2019 description

Tube/rail station leafleting: a dozen key points

(1) Appoint a leafleting coordinator (scheduler/rota manager) to run the leafleting operation. He or she must be a very organised individual and capable of persuading people on the phone.

(2) That person (or somebody acting on his or her behalf) should then email all local members/supporters and appeal to them to help with the leafleting campaign. That email needs to be extremely persuasive and to explain the crucial importance of the demo – and of the leafleting operation to mobilise for it. The fact that Parliament will be sitting on that very day (their first Saturday sitting for almost 40 years) should be stressed. One should also mention your local mobilisation target – in other words, how many local residents you are aiming to persuade to attend the Saturday 19 October demonstration. In an average remain constituency in Greater London, the stated objective should probably be to try to mobilise at least 10,000 people. A figure is important because it gives the whole thing a sense of purpose and ambition. If a group's territory covers more than one constituency, the number should be increased accordingly. (The ambitious target number [and major local leafleting operation] is also important because it can be used to generate print and online local media publicity – but in order to get that publicity before the march, press releases would need to be sent out this coming Monday or Tuesday at the latest (always useful to check by telephone that local journalists have received the release - and whether they need any further information).

(3) Likewise, the leafleting coordinator should also use his or her group's local website and social media to recruit local leafleters. The aim should always be to recruit local members/supporters etc to do the leafleting – not people from other areas (i.e. no poaching from other groups' territories!!).

(4) All local members/supporters should be encouraged (in the emails, social media activity, etc) to urgently phone or email etc the leafleting coordinator (and provide him or her with their telephone numbers and email address – and the name of their nearest tube/rail station.

(5) At the same time (because of the urgency of the current situation), the leafleting coordinator (or people working on his/her behalf) should start ringing round all local members/supporters for whom you have (or can obtain from online directory enquiries) telephone numbers – in order to try to persuade people to help in the leafleting campaign.

The initial primary objective of all this is to draw up a list of volunteers willing and able to give out leaflets outside local tube and rail stations and outside local universities (and possibly hospitals). By knowing which is each volunteer's nearest station, you can see which tube/rail lines, they would have easy access to (and therefore which other stations they could potentially leaflet at).

(6) Next, draw up a blank rota – with a section for each early evening session – so that the coordinator can gradually begin to include each volunteer's maximum availability.

(7) The leafleting coordinator should then to speak on the telephone to all of the volunteers as persuasively as possible – to ask them which early evenings (at maximum) they would be able to leaflet on (and the names of all the local stations [as many different ones as possible] they would be prepared, at a pinch, to leaflet at. When that information has been obtained, the leafleting coordinator should additionally ask whether there are any days (rather than early evenings) they would be able to help on (Daytimes are useful for leafleting outside local universities and hospitals). During telephone conversations, volunteers (preferably with their diaries in front of them) should always be asked by the leafleting coordinator to write down in their diaries those early evenings, etc that they have committed to. The definition of early evening will differ according to where your local group is located. In outer London, it will tend to be from around 5.45 or 6 PM to 7.15 or 7.30 PM. However, in inner London boroughs, it will tend to be earlier – perhaps 5.15 or 5.30 to 7 PM or 7.15. The aim is to catch the main evening rush-hour (which is usually much more productive than morning rush hours). At this stage, the coordinator should also ask for volunteers' addresses (so that leaflets can be delivered to them).

(8) The next thing is to urgently get a volunteer with a car to deliver all the leaflets to the leafleters (obviously, to do that, the leafleting coordinator will have had to ask all volunteers for their addresses). However, delivering leaflets can be a problem – because of the small size of most letterboxes. It is therefore normally best to put the leaflets in several separate envelopes (with the leafleter's name on each of them) - so that they can all fit through a given letterbox. Of course, if the situation wasn't quite so urgent, one could ask volunteers to come and collect their leaflets – but there may not be time for that way of doing things.

Normally, leafleters will be able to give out between 80 and 130 leaflets per hour – so in a one and a half hour early evening leafleting session, each leafleter will probably need up to 200 leaflets (however, they should always have 100 spare leaflets with them - in case they meet enthusiastic members of the public who need 10 to 20 leaflets to give to their friends or work colleagues, etc – or, in case there is greater demand or a colleague leafleter has run out of leaflets). So, if a volunteer indicates they can do, for instance, three sessions next week, then they would need an absolute maximum of around 650-700 leaflets (but a minimum of around 450). The best way to measure quantities of leaflets is with a ruler. Normally 200 leaflets is around 3 cm.

(9) On the rota, the leafleting coordinator should then allocate each leafleter to a specific station for each specific evening.

In order to do that, the coordinator should consult the official station footfall list ( http://content.tfl.gov.uk/station-footfall-figures-2017.pdf ) and use his/her knowledge of how many exits each station has, to determine how many leafleters are ideally required at each station.

Normally stations with 1-3 million annual footfall will require just two leafleters. Ideally 4-6 million stations will need 3-4 leafleters, while 7-12 million stations will require 4-7 (depending on the number of exits). However, those numbers can be reduced if stations are 'broken down' into separate exits and commuter flows (and if a note is kept as to which exits and which flows have been covered on which days).

(10) As well, as giving leafleters their leaflets, the leafleting coordinator should ensure that they are also given very clear (preferably black on yellow) lapel stickers (for instance 'Say no to no deal' or 'Say yes to a People's Vote' or 'say no to Brexit' or 'Bollocks to Brexit' ones). Obviously, any indications of party political or other non-relevant affiliations should be removed from stickers with a pair of scissors.

Leafleters should also be encouraged to say very loudly something like 'say no to Brexit - join us on the March', as they are giving out leaflets. The lapel stickers (perhaps plural numbers of them!!) and the loudly spoken slogan will tend to attract remainers - the very people we need to hand out leaflets to. Black on yellow or black on white A4 mini-posters saying the same as the lapel stickers, may also be very useful - in clearly telling people where you're coming from.

(11) Of course, the leafleting operations should have other benefits as well. We have found that leafleting outside tube stations is ideal for recruiting new supporters/activists - so each leafleter will need an official or improvised sign-up sheet asking the more enthusiastic members of the public for their names, telephone numbers, email addresses, and postcodes. At the top of the signup sheet it should say, please complete everything (including email addresses!!) in block capitals. If they are not completed in block capitals, it's a likely that around 20% will be partly illegible and therefore not utilisable.I can't stress strongly enough how crucial the recruitment aspect is. Properly done, you should be able to recruit at least three additional activists (as well, as several new supporters) per leafleter per session. Properly done, it can transform the size of your activist base. That will be absolutely crucial in the event of a second referendum. The leafleting coordinator should very persuasively explain all this to all leafleters. It's crucial that any members of the public who display any sign of support or enthusiasm are asked whether they would like to help in the campaign.

(12) One or two days before each early evening session, the leafleting coordinator should send a personalised email to each leafleter (involved in that evening's sessions) reminding them and explaining precisely where that leafleter should do his/her leafleting.

That personalised email (the main do's and don'ts of which the coordinator will have already explained over the telephone to each leafleter) could read something like the one here.