We have some upcoming local events, a national forum on political education, and a national launch of our ‘Community Building/Community Bridging’ sessions which includes a train the trainer, and strategic planning day (see below)
We are really keen to have feedback on our training, and finally, we would love to have you sign up as a regular financial supporter.
Win Back Our Communities for Labour 29 February
Next Saturday our newly formed East Midlands group will be running a full day education session in Nottingham, on winning back our communities for Labour. The session will focus on the need to rebuild trust between the labour Party and the communities that it hopes to represent. If you are in the area, then sign up and participate.
Community Building/Community Bridging Hackney 2 March
On Monday 2 March, we have the second in our series of ‘Building Community/Bridging Community’ sessions in Hackney. We are trialling an initiative which we wish to run on a national scale (more details to follow).
The initiative seeks to develop the capacity among existing community activists to build the strength of their own community (however defined) and at the same time to build ‘bridges’, i.e. opportunities for interpersonal engagements between people from the different communities, within their geographical area. In short the objectives is to empower community activists with the skills to create the opportunities for people from different communities to discover that they do indeed have ‘more in common’ than perhaps they realise.
If you are from Hackney and want to join us on 2 March, then please sign up here and be part of the initiative locally. If you know people from Hackney, who you think would be interested, then please do share the link with them.
Political Education Today 7 March
On 7 March we are convening (along with our good friends at the Independent Working Class Education) a session in Birmingham on Political Education Today. We are bringing together a range of organisations who are already involved in seeking to develop training on political education (by which we mean the ability of individuals to analyse the politics of a situation, rather than merely accept the interpretation of others). The aim is to share experience and knowledge and consider the scope for collaborative working going forward. There are still a few places left, and if you are actively involved in delivering political education, then you can sign up here.
National Launch community building/community bridging 2 May
Once the pilot project tin Hackney Coes to a close, we will be launching this initiative nationally. If and you are interested in delivering these sessions in your area, or helping us deliver them then sign up for our national launch session on 2 May, in London, where we will be training people on how to deliver these materials, and strategising how we use them to help reverse the long decline in active communities across the UK and how we can contribute to overcoming the growing divisions within communities.
Training feedback
One of our objectives is to encourage the widespread use of our materials (you can view and download our growing range of trainings here). We want people to feel confident that they can download a training unit and deliver it locally. We are very grateful to the literally hundreds of people who have downloaded our training materials, but our question is, did you go on to deliver them and if so what was your experience?
If you have delivered training using our materials, then please complete this form
If you have attended an event, then please complete this form.
We do need your help
We need your help in many ways, but the three most obvious ways are, if you can afford to make a small regular donation (maybe five to ten pounds, but every little helps) preferably by standing order, then this helps to pay for the hire of venues, the travel costs of tutors and any refreshments.
If you wish to make a donation then please make a regular standing order payment to:
Ella Baker School of Organising
Sort code 60 – 20 – 32
Account number: 42218217
Please use your email as the reference (then we know it is you who has supported us)
You can also give your time
Of course the other way you can help is to give your time. We are looking for people to help establish local networks of organisers and trainers, who will share our materials and foster a learning environment within the movement. Interested? Sign up here.
Help promote us
If nothing else, can you cascade this email onto your networks and encourage people to participate? Perhaps you can follow us on Twitter or join our group on Facebook. Our supporters sharing our actions and events is one way that we reach more people who share our vision of a movement with the capacity to self educate its supporters.
Thank you
Finally, a great big thank you from everyone here at the school. Your support is really very deeply valued. Please do promote our work by cascading this email onto someone you know.
John and the team at Ella Baker
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