Political

A great idea from London Liberal Democrats for Brighton conference

Here’s another a nice little innovation being tried out, this time from London Liberal Democrats and as featured in the latest email to party activists:

London Region are offering a prize for the Local Party with the highest percentage of members attending – our prize is £250 worth of campaigning support – this could be used for leaflets, street stall equipment or digital campaigning.

We are also offering financial support to a limited number of young people and those in full time education to attend (based on the qualifying criteria for membership of the Young Liberals) – please alert any of your members who would benefit from this scheme – they can email Chris Maines at chris.maines@yahoo.co.uk.

Money is of course by no means the only motivator, and used unwisely can even be counter-productive. But there have been some very successful uses of cash prizes and the like in the party – in particular, to motivate local membership recruitment and retention. What’s more, the attendance at federal party conference although very healthy by historic standards is still a very small proportion of the party’s membership.

Trying out schemes such as this, therefore, is just what we need more of in the party.

UPDATE: Devon and Cornwall Lib Dems are doing something similar.

You can find out more about what is happening at party conference in Brighton here.

3 responses to “A great idea from London Liberal Democrats for Brighton conference”

  1. Given the geography it seems unlikely that this prize will be won by a local party outside the south of England. Or was it only intended for London based local parties?

    • Kay: Yup, it’s a scheme being run by London Region Liberal Democrats for the local parties in their patch. My reason for highlighting it is partly for readers from London but also to encourage readers from outside London to think about trying similar schemes too.

  2. Hum. May be a good idea, but it’s most likely to be won by a weak local party in a prosperous area. Parties that have been very successful recruiting members will have a fairly high percentage of inactive members and members of parties in poor areas will tend to have more difficulty with the cost of attending autumn conference.

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