A Centre for Excellence...

To learn, to meet, to communicate...

The Rt Hon John Grogan, MP and Trish Lavelle, CWU Head of Education and Training open the new learning centre.

Thanks to the Reaching Out project the North East Region is now equipped to lead the field in state of the art learning and conferencing facilities designed to bring together all the representatives in the North East and communicate quickly whatever the issue.

• all North East Branches are now equipped with telephone conferencing;

• we can design and print, posters, letters and mail them directly to members;

• we can offer individual branch membership postings of the highest quality;

• we are able to develop and support all our trade union representatives with regular training;

• we can communicate instantly using text messaging the latest news and advice;

• we can provide comfortable, modern conference and meeting facilities for all our sections and committees;

The North East Region represents more than 23,000 CWU members in a wide and diverse number of businesses and is one of the largest geographical regions within the CWU structure, covering locations with as few as one member to locations employing thousands.

The Region has always recognised that timely, honest communications is essential in gaining the trust of our membership and consistent, well presented information is the way to maintain that trust. There is an overriding obligation for us, as a Trade Union organization to communicate directly, responsibly and as frequently as necessary with our members through as many different mediums as possible.

The easiest and most direct route to achieving this is to ensure that that every office and every business unit, no matter how small, or how remote, has a direct link to knowledgeable and well supported representatives. The North East Region understands that any communication strategy will only succeed with the support of our local Representatives, those on the front line who often feel isolated, by supporting and equipping our representatives, we support our membership and increase the benefits of being part of a dynamic organisation that is trustworthy.

The North East Region immediately recognised that the improvement opportunities offered by the ‘Reaching Out Project’ could directly maximise the benefits to the widest numbers of members possible and would achieve significant change in a relatively compressed period of time.

The North East bid was therefore, without doubt both the largest and most comprehensive of all the bids.

From the date of installation the North East Region has already provided colourful, A3 posters designed with the latest information presented in an easy to read style that attracts the eye of our members in their workplace. We have provided branches from the North East with individual membership home postings, using mail merge technology to individually address each letter and personalise it to every member.

The benefits so far...

• We have not had to rely on printers minimum order status or extended turnaround times.

• We have produced large and small run of posters tailored specifically to the needs of the branch and campaign and turned these around within 24 hours.

• We have been able to get the CWU message out first, before the management message.

• The CWU branding on each poster and home posting has been controlled and maintained centrally giving a consistent high quality image and message.

• We have provided individually addressed, personalized letters to every member and also provided individual support and letters / questionnaires for a newly opened ULR resource in West Yorkshire and many other causes.

• We have designed and printed promotional material for the Union and the learning centre, which have proven successful.

• Each business represented by the CWU has produced regular newsletters which have either been posted to individual members or delivered to branch on bulk for personal handing out to members.

• Not only have we provided these facilities for the branches within the North East but with the two major industrial dispute campaigns, i.e. Royal Mail and Post Office Counters we have provided support and printing facilities for both these national campaigns in the form of handouts to the public and individually address letters to every single counters members in the country.

The project has provided the initial funding for the printer and we are committed to maintaining the sustainability of the facility within the Region. We have introduced a robust charge and account system designed to recover from individual users all costs involved with maintaining the facility.

We have been able to maintain regular communication links with each branch, the installation of high quality audio conferencing telephones has given us the ability to schedule regular weekly calls between each branch, allowing everyone in the region to have a voice, share information and stay in touch without the need to travel and commit the additional time this involves.

The benefits so far

• We have been able to communicate directly with every branch collectively, allowing easy co-ordination of policy, information sharing and disseminate information.

• The facility has saved a significant amount of representative’s time in travelling and is proven to be effective in the business environment for maintaining a collective and unified approach and the deployment of agreed strategies.

• Regional and Sector meetings have already been held where National Offices and EC members have been able to give verbal reports, take questions and give feedback immediately when they have been unable to travel to the region – thus including everyone in the very latest developments.

• It has allowed us to gather relevant and up-to-date information on the support for industrial action across the Region which ensures accurate and consistent reporting to CWU HQ.

• It has reduced the amount of repetitive individual telephone conversations needed to relay the same information 18 times and it has also avoided the possibility of “Chinese whispers syndrome”.

The telephone conferencing facility has proven successful and we are now instigating a schedule of monthly conferences.

The clarity and ease of use of the new equipment has increased the user experience and participation over previous tele-conference experience.

The two national disputes has to some extent hampered the full introduction of a complete training package for North East representatives due to uncertainty of release time etc.

We have been liaising with Unionlearn, the TUC and divisional trainers to provide regular training for front line Representatives, to assist them to develop the requisite skills in being able to communicate directly with members within each workplace.

The project has provided a regionally based training facility and physical resource facility of all National Agreements, procedures, policies and where applicable, relevant employment law. The modern well-equipped facility means less travel, more relevant training and a flexible, integrated approach to training.

The benefits so far

• We have been able to provide three courses aimed directly at improving communication skills of local and branch representatives.

• We have been able to provide a regional centre for the recent legal and medical department training of North East representatives by Tony Rupa.

• We have provided conferencing and meeting facilities for various representative bodies avoiding lengthy travel and costs throughout the two national disputes for everyone in the region.

• The facility has saved a significant amount of representative’s time in travelling and is proven to be effective in the business environment for maintaining a collective and unified approach and the deployment of agreed strategies.

• It offers an alternative to existing centres, not as competition but as complimentary allowing smaller number of representatives to benefit from courses designed specifically for their needs.