The Lobbying Working Group

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LOBBYING WORKING GROUP

As announced recently, we are setting up 3 Working groups to further the work of IOFFL. This message/thread is specifically concerned with the Lobbying Working Group, which I have agreed to take responsibility for. These are my initial thoughts on how the group could work and how we can get it up and running; these are not hard and fast proposals, only ideas to get things moving.


PURPOSE OF THE GROUP

The overall purpose of the group IMO is to make as many people as possible aware of the dire state of Internet Access in Ireland and motivating them to do something about it. By 'people' I particularly mean:

Politicians
This is especially important in the run-up to the General Election, we should seek to make it a real issue.

The non-technical media
We have done a good job so far with the technical journalists but they are an educated audience. We need to broaden this out to get economic and general journalists excited about how the state of Internet could strangle the economic growth and development of our country.

Business Organisations
The survey among businesses about Internet access a while back shows how little they really understand this matter - most of them thought that ISDN was broadband. This was further illustrated by the response of the Small Firms Association to our Blackout. If we can educate these people on the real problems then IMO their active support will follow naturally.

Other Organisations
I am think here of voluntary and other organisations to whom the Internet can be a real tool - an example of the National Council for the Blind was given previously. As a first step, we may have to educate groups like this on what the Internet can do for them.


TACTICS

Possible tactics include:

• Meetings with the various parties ranging from one-to-one meetings with TD's to meetings with representatives of the various organisations either individually or collectively.
• Letter writing, again either to individuals or groups, by IOFFl as an organisation but also an organised campaign by members.
• Letter writing to newspapers/magazines, possibly articles.
• Seeking radio and TV coverage - programmes like Questions and Answers or the Late Late Show.
• Conferences and seminars.

LOGISTICS

We intend to restructure our website so that each Working Group has its own section. In the meantime, the initial work can be a mixture of email and discussion on this forum - pretty much as IOFFL has worked overall so far

Please note that until we get the website restructured, this thread will be the main source of exchange between the Lobby Group and interested members. I will therefore be taking a very hard line on asking the moderators to delete or move any posts that I consider non relevant to the group.

We need several different types of people within the group, which I would describe as:

"Thinkers" who can come up with ideas and/or develop ideas suggested on the forum.

"Networkers" - people who have established contacts within government, the media and other organisations and possibly have previous experience of lobbying.

"Presenters" - people who can sit down with politicians and other organisations to sell the objectives of IOFFL in a professional and persuasive manner.

"Doers" who can carry out the action plan, organising letter writing etc.

Not all of these people have to be 'full time' members of the group - "networkers", for example might have potential conflicts with their existing jobs and want to just give us advice in the background.

I would suggest that we initially need a working sub-committee of about 6 or 7 initially to flesh out the structure of the group, take ideas and suggestions and turn them into a structured plan of action.


RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER WORKING GROUPS

There is a lot of crossover. The Lobbying Group will be depending on the Research Group to provide the information; we will have to work closely with the Membership Group in such areas as letter-writing campaigns and conferences/seminars.

Adam (dahamsta) as PRO will also have a very close relationship with this group.


WHAT CAN YOU DO?

If you have a specific interest in this group, please email me at martinharran@esatclear.ie, using subject "Working Groups" indicating whether:

1. You would like to be part of the sub-committee
2. You would like to contribute to the group without being too actively involved; if necessary, for reasons of confidentiality, communications can be restricted to myself.
3. You don't want to be actively involved all the time but you can help out in specific areas when requested.
4. You don't want to be actively involved but would like to be kept informed of what the group is doing through newsletters by email.

Martin Harran
IrelandOffline Chairman

dahamsta

As mentioned in the recent announcement, Martin Harran has stepped down as the Chairman of the Lobbying Working Group, and I will be replacing him as acting Chairman until a suitable candidate comes along. Martin will remain on the Working Group and offer commentary and assistance when he can.

Martin has highlighted plenty of ideas in his previous post, but the first thing we have to address is membership, in that we pretty much don't have one. At the moment, there are three members, and I would like to expand this to at least a half dozen, and preferably a dozen, in the next few days.

I realise that the title "Lobbying Working Group" may sound overbearing, but the work of the Lobbying Group will be relatively simple and shouldn't be too taxing. Most of the work will consist of researching possible lobbying candidates and setting the ball rolling, whereupon the main committee will take over the actual messy work of trying to convince these candidates to back or even just talk to IrelandOffline.

I would appreciate your feedback, and any suggestions you might have. We have a lot of work ahead of us, and it's a perfect time for us to put this group to maximum use. We'd like to get started ASAP.

Thanks,
adam

dahamsta

I would like to modify the last part of Martin's post above slightly:

- If you would like to join the Lobbying Working Group, and you feel you will be able to participate to a reasonable degree, please join this mailing list and introduce yourself.

- If you would like to help out with contacts and the like, but you would like to remain anonymous, please email me with details on how you can help.

- If you just want to be kept informed, the LWG website will created soon, and you will be able to do so there.

[EDIT: I'm sticking this thread to the top for a couple of days.]

Thanks,
adam