Extolling the virtues of ALDC personal or group membership, especially as a member of the staff team, will come as no surprise. However, I feel no awkwardness in doing so because before I joined the ALDC team, I spent seven years as a councillor and part of a group membership alongside my council colleagues.
From my time as a new, backbench councillor through to chairing scrutiny and deputy group leader, my ALDC group membership was invaluable. From picking up ideas from fellow ALDC members that I could try out in my ward, asking questions about how to push back on Conservative pet projects, looking for support in my role as scrutiny chair or deputy group leader or using an ALDC leaflet template – I couldn’t have been an effective councillor without it.
As well as all the benefits of personal membership, group membership provides even more. The most obvious of these is a financial one – group membership costs 10% less per member and if you have a staff member, their membership is free. Let’s all be honest – we all like a discount and a good freebie!
Another great benefit is the offer of a group training day or away-day with an experienced, ALDC-approved facilitator. This can be a real boost for your group amidst the day-to-day groove of campaigning, council activities and everyday life as it allows you to focus on looking ahead and planning in a way that can otherwise be difficult. These days are tailored to your group’s specific needs and experience by our volunteers rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.
For example, council groups with elections in May 2022 will no doubt be in the process of finding and approving candidates (alongside your local party), planning their campaign messages through to the election and looking at how they can best leverage their council work to help them win. However, even the most experienced group of councillors can find this planning challenging amongst the bustle of daily councillor life. Our team of political staff and volunteers have decades (perhaps centuries!) of campaigning and councillor experience which means there are few better placed to support your group in working through how to most effectively start and proceed through that process as part of a group away-day.
Do I hear you thinking “sounds fantastic right, but we’ve got no councillors yet” or “we could do that in my local party, but it would be great to add some of our key activists and exec”?
These are questions I hear frequently, and I’m pleased to say that when it comes to adding key activists, exec members, staff or partners, we actively encourage this. Your local party team is not just your council group, it is all those other active people who work alongside you day after day to win elections and build the Lib Dem presence in your area. On that basis, we’re also delighted to welcome teams to group membership that don’t yet have councillors. If that’s you, do get in touch and we can do a personalised quote based on the number of people you want in your group.
Group membership is a great deal for teams looking to grow, build and win for the Lib Dems in their local area. So if you’re not yet taking advantage of it make sure you get in touch using info@aldc.org and we will be in touch.