some light on that.

Relatively short on resource atm. Miriam posts quite a few days of the week.

I’m writing a mandate to help them recruit.

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#19

Getting back to those three points we wanted to cover

The Problem(s)

  • we don’t have a mass movement
  • many signups that aren’t being activated (in the past, and quite likely ongoing)
  • Non-homogenous nature of XR in Australia ie different states
  • We don’t have many openly accessible inductions to WG’s - at least not in Victoria. None of the WG meetings are advertised on FB or in the newsletter as far as I can tell
  • The lack of Glassfrog to show what XR australia looks like/strives to be
  • lack of clear/easy task for someone coming to XR to do
  • people may come to a LG but then that LG experience may be really shit (this could be true of WG’s too) and then they don’t come back
  • in terms of outreach and bringing more people in to the movement, I think that we need to strive to develop a culture where members of XR fundamentally value (and are supported) in the activity of recruiting more people to XR. i.e. getting sign-ups is fun, seen as important and is done consistently everywhere in the movement and they have the resources and support to do this.
  • possibly not enough clear ‘asks’/calls to action of people via the social media that are actually leading people somewhere to connect

The Priorities

  • contacting new rebels in every state by phone as they sign up within a quick amount of time (has much greater results than if they go ‘stale’
  • directing people to national “recruitment/intro” zooms that Julie is running each fortnight
  • running training sessions/info session on the importance of numbers to a movements success and how we can go about getting more numbers (sharing what works, communicating this effectively)
  • have local W.G. welcoming/induction sessions at least once per month (WA has been doing this and they are working!)

The Channels

  • national email database/national emails
  • social media can be used to recruit directly (as Violet pointed out) e.g. make asks on Instagram/Twitter/FB
  • fortnightly national kind of ‘xr explainer’/recruitment sessions that Julie is putting on from Mobilisation that can be used to give people more info about XR and then direct to state w.g.'s / national w.g.'s e.g. next one https://actionnetwork.org/events/heading-for-extinction-and-rebelling-about-it-5/ I think these could possibly be Pinned on the national FB page so that people always see these sessions as ways to learn more/ get more involved
  • Local groups are probably a great place to recruit w.g. people from. I think LG’s need to be able to explain to people who come along that there are more ways that people can be involved and contribute their professional skills to - i.e. in w,g’s . However I also think LG’s are the community/action hubs for all people to be involved in.
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#20

Recruitment should sit with the Outreach w.g. which may be known as a mobilisation w.g. or whatever.

In various states this doesn’t exist - e.g. in NSW where there is Welcoming combined with Talks and Training.

Ideally local groups have a focus on outreach to new people and doing actions as their ‘twin tasks’ and thus the movement grows quickly through the mycellium of local groups.

Various states haven’t really embraced the LG development model proactively (you’ve probably seen the sign-up graph in the Australian Mass Mobilisation MM channel - Vic and WA who have been setting up LG’s and actively mobilising with the ‘8 methods’ see much higher signups than the other states that don’t)

I think we haven’t had a clear boundary/understanding/communication flow between recruitment aka mobilisation aka outreach and Welcoming to date. Not helped by the fact that things are differnt in every state!

I think it is also kinda hard to recruit to a W.g. such as Actions for example, or strategy or even Mobilisation… where the skills needed are perhaps XR specific to a degree… or at least maybe movement Experience is required - or isn’t it?

What I am realising in writing this is that a w.g. needs could be broken down into skills to help welcoming find someone. e.g. Mobilisation could definitely do with another member or two. Ideally -

Good communication skills
Proficient in computers and comms platforms e.g. email/chat platforms such as Slack
Good organisation skills
Likes to Win
Wants to save the world

I’d like to put that on a jobs board and see who shows up!

#21

I fundamentally disagree with this, in actions we’ve had lots of good work done by people who came in totally fresh, with barely an induction, and no training. It just requires some time spent in empowering and assisting them, with the understanding that you’re investing your time into upskilling someone who will make the work of the group more powerful and effective.

I think this assumption that people can’t be useful to actions or mobilisation or other working groups if they’re not experienced in XR is harmful to our movement.