Building strong movements is more important than ever … can you lend Medact your ideas and enthusiasm to help us better understand how we can be more effective, and how we grow?
Come together with Medact supporters, staff and trustees on the afternoon of Saturday 20th June to lend your ideas and creativity in a series of workshops looking at how Medact can be more effective, and how we can best support and nurture our grassroots movement. This is a great chance to learn how you can get involved in our work over the coming months, and let us know what you think we should be doing. Saturday 20th June at Friends House (London) – 1.30pm to 5pm (followed by drinks) –
Programme
Welcome (1.30pm)
A short welcome and introduction from Medact’s staff team.
Campaigns Update (1.45pm)
Hear from Medact staff and project coordinators about recent developments in Medact’s campaigns and projects – including fossil fuel divestment, preventing torture, fracking and renewing trident. This will be an open session in which questions and discussion will be encouraged. It will be followed by a chance to ask questions to the Medact team – come and quiz us on what we’ve done well and what we could do better!
Update Agenda
Welcome – Sridhar Venkatapuram
Communications & Media – Victor Ponsford
Preventing Torture – Frank Arnold
Nuclear Disarmament – Frank Boulton
Fossil Fuel Divestment – Zoe Steley
Peace – Christopher Venables
Fracking – David McCoy
Food, farming and climate – David McCoy
Focussed Discussion Groups (3.00-4.00pm)
Gathering a thousand health professionals for peace: making our November conference a ‘Big Thing’! In November of this year, Medact is leading a coalition of organisations – including The Lancet, Saferworld, Oxford Research Group, Health Poverty Action, Kings College London, Quakers in Britain, Campaign Against Arms Trade and others – to hold a major two-day peace conference at Friends House in London. We’d like to make this event a ‘Big Thing’! But, with only a small amount of staff-time, we need the energy and enthusiasm of our members and supporters to help make this happen. We’ll be briefly introducing the conference, and then asking you for ideas on how we can make Health Through Peace an event to remember! This will be a good chance to get involved in organising a major conference. Growing Medact from the bottom-up: How do we grow and nurture active membership amongst a busy and over-stretched workforce? Medact has a number of active local groups, but we’d like to support more of our members to become active in their communities – taking our campaigns and resources to new audiences, and providing a local platform for the enthusiasm and energy of health professionals. We have 1000 members – and new people joining every week! – but we have little capacity in the office to be able to support and nurture the membership. We’d like to listen to your ideas of how we could better support you in developing local groups, and rethinking what Medact’s members can do in their local communities. Making a small organisation strong: How do we maximise Medact’s full potential to influence and make change happen? We know that doctors and health professionals in general are well respected and trusted. We know that public health evidence –based on sound epidemiology and rigorous policy analysis – is powerful. And we know that most health professionals want to see a fairer, better and safer world. But largely speaking, the health community remains a weak player in politics. It failed to prevent the dismantling of the NHS. It has failed to reverse the widening of health inequalities. And it has not reduced the threats of catastrophic human harm from nuclear war and climate change. So how can we do better as a health community, and how can Medact help as an organisation? We want to hear your ideas and suggestions.
Coming Back Together (4-4.30pm)
After we’ve broken into the smaller groups, we’ll briefly come back together and give each group an opportunity to report back.
Social (5pm onwards!)
We’ll be going for a drink afterwards in a room above a local pub – snacks may be provided! This is a good chance for more informal discussions with other Medact members and supporters, as well as trustees and staff. – Annual General Meeting The afternoon conference will be preceded by Medact’s Annual General Meeting. If you are a Medact member and wish to attend the AGM, please contact Chris Venables – [email protected]. There will be a light-lunch (snacks and sandwiches) provided for those attending the AGM. www.medact.org/agm2015
Reserve a space using the ticket form below
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