it ain't rocket science if the petition reaches 100k then it must be debated in parliament,
Yes, it's people who like the petition idea who are aggressive, insulting, hostile etc etc. lol!
You did exactly the same to me the other day and I wasn't even criticising. And I've still not had an apology.
Out of interest, public liability insurance for what?
Thought I had but with so much going on if I haven't then sincere apologies and I'll add you to my list of people to buy a reconciliationary pint at the Spencer Club! Regarding your excellent idea of the multi club event is that one you're willing to progress or shall I put a shout out to others?
Michael, cud you ask the CET to help with the leafletting. Set up a stall with iPads so people can register epetition on the spot. Just a thought....
Hi, long time no see. Cov tel gave great coverage at the start but 'petition ticking over nicely' isn't much of a headline grabber. tbh I'm slightly taken aback because I never imagined the 10k mark (and now 12.5) would be reached so quickly. None of it is rocket science, you just look at other petition campaigns and there's a set of pretty obvious things to do. When it stalls, as will inevitably happen, then there's a few options to choose from. But as with everything I do, essentially I'm just chucking out ideas and it's then up to people to make their individual choice if they want to support it or not. The efforts being made by some people on here - and others who never venture onto internet forums - have been quite extraordinary and are what's making it work so far.
Michael I just cannot see the telegraph going for promoting someone else's petition. Having your own is one thing, but that would set a dangerous precedant. There are so so many problems I can envision.
For a start the telegraph I presume hires models when they have promotions (could be wrong but I don't remember a time when they have had ugly people promoting their campaigns!). This means it costs them money. They too will have insurance issues. Then there is the massive problem of having ipads!
1) You need wifi - is the wifi secure?
2) Who provides the iPads?
3) How do they confirm their e-mail addresses?
4) Are those who are pushing this petition going to provide the iPads?
5) Would you provide your own iPad for this?
6) Who is going to insure the iPads?
7) Can you actually get insurance for having iPads on a table in public?
8) How are you going to secure the iPads (physically & electronicaally)?
9) How do you deal with thew data protection act?
10) Where would they set up?
11) How many stalls do you expect the telegraph to provide?
12) How many iPads do you have per stall?
13) Will they have to hire security staff to ensure the iPads aren't stolen?
14) Is it just a one off or an ongoing drive?
15) Can you hire iPads?
16) If you cannot hire iPads, who is going to buy them?
And these are just spitballing concerns off the top of my head just for the iPads!
There aren't as many issues for leaflets, but suffice to say some of the concerns are there for however you address the issue of this.
I'm sure someone will now have a go trying to claim I am just trying to put you off, but the reality is, if you are asking the telegraph to run this, they as a company must consider all these points! It is always simple to just come up with ideas. The devil is always in the details. I'm assuming that you have decided against campaigning in the street because of the insurance issue alone. Quite frankly this is the easiest problem!
This was why I asked you the question how much of this stuff did you consider when you considered the ePetition? Did you assume you could just rely on the ePetition on it's own merit, or did you plan for a publicity campaign? If you didn't have a publicity campaign in mind, then unless you are incredibly lucky, this is doomed.
Charities plan months maybe even years in advance for their campaigns. It sounds so simple when you are chewing the fat over a pint, but when reality bites, it is a huge challenge. You think you are busy now? Try rolling it out to a co-ordinated campaign! This is why the military a lot of charities seek out high ranking military people to run campaigns! Not because they necessarily want military, but they know they are used to handling logistically complex tasks!
This was why I joined this forum to ask you these questions. This was why I asked you if you genuinely expect this to be successful. Looking at the database, you are about half way through the other forums in less than a week. After doing all this hard work, it has ultimately gained you about 5-6k additional signatures.
But how many do you expect to gain from the other forums? What happens when the english forums have all been contacted? At some point you have to consider advertising and promotion. If you haven't got the funds for insurance, then you definitely should consider if you should proceed. If you need iPads you are looking at thousands and thousands - and this is just to obtain the signatures! Even dishing out leaflets is going to cost hundreds. Thing is all these considerations should have been made before the petition was started, because now the clock is ticking.
So you have to be honest with yourself Michael - do you honestly expect this to succeed? If you do then you need to now consider a fundraising drive. If not, then I humbly submit you thank those volunteers for their help & support, and move on happy that you have achieved 10x what you expected.
Because if you truly believe it is going to achieve what you want, you are going to need to advertise, because you need the issue fresh in the minds of the locals. You cannot have the same advert week on week, it will be expensive and after a while it will lose any effect.
Why else do you think so many campaigns fail? Just take a look at the top trending campaigns. Look at the pancreatic cancer appeal. I would have thought millions would agree that is a good campaign. but it is going to fail! Why? simple - it did not advertise! The genital mutilation campaign succeeded, because it affected many thousands personally.
A repeat of an inquiry into football governance doesn't affect that many personallv therefore it must have advertising - pure and simple.
Of course I could be wrong, and the CET could be benevolent and offer you all the free advertising you want, and could provide models, and pay for iPads etc. But do you believe they will? I certainly don't!
Just be careful Michael. Before you spend a penny on this just think will spendin this money actually achieve anything? Whilst it doesn't cost anything then it's ok if it nearly succeeds. But can you guarantee it's success? And can you live with spending thousands of pounds on a campaign that may or may not succeed?
Can you justify fundraising campaigns for this? Asking for a signature for free is one thing, but asking the public to pay for this? Think very carefully before you go down that route that is all I am saying
Am out most of today so here's a specific point to seek your advice on. A few people have contacted me saying biggest gathering of city fans this weekend will obviously be saturday at sixfields. TF and ML have signed the petition so presumably wouldn't object to people going on saturday taking petition leaflets to hand out to other city fans and bradford fans too. I don't go to sixfields so it's not my shout but would your advice be those suggesting it have a good idea or is it a bad idea?
Apologies for potentially a drawn out response in advance.. may be a while
Typically street campaigns are lucky to get 1%, but this isn't your "typical" street campaign.
Here are a list of questions I would ask myself to guesstimate risk / reward
1) Expected attendance
2) # of stalls / volunteers
3) Static or mobile
4) time to campaign
5) Demographics
6) strength of message
7) focus of message
8) publicity availability
9) weather
10) terrain
11) equipment availability
12) accessability
13) utilities
14) Authorisation
15) financial capacity
Sure there can be more, but this is enough for a start!
1) Simple enough between 1,500 - 2,500 (Best case 3,000)
2) Only you can answer that
3) Are you going to set out a stall or mingle with the fans? If you mingle how are you going to coordinate to ensure you don't miss out people / overlap
4) How long before / after the game are you going to be doing this? leaflets at half time? How many people do you expect to turn up 10 minutes before the game / how many 1 hour before
5) How many are old enough to sign? Older people are more likely to vote
6) How clear is the message to your audience - campaigning to fund cancer research is no good at an animal rights rally for example.
7) Focus of message - shouldn't be a problem, as it's a football based campaign
8) Are you going to advertise - Forums will have limited impact. EVERY success you have had is due to being advertised in the telegraph (no chance the march in the city would have worked or the votes you have achieved so far without mass media advertising)
9) People aren't going to stand around and sign a petition in the rain / cold
10) are you standing on the hill? Is it going to be muddy? Wheelchair access? Near the toilets / food vans?
11) Are you going to need pens / iPads? If you need signatures you need min clipboards, ideally tables with canopies
12) Are you in their face / out on the fringes? as with homes its location location location
13) If they need to sign on electronically, you are going to need electricity. If it's cold you need hot food & drinks. Are you offering those that sign drinks?
14) Authorisation - are you going to need a pass? Do you need to let the police know? I suspect you do incase of scammers
15) This is key. Can you afford any of this? who pays for the leaflets? Are they professionally made / printed off? The more amateur the less likely to look.
Personally, considering the numbers likely to attend, it will be a drop in the ocean. Sure there are more city fans, but those fans that are going are more likely to have already signed! It's a double edged sword!
My advice is to seriously reconsider the entire strategy. You are starting to go down the road of forking out money. How much money are you prepared to spend on this campaign? If you have no funds then it will be a waste of time money and effort to hand out leaflets. Be honest how many times have you been handed a flyer and it has gone straight in the bin?
ePetitions sound good, but are a nightmare - and here is why in my view. With a regular petition, you can simply ask for a signature, photocopy /print a few reams of paper, a clipboard some pens, some well intentioned people, then when you are happy with the results, at a time of your choosing, you can hand it to the PM with a nice photo op. But then they generally get ignored.
With an ePetition, dead easy to set up, then the nightmare starts. 97.5% don't even reach 1000! But those that get over that hurdle assume its only a matter of time. Prime example the #1 trending petition. First week it was getting at one point nearly 3,000 / hour. Week later, it has dropped off the cliff and is getting 120 per hour. This campaign at best was getting 250 / hour!
But after the first few days of frantic action, then you have to rely on activists, advertising to get you to the finish line. The Finish line is not under your control.the duration of the petition effectively is not under your control.
The whole concept of ePetitions is designed to male it easier for the politicians to process. Simply to simply close an ePetition with 60,000 signatures than a paper petition with 20,000 - it would need to be physically stored somewhere!
As I hope I mentioned, the first two weeks are key. ePetitions are like viral youtube vids. Take the Twist & shout vid. 540,000 in the first week or so. Currently 558k! And it takes nothing to watch a youtube video!
I cannot emphasise to you strongly enough Michael. Seriously consider your next move. You are within a week maybe two of contacting every football forum / fans group in the country. You might achieve 100k that way - if so well done move on to stage two. But judging by the fact that the rate of signatures has hardly shifted in over a week (around 30-40 an hour), contacting the forums hasn't increased the rate. So unless you are going to contact every forum every day for a year, then that source of signatures is going to dry up in 2 or 3 weeks. Then what?
Bravado is one thing but exactly how are you going to achieve these signatures? Word of mouth just isn't going to do it. Going on size of local community and assuming a % of those will sign just isn't going to do it!
So sooner or later you have to accept you need to advertise or thank the volunteers for their help! And if you bawk at having to pay insurance for campaigning on the streets, it would feel like a kick in the love spuds to advertise!
Haven't asked but for a full page spread in the CET I expect could be close to 4 figures just for one day!)
But even if it was "just" £100, that is one page one day! You need a different page at least once a week! How many people would read the page, then go onto the link? Remember not every phone has that bar code app, so they would need to type in the link!
Honestly, leaflets for an ePetiton as a rule are a bad idea. Indeed ePetitions are bad news, as they give false hope to those that generate them!
To advertise this, you will need to have a web page with an easy to remember web addresssand is attractive to the eye. Just having a webpage with a link on will not cut it.
So already you are looking at paying for a website for at least a year, a web designer to do the graphics / mechanics, and paying to advertise!
I thought you would appreciate a detailed breakdown of my reasoning, rather than just say it's a fooking bad idea. If I lay out why I thought it was a bad idea, at least then you can pick apart my reasoning, and see I am not just anti this campain.
for any campaign you need weeks and weeks of planning. You need funds, or at least a fund raising strategy. You need everyone involved onboard and have a fully detailed strategy before you start!
Hopefully you now realise you have reached a crossroads with this. and I hope all those attacking me for being sceptical or a coward or a defeatist understand why I am so concerned at your attitude to my comments!
Sure campaign can succeed, but 99.99% of those are backed up either with a mass personal reason to want the campaign to succeed, or have deep pockets to fund the campaign. You think it is a coincidence that the RNLI for example only gives 10p in the pound to the lifeboats? The Lifesavers charity deems it a sense of pride that they give over 50% of their fundraising to the actual cause! (how many people have heard of this charity btw?)
Sorry I have written so much, but in answer to your question I would step back, and think long and hard at the next step. What would you put on a flyer anyway? the exact web address for the epetition? Doubt very much anyone will ever type that in manually - do you?
So you need bare minimum a barcode. How many people have that app on their phone? I don't - haven't had it on my last 6 phones! Are you expecting people to install that app just to sign this petition? If so there goes the dead easy 15 second process argument up the swanny!
Sadly you cannot assume people are as determined to get this signed as you. If they were, then you would already have achieved the first step.
No doubt you will be totally deflated by my answer and for that I apologise. But you need to stop with the bravado. You need to get the % amount of population will sign BS out of your mindset. The petition is real, you need to deal with reality.
You need to spend money - LOTS of money to move it forward. Can you afford this? Is spending that amount justified by possibly getting considered? Even if you get past those hurdles, and even if they do investigate, no guarantees they will act on the findings any more than they have done; so you could end up spending thousands personally, millions of taxpayers money - and even then their might be no action!
ARE YOU 100% CONVINCED YOU CAN ACHIEVE THIS GOAL?????
Personally when it gets to spending money, I would leave it to chance. But if you want to spend Thousands on this then I tip my hat to you!
You may consider this a success, but you haven't got anywhere near where you need to be at this stage. Can you afford to spend thousands on this?
Is svbet going for the record of most over-long and ignored posts ever?
Bit out there, but how about getting on to Ed Milliband. His recent speech was all about "people powered services" and giving the common person a choice, not to mention his issues with "casino banking" and unaccountable power. Might get him to namedrop our cause if presented the right way. Considering he's likely to be the next PM would probably actually be something Joy would take notice of as well.
Anyone got any Labour connections?
Not related to the petition but I think he is buddies with Mike O'Brien who is local.
He's like psgm's less abusive and more articulate relative
Yeah was a bit off topic, to link it back: My main issue with the wording of the petition is that it mentions us specifically and is sold as "our petition" when perhaps we'd have been better to take it on a national scale about football governance from the start. A national campaign would be far more effective and still have the same end result if successful.
Wolves done (post with mod for approval!)
http://www.wolvesforum.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?9-Other-Sport
How about leafletting and a stall with iPads at the next England friendly in March? Pusb
Yeah was a bit off topic, to link it back: My main issue with the wording of the petition is that it mentions us specifically and is sold as "our petition" when perhaps we'd have been better to take it on a national scale about football governance from the start. A national campaign would be far more effective and still have the same end result if successful.
Instead of all this ipad business why not just make a simple paper slip with name, address, email address and the other required info for people to fill out quickly and hand into people on the 'stall'. Once finished a designated person on the stall can input each persons data onto the petition at home.
That's an interesting idea - would it be legal though? And what if the person doesn't have an email address - could someone else create one in their name? Would that be illegal/contravene data protection??
A full page in the CET could cost upwards of £1,000 and frankly using local media like this should be avoided, its a very poor means of communication.
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