Activate: Over 10,000 members contacted on Super Saturday

At this critical stage of the campaign, it's important to reach out to every single member and remind them to get their ballot paper in the post box.

Using the CallHub platform is a great and free-to-use way to contact members to encourage them to take part and maximise turnout to beat the 50% threshold.

On what was called Super Saturday, PCS opened our region and nation offices for over 100 volunteers – ordinary members, activists and staff – to come in, enjoy a few refreshments and make calls to get the vote out.

Beating the 50% threshold

Currently an advocate in an HMRC workplace in Newcastle, Nicci Charlton tells us that “calling members to check they have their ballot papers and asking if they have voted or intend to vote is an effective way” to beat the 50% threshold.

Although she was experienced in earlier campaigns to text members to get the vote out, CallHub was a new system to her so she was happy to have the opportunity to meet with others in a PCS office.

Having previously focused on talking directly to members in his workplace and leafletting, Saul Cahill, a young activist in the DWP Tyneside & Northumbria branch, was also “keen to start using CallHub because it would mean I can reach a wider range of members directly”.

Although like Nicci he was completely new to CallHub, he was “relieved to find it was very straightforward to set up and use – once I was added to the campaign, I was off and going in minutes.”

It helps that the members he spoke to “were overwhelmingly happy to hear from PCS and were really enthusiastic about the campaign”.

Conversations with members

Encouraging all activists to use this “simple and effective tool”, PCS National Executive Committee member Bridget Corcoran explains how it gives PCS reps and activists the opportunity to have crucial conversations with members.

Bridget explains how every conversation showed the Newcastle office “the need to win this campaign, to fight for a better standard of living for all of us”.

Super Saturday aside, activists can also use CallHub from the comfort of their own home when they have spare time.

An example of this on Saturday was Karen Alderson (assistant group secretary of the Home Office group), who spent the weekend calling up Home Office members from some of England’s largest branches.

Although she “initially felt a little awkward disturbing peoples weekends”, Karen said that, as we approached the deadline for replacement ballots (28 April), it was worthwhile alone for the discovery of “huge swathes of members needing new ballot papers”.

How to request a CallHub calling campaign

Although all the activists we spoke to said that using CallHub is straightforward, support is available from our user guide, YouTube videos, the PCS Organising team, full-time officers and other reps who have experience with the tool.

All branches can request a CallHub calling campaign to be set up for their branch. Reps and activists on the branch can then speak to their own members.

The branch officer completing the form needs to have a list of the usernames of all the volunteers before submitting the request form.

Activists need to click on this link to register themselves for CallHub. They will be asked to create a username and password – and can then login at the main CallHub page.

We’re planning another event on 27 April – look out for details on the PCS website and social media channels.