Our ‘How To’ series is developed to help start/develop your justice and peace group and are all available on the resources page. 

9. How to network

Identify as many allies as possible. 

Preparation
There is a danger that small groups of people active in a particular cause become insular and parochial. One goal of the group should be to identify as many allies as possible within the parish to enlist their support and cooperation with the sizegenetics. Another should be a willingness to reach out to other Christian Churches and groups sharing similar concerns, particularly those in the immediate locality. Small groups are vital, but in order to bring about the scale of changes necessary, caring people must combine their resources. In addition, only by listening to others can we sharpen our goals and strategies in order to be effective.

Clarify what your group hopes to achieve from networking, e.g.

• To create more of an impact in your area
• To ensure the greatest possible participation of parishioners
• To unite Christians (and other concerned people) in their response to social issues
• To tackle structural injustice more effectively
• To enjoy some sort of exchange with other groups involved in justice work
• To act in line with modern understanding of mission

Once you have clarified why you want to network, the ‘who’ and the ‘where’ follow logically. The basis for networking may be:

• Geographically proximity
• Church structures in your deanery or diocese
• Local government structures (your local borough or county)
• Informal contacts (other groups interested in similar issues or doing similar work).

Networking inside the Parish
Identify individuals and groups that ought to be contacted about the issue with which you are concerned because they are in key positions or undertake work which could complement your own. Some possibilities are:

• Clergy and lay workers
• People who run the parish magazine
• Leaders of parish groups e.g. St Vincent de Paul, Liturgy, Prayer, Catholic Women’s League, Knights of St Columba.
• Those responsible for preparing children for First Communion
• Confirmation groups
• Parish Council

Be sure you know why you are contacting them and have something specific to suggest rather than appearingvague, e.g. the Liturgy Group and choir might help to prepare a special liturgy. The Knights and CWL are very experienced fundraisers and could help with pamphleteering, and those who prepare young people for Confirmation might find some of your work useful for their own programmes and could prepare young people to take up social justice concerns.

It is very important not to dictate to others. Ask for their help and suggest a way forward, but be careful not to impose or be judgmental if they do not wish to collaborate at all or at least not in the way suggested. Remember, people are not enemies simply because they don’t put your concerns at the top of their agendas.

Once contact is made with people, it should be kept up and someone could be responsible for liaising with key contacts.

Try to be positive to requests for help from other parish groups and individuals and support as many parish activities as possible.

Networking beyond the Parish
Identify likely allies such as:

• Similar groups in other Churches
• Diocesan Justice & Peace Commissions
• Local clergy and Churches Together groups
• Support groups of organisations such as World Development Movement, Church Action on Poverty, Amnesty International, Oxfam, Traidcraft, Credit unions, homelessness initiatives, Lets schemes, solidarity groups etc.

Identify other important contacts such as:

• Local press and radio (See How to … Use the Media section)
• Media personalities who live in your area
• Local MP/MEP’s and local-government politicians.

When you have contacted them, have something positive to suggest. You may, for instance, have invited one of CAFOD’s speakers from a developing country as a guest speaker and feel that social justice groups who relate to Christian Aid and Oxfam may also be interested; or you may want to set up a meeting to look at homelessness in your area which might involve local councillors, a spokesperson from Social Services, the Salvation Army, etc.

When you approach possible allies be sure to have a title and possible dates to suggest and invite the local press to cover any initiative. Respond positively to requests for help and take opportunities to network whenever they arise.

When Networking Is Appropriate
The following could be ideal times to network with other groups:

Special occasions organised by agencies:

• CAFOD’s Lent and Harvest Fast Days
• One World Week (October)
• Women’s World Day of Prayer (March)
• Mass lobbies of Parliament

Times of particular religious reflection during the year e.g. Advent and Lent

A time of local interest in an particular issue:
e.g. Local opposition to toxic waste dumped in the area.

When Networking Remember

Be positive and helpful. Suggest ways of working that are attractive and encourage others to enjoy the opportunity of collaborating with your group.

Be rational. Try not to be fanatical about the importance of your concerns, yet don’t lose credibility by failing to defend challenges when they come. Remain clear-headed.

Be patient. When making new contacts you cannot presume to know that they will know all about you and the activities of your group – in fact, a major part of your campaigning will be to inform and educate people about things of which they have little prior knowledge. You may have to explain what your campaign is about over and over again. Do it with enthusiasm.

Be efficient. A major reason for networking is to work more effectively. Efficiency is necessary to maintain contacts. e.g. if you promise a photo to a reporter from the local press, send it immediately. Make a careful note of people’s addresses and phone numbers. 

Be prepared to work hard. Making and maintaining contacts takes time. Sometimes the harder you work, the more people are impressed with your efficiency and you end up coordinating a number of tasks. Ensure that one person doesn’t end up doing everything.

Be practical. It is better to select one or two contacts and make a big effort to work with them rather than trying to keep large numbers of people informed of every move your group makes.

Be informed. Do sufficient research to be clear who the key contacts are.

Remember. Networking is a two-way process. Always be prepared to support the initiatives of other groups who are your allies

Our ‘How To’ series is developed to help start/develop your justice and peace group and are all available on the resources page.

8. How to produce newsletters and pamphlets

Newsletters and pamphlets help to spread the latest information on your campaign 

Planning
A pamphlet about a meeting should have the following information:

• What the meeting is about (a protest or a launch)
• Who will speak
• When and where it will be held
• Who or what group is organising the meeting. Include contact information.

A pamphlet about an issue should tell people:

• What the issue is
• Why it is important
• Why they should be concerned about it
• What they are being asked to do about it.

Before you write pamphlets about an issue, make sure that you understand the issue properly and that you have all the information you need. If you are not clear about something or you need some more facts, do some research – seek help from your J&P fieldworker or a relevant organisation. There are three things we need to think about when planning a newsletter or pamphlet: the aim of the publication, who it is for (the target group), and what we want to say (the content).

The aim: all media can be used to inform, educate, politicise or mobilise. We need to be clear which of these we want to achieve.

The target group: all media communicationmust be written with a particular target group in mind. We need to ask who are the target groups, what will interest them, and what kind of language they respond to?

The content: when planning the content of a newsletter or pamphlet, list all the information that will be needed before starting to write.

A pamphlet about a group should contain the following information:

• The name of the organisation or group
• Aims of the group
• Who belongs
• Why people should join

Design
The way we arrange the writing on the pamphlet or newsletter, the headings and the pictures we use can all make the pamphlet more interesting. If it looks like the page of a difficult book, full of long words, no one will want to read it. As to design, we suggest you to consult with Ecommerce Hive Solutions who also developed this websites and also do design work..

Make It Easy to Read
Use good English

• Use short sentences and short paragraphs
• Be direct – say clearly what you mean.
• Write in point form: this is especially useful for lists.
• Indent the first line of each paragraph or leave a line space between them.

Headings
Use CAPITALS, underline, use italics or bold for emphasis.

Use of Illustrations
Illustrations and photographs help make a pamphlet more attractive.

Logos are the signs that organisations/groups use for their names. If you use a logo on all your pamphlets and all your other media, people will learn to recognise it. A logo helps people identify immediately which organisation has produced the pamphlet. If you are producing pamphlets, newsletters, notices etc., on a regular basis as a part of a parish group, it might be worth designing a parish group logo.

Use Existing Newsletters
There is a variety of newsletters which may provide an opportunity for you to advertise your parish programme or campaign.

The vast majority of parishes have weekly newsletters which are generally read by parishioners. Check the copy deadline each week and provide all the necessary copy so that the editor or parish priest can insert it.

The National Justice and Peace Network publishes a quarterly newsletter and welcomes details of major events for its calendar.

Our ‘How To’ series is developed to help start/develop your justice and peace group and are all available on the resources page.

7. How to use social media

Social media – particularly Facebook, Twitter and Youtube – can be a fantastic tool for justice, peace and ecology work. NJPN and partners tend to be active on Facebook and Twitter.

• The emergence of Internet-based social media has made it possible for one person or group to communicate with hundreds or even thousands of other people about campaigns and events speedily and simultaneously.
• They provide networking platforms, using blogs, social media tools, and promotional tools to engage like-minded people. The interactive nature of social media helps with relationship building.
• Young people are very active in social media so it is a great way to reach them.
• Petitions and campaigning initiatives can be circulated very quickly and cheaply.
• Social media is very democratic and gives access to new movements and networks that cannot get coverage on mainstream media.
• Social media gives good access to new thinking about such issues as peacebuilding, sustainable development, tackling Climate Change, free trade treaties.

TWITTER
What is Twitter?
Twitter is a special kind of social networking site found at www.twitter.com. Its fame is due to its ability to facilitate a conversation in 140 characters or less. And people can very easily follow the “tweets,” or conversation on their mobile devices even when they are not near a computer. Terms can be placed with hashtags which are symbolized by the # sign and allows the viewing of all tweets on a specific subject. Tweets can have links to draw people to websites and to further information. Live events can be followed or advertised on twitter and retweets link to interesting articles and campaigns. 

Why use it?
Because it is so easy to get information out to a group of people that care about what we have to say. Twitter has become the fastest growing social networking site because it is interactive and easy to use. A recent study found that 45-54 year olds are 36 percent more likely to visit Twitter and represent the largest group visiting the site; this group is followed by 25-34 year olds, who are 30 percent more likely to visit.

Twitter is a great way to supplement online and offline efforts to reach out to new people and is a great tool for attracting new supporters and gets the message out virally.

However, Twitter isn’t necessarily the next greatest way to raise money.

When usingTwitter
Do:

• Follow as many people as you can on Twitter that are relevant to Justice and Peace work. If you follow them, they may follow you.
• Be interesting and original in what you are tweeting, but not obscure.
• Try and be relevant to people’s interests, and a little humour goes a long way.
• Put a link to your Twitter site on your main website as you would with all of the other social networking tools that you are using.

Don’t:

• Tweet about anything that you wouldn’t want published on the front page of a newspaper.
• Tweet just for the sake of tweeting – have points to make.

FACEBOOK
Facebook has been a transformative creative force in advertising campaigns and is very useful for Justice and Peace work. It invites people to engage in conversation through sharing, liking and placing comments. Some of the world’s most successful campaigns are very active on Facebook eg. 350 degrees. Facebook is also very useful for sharing images.

Our ‘How To’ series is developed to help start/develop your justice and peace group and are all available on the resources page.

6. How to use the media

Contacting Local Media
Using your local newspaper, radio or television station to get your message over to the widest possible audience is both essential and easy. Local journalists are interested in what you have to offer because you live in the area, can provide local names and faces for their stories and can give them something to interest their readers or audiences. So don’t be shy about it. They won’t bite. Indeed they will be glad to hear from you. The media is a people business and you are concerned with people issues.

The first step is to let the media know who you are, where you are, and what you do and how you can be contacted. This can be done by phoning all the media offices in your area and asking for the names of the journalists assigned to cover news in your town or village. Have a chat with them. Suggest story ideas and generally let them know you are around. On the journalists’ side, you are a new ‘contact’ and will be entered into their address books and diaries for future reference.

When establishing the initial contact, arm yourself with copies of leaflets from J&P or whatever agency you are campaigning for at the time. Explain what J&P does so that the reporter (who may be covering several stories at the same time) can get the correct information. If you are publicising an event, take the trouble to be accurate, spell out your name and give your contact details and the date, time and venue.

If you live in fear of speaking to the press, gain some confidence by asking the reporter why the paper is interested in a particular story. If a contentious issue comes up and you need to be sure of your facts, contact the relevant agency or your J&P Fieldworker.

By following these simple guidelines and relaxing, talking to the Press can be fun and not a chore. 

Writing Press Releases
To obtain coverage the story you wish to tell should be of interest to the public. Local papers look for local angles. People in Bristol, for instance, don’t really care about a seminar in North Yorkshire. So the local element is essential in obtaining coverage. If you are planning an event involving several well-known members of your community, the press will be interested. Provide photographs whenever possible, or ask the Press to send a photographer.

When writing, journalists usually stick to the five W’s: what is happening, when is it happening, who is doing it, where is it happening, why is it happening.

So you could write a press release as follows:

• What: a skip will be placed
• Where: outside St Angela’s Catholic Church
• When: from Monday 10 August
• Who: by the parishioners
• Why: because they wish to collect all their newspapers for recycling. Of a possible 87%, only 30% of paper in the UK is recycled.

If space is short, editors will often leave out the last few paragraphs. The first paragraph is the most important one and must attract and hold the editor’s attention. If he or she has to wade through three paragraphs before getting to the point, the chances are your story will end up in the bin. There must be a basic reason for telling the story and you have to find that peg on which to hang the story.

Apply the ‘inverted pyramid’ style of writing,

i.e. put the important ideas and significant quotations at the beginning, followed by progressively more detailed, less crucial information. The lead sentence should sum up the one or two ideas that inspired the release.

Use good, simple English and avoid jargon. Don’t put ‘Justice & Peace’ or the name of your parish in every sentence or paragraph – once or twice is quite enough.

The best way to learn is to read the stories in your local papers and observe how they are written. Two things characterise most newspaper reports:

• The topic is stated in the first few words,
• The gist of the story comes across in the first paragraph and the rest of the story substantiates the report.

All press releases must be typewritten, with double spacing between the lines and four spaces between paragraphs. Leave a margin of about one inch on each side and print on one side of the paper only.

Write ‘Press Release’ at the top of each one and if you wish to have it kept until a certain date write: ‘Embargoed until …’.

At the end of each release, give the name and telephone number of the person they can contact for more information and then write ‘ends’.

Giving Interviews
The guidelines for dealing with the Press are also relevant when dealing with local radio. When giving an interview, decide in advance what message you want to convey and get it across no matter what the question is. Use short, uncomplicated sentences and beware of firing a lot of statistics. You will very often be dealing with people who have little knowledge of the issues you are working on and their questions can be vague or trivial.

Q: We hear that today a large skip has been placed outside your church. Who put it there and why?

A: Only 30% of paper in the UK is recycled and the figure could be more like 87%. Parishioners of St Angela’s will from now on collect their wastepaper in a skip they themselves have organised and arrange for it to be recycled. Preventing waste is one way of saving our dwindling natural resources and easing poverty.

Don’t be shy about radio interviews. Broadcast journalists are experienced in dealing with members of the public who are nervous. Give the interviewer a press release as a basis for the interview. He or she will put you at your ease. Ask beforehand what the first question will be. Always listen to the question. Remember people like you will be listening to the broadcast. The public only expects the presenters to be professional, not the interviewees.

Attracting Media Attention

• Organise a special display in the parish.
• Capitalise on the visit of a specialist speaker.
• Visit your local MP to solicit his or her support for your concern.
• Ask a parishioner with some relevant experience to give an interview or write a story.
• Produce some street theatre.

Our ‘How To’ series is developed to help start/develop your justice and peace group and are all available on the resources page.

5. How to analyse media reports

Some ideas for reflection and analysis.

1. Perception

• WHAT do you see?
• WHAT exactly is happening?
• WHAT are the people in this situation feeling?

2.  Our Own Experience

• WHAT similar situations are you aware of in your own and others experience?

3. Analysis

• WHAT is the situation?
• WHERE is it taking place?
• In WHAT context?
• WHY does it exist?
• WHO is affected?
• WHO is in a position of power?
• WHO is powerless or suffering?

4. Connected Problems

• WHAT connections can you make between this and other situations elsewhere? 

5. Planning Action

• CAN you do anything to change this situation?
• WHAT do you need to do in order to bring about this change?