Last year, at the end of November, I attended a pilot weekend course organised by National FoE, Capacity Building Team. This was held at Slapton Ley Nature Reserve in Devon (web site here).

It has for a long time been recognised that different groups have among their membership some very potentially active, capable and knowledgeable people who's talents are not being utilised both within the group and regional groups. Furthermore, many of our campaigns are now multi-grouped facetted, such as the Severn Barrage proposal, just to name one such campaign. It is hoped that by arranging workshops and training days or half days, that the group could involve more members.

The weekend began with the name of “Lodestar” being hotly debated as some felt the name to be misleading and confusing. To make it clear the role of a Lodestar is to train and share skills between regional groups and individual groups.

The idea is that skills such as training, running workshops, media and lobbying etc. can be shared within the region for national campaigns, or to help run effective regional campaigns such as the Severn Barrage, or, the Shut Oldbury power station campaign, for example. The role is all about helping F0E members in local groups gain the knowledge and understanding they need. It is hoped that Lodestars will:

• Improve levels of participation and numbers in the group.
• Run great local training days
• Give confidence to members via encouraging skills such as fundraising, web design, working with councils etc.
• Team Building
• Raise their profile and networking opportunities in the south west.

The role is still in the development stage but more training days will be scheduled over the coming year.

During the weekend course at Slapton Ley we examined the fundamental skills required for the role including training, facilitation and coaching methods. A contact at FoE national office is co-ordinating the Lodestar role and is on hand for backup and advice as well to arrange further training for us Lodestars. An internet Wiki area has since been set up to keep the participating Lodestars from the different groups in the south west region in touch. A teleconference meeting has been organised too for February.

I feel personally that top of my agenda as a Lodestar should be to find out which of our members are “experts in their field”, and who would be good and able to share their knowledge, skills and experience with other FoE members locally so we may campaign more effectively and share our knowledge.

I hope to be running a couple of training days/skill sharing days over the next year with our campaigns in mind. Therefore, if any members have any skills they feel could be used by the group, or can suggest in what areas a training day would be useful please email me with your suggestions.

11 SW groups now have a participating member acting as their Lodestar including myself representing South Gloucester FoE. It is hoped that in the future a total of 29 groups will be involved as the development of the role expands.

Please do email me or any committee member with any comments and suggestions for training days.

Rosemary Caldicott

R_Caldicott -at- yahoo.co.uk

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