Help the Friends
Help with Events, Publicity, P.R. and Liaison
The Friends Committee is looking for volunteers to help in the area of events, publicity, public relations, and liaison with other bodies.
Our normal practice is to get a small team of people (3-5) to work together in a particular area, so that we can make use of different skills in the team and no-one has to take on a large, time-consuming job. It is also more fun than working on your own! So far, we have done this successfully for WTC (walks, talks and courses), education, the Information Centre, and the newsletter.
The scope the team would cover would depend on the individual skills of the team, but could include:
- Organising Friends events. Some of these already happen, e.g. the AGM, annual lunch, Photography Competition prize-giving, participation in the Richmond May Fair etc. Others are being considered, e.g. we may have 3-4 speaker meetings a year (the Committee would help with getting speakers).
- Publicity for these events plus other Friends activities, through communication with members (including e-mail communication, using the database of members’ e-mail addresses we are developing), through related bodies (e.g. The Royal Parks publicity team, Richmond Environment Network), and through other means.
- Press and public relations, either proactive (getting press coverage for Friends activities) or reacting to requests from journalists. This includes maintaining contacts with relevant (mainly local) journalist. This does not require professional experience; local journalists are quite used to this, and may well prefer it.
- Liaison with other bodies for publicity, exchange of views, knowing what is going on that is relevant to the Friends, and for future campaigning. Bodies include the Friends of other Royal Parks, local councils, local environment and amenity groups, English Nature, MPs - there is a long list and we will need to set priorities. We currently have links with many of these bodies, but they need improving and co-ordinating.
The make-up of the team will depend on the skills, interests and time available of the individuals in it, and the team would obviously organise itself in terms of priorities, when and where to meet etc. We have no set plan about the make-up, although the team would probably be led by one person (or maybe two), who would also be on the Friends main Committee, plus other members of the team with different roles and responsibilities. You do not need to have any background or specific skills in the area to be part of the team.
If you are interested, please contact Ron Crompton, on 020 8876 1123 or e-mail ron.crompton@frp.org.uk