Can you help? Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole Green Party (BCPGP)'s Media & Comms Working Group is seeking to recruit a number of new volunteers, to help us increase the volume, breadth and quality of our media and communications activity on an ongoing basis - a crucial element of our ambition to multiply our BCP councillor tally in the 2023 local elections.
Currently the topics we're especially looking for skilled volunteers to get to work on creating new media content are:
Media & Comms Working Group has four circles within it: Content, Multimedia Production, the Secretariat (no specialist skills required), and Strategy & Development. Volunteering opportunities are listed below within each of the four circles.
Some of these roles involve bigger or more frequent volunteering opportunities than others. You can join the pool for more than one of the volunteering opportunities and/or circles below, and give your time flexibly when you have it and want to. You can attend working group meetings (monthly on Jitsi Meet) and/or focused circle meetings if it suits you, but we also collaborate on Slack and Trello between meetings. We're working on training materials for many of these volunteer roles.
[A] MEDIA & COMMS CONTENT CIRCLE
Journalists/Press officers: We are developing a Media Content Circle with regular opportunities for either leadership or volunteering by activist journalists and press activists. You will get to work directly with our councillors, spokespeople and other activists to cover local community issues, BCP's Climate & Ecological Emergency, and the work and shout-outs of local Greens. You'll be invited to regular 'newsroom' meetings, where we go through our grid, monitoring information, and video recordings of our politicians' meetings. You'll have access to BCPGP's Slack digital collaboration space.
When your article is written and signed off, you can upload your work directly to our website content management system (CMS), and press-release it where appropriate. If you're up for it we will also support you to film video articles on a smartphone, featuring local Greens and activists.
You can choose to focus on one field: Climate & Ecological Emergency, BCP's Unity Alliance, a particular campaign topic (environmental, social or democratic) - or community issues in your own local neighbourhood.
You don't have to be an accredited journalist, but you should have equivalent skills or experience at a good level suitable for working directly with busy skilled local Greens.
Media researchers: If you don't want to take a lead on creating news items, but you have research skills, you can volunteer these to our media and communications coverage on major issues, such as the local Climate & Ecological Emergency, or the case for the continuation of BCP's Unity Alliance administration.
Content creators: Do you have the skills and interest to create content for any of our multimedia platforms? You can help us get more impact from our public-facing journalism and/or campaigning, or generate thoughtful discussion points - or you can develop interesting community content for our members and supporters.
[B] MULTIMEDIA PRODUCTION CIRCLE
Camera crew: Would you like to help us film more of our social videos to a higher standard than "smartphone with basic mic"? We welcome skilled shooters, working with or without sound and lighting technicians, to enhance the standard of footage for our social videos, the best of which are sponsored to reach many thousands of local residents.
Video producers: Smart production which grabs attention, moves quickly, and conveys maximum info in minimum time, is all-important in the world of social video, and we're looking for more producers to sustain and grow our social video operation. Cut out unnecessary seconds of airtime from raw video clips filmed by Media & Comms Content Circle, then add captions, overlays, cutaways, and top-and-bottom banners (creating 1:1 aspect ratios) - to optimise them for social media publication. You don't have to be professionally trained or skilled - you just need to know your way around your own basic video production software, and to replicate the elements of our intentionally straightforward social video style guide from our previous videos.
Designers: We're always on the lookout for volunteers to design leaflets, newsletters, memes... and captions for our videos, supporting the video producer.
Web and social media sub-editors: Is your thing sassy layout on websites, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram? You can support the work of Media & Comms Content Circle and our other producers by publishing it as beautifully as possible on any or all of our media channels.
[C] MEDIA & COMMS SECRETARIAT
Community media scanning volunteers: You can help our councillors, spokespeople and journalists stay on top of what local community and campaign groups are talking about - by joining the Media & Comms Secretariat's week-to-week social media scanning operation, picking out the content BCPGP should be taking notice of, and passing it on to Media & Comms Content Circle.
Subtitlers / Transcription volunteers: We would like volunteers who can help us prepare subtitles for our videos - an essential component of every major video post to social media. First the subtitles need to be transcribed from our video clips. Then if you're up for it, the subtitles need to be added to the near-finished video file itself, using simple free online software (step-by-step instructions will be provided).
Proof-readers: If you have an eagle eye for typos, you can help us by proof-reading our videos, website items and major social media posts before they go out.
Media & Comms secretarial volunteers: You can help us compile our member and supporter email newsletters, or take the minutes of Media & Comms Working Group meetings, help us with our action-tracking and files, and generally support the working group's smooth functioning.
[D] MEDIA & COMMS STRATEGY & DEVELOPMENT CIRCLE
Media & Comms trainers: Can you help us develop training materials for any part of our media and comms operation? We're aiming to develop a "BCPGP Media & Comms Manual" with associated toolkits and training presentations - making media and comms activism more accessible to more Green people.
Media & Comms improvers: Would you like to help us get better at what we do? We welcome volunteer consultancy if you have the skills and expertise - you choose your niche and how hands-on to be.
Analytics volunteers: Skilled analysis of our Facebook Insights, tweet activity and Google Analytics data, to make recommendations to Media & Comms Working Group on ways to improve the impact of our work.
WordPress developers: The national Green Party now has a WordPress server. We would like to migrate BCPGP's website from our ageing ModX platform to WordPress. We're warmly inviting volunteers with skills, experience and capacity to help deliver this project.
Please email BCPGP Media & Comms Strategy & Development Officer, Chris Henderson, at chris.henderson@bcp.greenparty.org.uk to express your interest. If you're interested in a skilled area, sight of your CV and/or portfolio (or most relevant weblinks/attachments) would be appreciated.
