It’s been quite a week of meetings and briefings for me. The door staff in the Assembly already know me by name but they were sick of the sight of me on Thursday as I practically took up residence in the small café/shop for the 15-20 minute breaks between meetings.   If I could ask the lovely Gareth McGrath and his lovely team for one thing it would be for a system of passes for lobbyist similar to the press passes. They would allow us to use the facilities of the building between meetings and mean we can stop getting in the way of the coach loads of visitors that swarm into the shop to get their hands on the tea towels, pens and fudge embossed with the famous Flax flower symbol of the Assembly.

Anyway, I came straight from briefing the ARD Committee in to a communications master class we had arranged for our members who are interested in getting into campaigning mode for their own organisations. The class was given by Barry Turley and Nick Garbutt from ASITIS consulting who have been working with us on the press and pr elements of the Smart Solutions in Tough Times work.  The point behind the session was to ensure that voluntary and community organisations have some tips on how to get their story out there and re-enforce the message that what we as a sector do is an invaluable part of the very fabric of life here.   

As always when a group of our members get together you can almost hear the ideas being generated and the brains running six miles ahead of the speaker as people plan how to use the information to progress the needs of the communities and people they work with.  Its always inspiring stuff and judging from some of the calls I got today from participants I know that the sector is up for this.

At the end of the session I said that organisations should get in touch if they need help in telling their story, finding relevant statistics or making connections with elected members or the media. And I meant it – give me a shout if there is anything we can do.