Events consultant William Thomson is hoping CommonSpace readers can help him figure out an events strategy for ScotRef
IF ScotRef is to be a success for the Yes movement, events will play a crucial role in the campaign. We need to know what went wrong in 2014 and how we can run better events to support Scottish independence.
Before deciding to draft a live engagement strategy for the ScotRef movement, I spent some time making sure I wasn’t going to reinvent the wheel.
As someone who has organised over 700 events, I believe the best thing to do, before you start planning, is to look back and see what failures and what success your had with your previous events.
The first thing I did was to look for any post campaign reports or evaluations of the 2014 indyref campaign. I wanted to see what lessons the Yes movement had learned from that campaign.
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I assumed any over arching review would also include some details on the live engagement aspect of the campaign. Well, I have to say I was shocked. I could not find any analysis of the events Yes ran in 2014. Not only that, but I could not find any overarching report or evaluation of the indyref campaign at all. Nothing.
I must admit, I am still in shock. What hope do we have for a successful ScotRef campaign when we haven’t even bothered to look at what went wrong last time?
My aim is to find out as much information as possible about the events we ran in 2014. I’ve written a questionnaire that I hope everyone who organised a indyref event will complete.
#Indyref events questionnaire
Here is the link to a 40-question questionnaire. The questions break down into two sections:
– To look at how and why we ran the events we did during the 2014 campaign and
– To look at what support the movement needs to deliver better events in a second independence campaign.
It should take no more than five minutes to fill out. Let’s take stock and make sure we don’t make the same mistakes again.
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