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 Home Get Active Successful Organising
Academy all stars sign up for 200710 May 2007Usdaw’s Academy 2007 opened its doors to 24 new organising officers in May. The latest recruits attended their first special training session held at the national training centre in Warrington and will now spend six months recruiting and organising in hundreds of UK workplaces. Usdaw was the first union to set up its own Academy in 2003 and it is now a key part of the union's organising strategy. "The Academy offers proven activists specialist training and support," said deputy general secretary Paddy Lillis. "The results have been excellent so far with 85 organising officers recruiting more than 30,000 new members and 2,000 new reps and activists over the last four years." The Academy runs from May to November. Usdaw arranges the time off with employers and pays wages. At the end of the secondment, reps return to their workplace to continue with their recruitment and organising work - highly skilled and motivated. Usdaw's training department provides four weeks residential training throughout the six-month secondment and the remainder of the time is spent working in one of Usdaw's seven divisions under the guidance of a coach, who is a full-time officer of the union. New recruits Yarna Palmer and Phil Gander will be putting their skills to the test. "I was delighted when I heard I'd been selected," said Yarna, 44, who works part-time for Palmer, Harvey McLane in Suffolk. "I was elected rep and health and safety rep two years ago and I'm enjoying my role immensely. I'm relishing the challenge and the opportunity to use my skills and initiative to inform other workers of the benefits of a unionised workplace." "The academy is a fantastic opportunity for all activists regardless of age," said 57 year-old Phil Gander who works for Tesco in Enfield and has been a trade unionist for 30 years. "I've done lots of stand down recruiting for Usdaw and loved every minute of it. There's so much variety, no two workplaces are the same. "I can't wait to get started. I only wish I'd got involved sooner." For more information on the Academy visit: www.usdaw.org.uk/getactive/academy
Are you up for the Academy?Why not attend one of the pre-academy training programmes and see if you have what it takes to join the Organising Academy. Usdaw runs two-day training courses in each division throughout the year, which give activists the chance to find out whether they have what it takes. Interested? Then e-mail: academy@usdaw.org.uk Contact Details Media and Communications Department Ph: 0161 224 2804 Fax: 0161 249 2490 communications@usdaw.org.uk  Printer Friendly Page  Email to a Friend
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