ukipteen

Well after many months of being a UKIP member, I think the time has come to start a branch with the fellow UKIP members in the constituency.

We have got the support from our RO and he has started the ball rolling, but how did your branches succeed or fail?

I would like as many tips and bits of advice that you could give me in regards to branch success, keeping the branch going and spreading our message.

Any advice would be great!

Chris.

harryaldridge

Keeping branches alice is not easy. Some key points:

1. Keep in regular communication with members

Letters, email and phone to keep them informed and interested. This is vital and takes alot of effort. Members are generally lazy and need prodding all the time to come to meetings or renew their membership.

2. Hold regular events

Whether social events or branch meetings. We have just started to give each branch meeting a topic and invite a speaker. So far we have had Linda Guest and DCB give a talk followed by a long Q&A session from the floor. This makes members feel engaged and keeps them positive about the party.

3. Specific aims and objectives

People can feel the party isn't moving anywhere and get frustrated because they dont see us on TV. Giving your branch goals (e.g. to field x candidates in the local elections) helps keep people positive and working towards a target and not floating along.

If you have a specific campaing you want to fund for example, members are generally more willing to give money if it is for something specific (e.g. adverts in a local paper or mailshot to the nighbourhood)

4. Hold events with neighbouring branches

Joining force with other branches gives scale for certain events. Speakers wont come and address 10 people, but they might come to address 50 people. It is also a chance for members to meet other branch members and show support. Running campaigns with other branches also gives scale and impact.


I am sure others can add many more things but hopefully this will get things started.

prober

Dont burn yourself out. Always consider effort versus potential measurable progress. Tap in to the county committee if there is one. Get the RO to form one if there aint. dLocal elections May are the focus & fundraising for it. Donte expect other than minimal response from letters asking for help. Essential to elephone each member with a pre planned conversation & outcome agenda but aiming for him/her to say yes to you going round to see him/her . People say yes face to face on being candidate or doing something who say no on the phone and ignore letters.

Niall Warry

Good luck all sound advice so far.

As a negative don't expect much support if any from the centre as they are all to busy in Brussels not achieving very much :wink:
Our new leader is a great showman but has yet to prove his organisational skills which we at branch level need.
Still there is still a job of work to be done in any branch area, that is educating the public to the evils of the EU and why we would be 'Better off out'
I don't know what area you are from but link into Trevor Coleman's leaflet campaign if your MEP and RO are for the idea?

BASILDON BOY

I have PM'd you some press release ideas - good luck

__________________
Mike Nattrass MEP is HOT HOT HOT!!!

tamashi

Why the knocking all the time? My branch gets good support from our RO but he is always busy doing a hundred different things. However, without the support of the MEP's all the RO's would be busy earning a living and trying to support the Branches in their spare time. Why won't people acknowledge the good things the MEP's do, the support they give both in time and money and the efforts they put in over and above the call of duty? Just imagine where UKIP would be without MEP's, just another bunch of wanabees totally ignored by everyone. How much of the criticism of MEP's is envy and sour grapes, quite a bit I would say. In 2005 we had over 500 candidates stand for the General Election and in 2009 there will be a queue of people wanting to be MEP's, but how many of these people actually do anything in between General or European Elections? If it was up to me then no-one would be allowed to stand as a Parliamentary Candidate if they hadn't been active in local elections before hand. UKIP need long term, dedicated members, not people who are looking for a free ride after the hard work is done.

I would say to anyone starting a branch that they shouldn't expect much support from anyone or anywhere until they have built it up themselves. Starting a Branch is a hard, lonely job, it's attending meetings with yourself and a hard core of one or two others (if your lucky) and then of course if you do get the branch off the ground and are growing stronger then all those people (like the GE Candidates who you don't see from one GE to another) who wouldn't get involved with the hard work in the beginning will soon turn up when there are "committee members" wanted, like many of these 500 GE Candidates, happy to ride on someone’s hard work but don't want to do it themselves.

But, its not all downside, get involved in local politics, get your face known, if you can get some of the freepost stuff then do it, its great, but our RO is giving it to the people he knows will use it, he has 50,000 to cover the whole region so that’s about 20 council wards.....guess where his priorities are.

If you want to start a Branch great, use your RO as much as you can but as it says in the good book...God helps those who help themselves.....and it’s the same in UKIP.