Age group: Pioneers/Venturers

How long it will take: several weeks

What materials you will need: depends on activities chosen

The aim of the activity: To explore ways changing things in your local community

What to do:
Woodcraft Folk groups have a long history of taking part in a wide range of campaigns and issues, and every town has something which is crying out for attention.

Identifying a campaign
It may be that there is already an active campaign in your neighbourhood, who would welcome the support of Woodcraft Folk children and young people. Or alternatively, your Woodcraft group may want to identify its own issue. Obviously it's best if the group picks an issue of direct relevance to all, or at least the majority of, the young people involved.

It's also best, particularly for younger children, to identify an issue with a very simple clear demand where there is a reasonable prospect of success in a reasonably short period of time. Pragmatically, it may be better to choose a target which is easily identifiable and not too remote.

Some examples:

• a campaign to persuade the local authority to remove racist grafitti
  
• a campaign to persuade the local authority to improve sports facilities at a local park
  
• a campaign to turn wasteland into a Woodcraft Folk allotment/garden
  
• a campaign to keep a popular local facility open
  
• a campaign for more provision for recycling things locally

Possible activities
These can be prepared for/undertaken in group night activities.

• Press release to local paper/radio/TV
• Letter to local paper
• Letter to MP/local councillors
• Letter to organisation responsible for the problem
• Local website about the campaign
• Invite local politician to group night to discuss campaign
• Invite others involved in campaign to group night
• Send in details of campaign to Woodcraft World
• Prepare display exhibition
• Lobbying and protests
• Campaign newsletter
  

Taking stock
It's important that there is adequate time to take stock of the campaign, and to discuss how it went. This is particularly important if the campaign was not immediately successful in meeting its aims. Young people can be demoralised at the length of time which it seems to take to achieve anything positive. However, even an apparently unsuccessful campaign may have things to celebrate. You may want to brainstorm what the positive things have been.

Some positive outcomes of a campaign could be: more people have heard of the Woodcraft Folk, more children have joined, we have made contact with other organisations, we have had fun, we have learned skills we can use in other campaigns.

You may want to produce posters/certificates: "I took part in the great 2002 Woodcraft xxxx campaign".