Your Campaign Ammunition - Be Armed!

[nickd]

Here we tell you how we're going to help you with material to spread the word that the eradication of Legal Aid is extremely dangerous and is something we should all be shouting about. It's certainly not something we should be keeping quiet over!

Now is the time for all of us to think more than ever about an intensive ramping up of this campaign. It's one almighty battle WHICH CAN AND MUST BE WON!!!!

And with thousands already joined up to the Justice for All and Sound Of For Justice campaigns, we can do this. It's many of us against probably around half the politicians who sit in Parliament. We can help swing the balance in favour of justice!

No one would go into any battle without being well armed to fight the opposition would they? That's why on Mylegal/Ilegal we're doing what we can to help you out there spread the word and get your campaign's attracting some attention. But remember whilst we can give you the ammunition; - it's up to you to fire the bullets!

Ilegal/Mylegal's Patrick Torsney today launched an excellent, really down to earth and factual promotion on line. Within a few hours, the number of hits had grown to nearly a thousand!!.

It's called 'Shush' - Read it and you'll see why this should NEVER be kept quiet!!

Here's the link.....

downloads.ilegal.org.uk/shush.pdf

Read more: ilegal.org.uk/index.cgi?board=you&action=display&thread=2824#ixzz1LtCoOQtw

We'll be launching other's on here, all aimed at helping you spread the word and help you argue your point at meetings, events or even just to Joe Bloggs in the street! The more people who know about the threat of legal aid being withdrawn the better.

See also the post on a campaign journey; where you'll be able to pick up a few tips, learn of the difficulties and the joys of effective campaigning. It's all linked up to the Justice For All website too.

READ IT HERE.......

mylegal.org.uk/index.cgi?action=display&board=frontline&thread=295&page=1#489

Make sure everyone one of you has ordered all the campaign material which Justice for All has made available....

www.justice-for-all.org.uk/News/A....r-up-for-3-June

On the campaign journey post we'll be giving some advice on staging an event.

And please if any of you have ideas then don't keep them too yourself; - tell us what they are - it could make all the difference!!

IF YOU'RE NOT YET INVOLVED - THEN GET INVOLVED!!!!!

[nickd]

Remember to get your campaign resources in time for the Justice for All 'Day of Action' on the 3rd June!!

[Patrick Torsney]

Justice for All Day of Action Campaign Resources

Below are some placards, posters and info sheets you can download and use in your day of action on the 3rd June

These are additional resources to those already provided by Justice for All. They are intended to complement the J4A materials and any others that you might have developed yourself to use on the Day of Action and afterwards

As well as finished posters/placards, there are also template documents (.docx) and image files that you can download if you wanted to create your own

You might also find them useful for sticking up in waiting areas, walls and windows, or even on your website!

You can access the Justice for All resources from here:

www.justice-for-all.org.uk/Take-part/Resources-for-action

Posters and Placards

The following are A4 size but could be blown up to A3 or bigger

SHUSH! cover:



DOWNLOAD SHUSH COVER



PLACARD (WOMAN):



DOWNLOAD PLACARD WOMAN



PLACARD (MAN):



DOWNLOAD PLACARD (MAN)



PLACARD (A-SIDE):



DOWNLOAD PLACARD (A-SIDE)



PLACARD (B-SIDE):



DOWNLOAD PLACARD (B-SIDE)



PLACARD SAVE LEGAL AID



DOWNLOAD PLACARD SAVE LEGAL AID



HANDOUT INFORMATION SHEETS

These would be useful as 'at a glance' one-sided A4 information sheets. They'd be ideal handed out to members of the public at any events you might have organised so they get what is going on eg at a demonstration, march or rally:

DOWNLOAD INFO SHEET 01

DOWNLOAD INFO SHEET 02


TEMPLATES + ORIGINAL IMAGE AND TEXT FILES TO MIX AND MATCH AND CREATE YOUR OWN POSTER

You'll find plenty of image and text files, including the 'man' and 'woman' in this folder:

downloads.ilegal.org.uk/SHUSH_RESOURCES02/

Good luck on your day of action to everyone who is getting involved. If anyone else has any useful items they want to share so that others can use then please reply to this message

[nickd]

Many thanks Patrick for posting these excellent posters which campaigner's can print off and use in their campaigns. There's a wealth of material out there now, with a great deal of evidence in the form of information on the extent of the cuts and stories of people helped by legal aid to put up a really powerful case.

Remember, though this isn't just about sticking up a few posters -it's about selling the case in your locality, arrange your march, meeting or whatever it is you decide to do and make it interesting and easily understood by those who could be convinced by how you set out the case.

Gather some statistics for your area using statistical resources, if I have time I'll try and put a few up on here over the weekend.

Ones which spring to mind are....

Local debt figures, number of bankruptcies. HMCS, Insolvency Service & local insolvency practitioner's.

Number of possessions (rent/mortgage) - Shelter/HMCS

Number of benefit appeals in your area - Tribunals Service and DWP.

Child poverty evidence - benefit spend on Child Tax Credits etc. Local family forums.

Unemployment statistics - try your local Jobcentre.

Work out how much your service costs and divide it by the number of people in your local population. The area you cover gives a very good cost analysis.

Unique problems in your area - deprivation, rural locality, high rents, social mobility trends forcing families apart by exodus to other areas because of lack of affordability.

Use actual CASE STUDIES!!

Use local data rather than just rely on national average figures. If the national average of your particular funding slice is say 15% and yours is 60% - you need people to know why and what's at stake if you lose it.

If you're in a CAB then try and get some volunteers involved, government are saying the work we do do under legal aid can be taken up by those who give their time freely, if you've got some volunteers on hand - they'll be able to tell people what the practicalities are and how they rely on paid specialists for support.

Transpose the data into some of the poster templates above and use information on the Justice for all site too.

Check out the following link to another thread which gives you further ideas....

mylegal.org.uk/index.cgi?action=display&board=frontline&thread=295&page=1#518

[nickd]

Here's a compilation of the 133 case studies collated on Mylegal, they're in Word format and can be used individually by pasting into your own documents or simply as an online resource to cut and paste if you're looking for one or two in particular.

can be used as an online resource to locate any of a number of case studies and then pasted into your own presentations and so forth.

Attachment: My Legal Casework Studies.doc (782.0 KB)

Read more: mylegal.org.uk/index.cgi?action=display&board=campaign&thread=316&page=1#ixzz1O6DnzETE

[nickd]

The need to arm yourself with campaign ammunition is all the more.

[nickd]

I'll be updating this post later on how we should use our resources to increase awareness. It was obvious from yesterdays debate that MP's of all parties are massively behind social welfare legal aid, the vote on the second reading was carried but a large number of MP's stayed away, we can assume they were not sufficiently motivated to vote for these reforms to go ahead. The overwhelming message was there needs to be a rethinks on social welfare legal aid. There are 650 MP's in the House of Commons and 295 voted for the second reading, that's well below half. A large number of these would have been pressured by the whips into voting without listening to the very constructive main debate.

It's all to play for on social welfare and all the reason to use our resources to keep up the pressure as the legislation goes through the Lords and the committee stages.