Recruitment

national | wsm | policy statement Tuesday February 21, 2006 16:19 by National Conference - WSM andrewflood at eircom dot net

WSM policy paper

(1) As with any organisation, if the WSM is to survive it must expand. Obviously, if we are to achieve our long-term objectives growth must be a major priority. Even in the short-term, however, the survival of the organisation depends upon the infusion of new blood and energies

(2) In the 1990-94 period the WSM grew in Dublin by recruiting activists who had considerable experience and political knowledge. Since then, however, the pool of experienced people has either become exhausted or is comprised of people unlikely to join us in the near future. Consequently future recruits are more likely to come from a much less experience circle of people.

(3) Recruiting new members involves a couple of stages:
(i) building a list of contacts
(ii) encouraging contacts to distribute Workers Solidarity, donate money towards its publication and attend meetings
(iii) encouraging WS distributors to become members of the WSM

( 4) (i) New contacts

An effort will be made at all WSM activities to talk to new people and ask them to provide us with a method of contacting them in the future. This includes not just formal WSM meetings but also pickets, paper distributions and marches.

A major purpose of all free publications will be to get people to get in contact with us, they will carry prominent 'ads' or articles asking people to do this.

(ii) Publication distribution

New contacts will be asked as soon as possible if they will take some of our free publications to distribute to people they know or at events they attend. Additional copies of our free publications will be available at events at which new contacts may be made for this purpose.

Where we have a postal address for new contacts they will be sent some of our free publications and other promotional material (stickers etc). After a couple of weeks we will contact them again to see if they are interested in distributing free publications on a regular basis. If so it will be suggested they commit themselves to making a regular donation towards the costs of the publications.

Branch distributions of publications will be organised with part of their purpose being the involving of contacts in that distribution.

Distributors of our material will be strongly encouraged to attend WSM meetings

(iii) Distributors becoming members.

Any contacts who commit to regularly distributing our free publications will be asked to consider joining the organisation.

If someone says they are interested they will be given a copy of the Membership statement and asked to attend branch meetings if there are ones near them. If they agree with the statement, commit to the membership requirements in it and have attended at least 3 WSM branch meetings (or one national meeting) they will be proposed for membership of their branch.

(5) The previous section should not be read as requiring a long drawn out process. It would be quite possible that at some event a new contact would be made who would immediately commit to regularly distribute publications. At the discretion of the person who had made contact with them they could immediately be entered into stage (iii) and start the process of becoming a member.

(6) Co-ordination of contact work can be both awkward and difficult. In general each branch should have one person responsible for keeping track of progress. They can ask people to carry out the stages outlined previously and those doing so would report the results to that person. They are responsible for passing address details on to the branch secretary. Although this co-ordination can be carried out by the branch secretary this should only be the case where they are completely comfortable with this role.

(7) Out lying contacts It is essential to growing outside areas where we already have members that we recruit people who live outside of those cities. This work should be co-ordinated by the national secretary (through their nearest branch where they live within an hour of that branch). Such contacts should be
(a) Send them a back issue of the paper, Anarchism in Ireland and a book service pamphlet and ask them if they want more material.
(b) Sent free publications to distribute and asked to report where they distributed them and what if any reaction they received.
(c) Sent material that encourages people to contact the WSM (stickers etc) and in particular to contact us via the internet.
(d) Encouraged to send brief reports of any local struggles. Where suitable these could be sent to the Ainriail list or published in Workers Solidarity.
(e) Encouraged to attend national meetings or to contact us whenever they are in an area that has a branch
(f) In any case where we know a contact has been distributing material for six months more but has not been met that the national secretary should ask their nearest branch to arrange a meeting with that person.

Short term section

S1. When someone joins the WSM, one of our members will volunteer to act as their mentor. The role of a mentor is to provide information and assistance for the new member in order that they may participate as fully as possible within the organisation. (DC F06)

Last updated Feb 2006