General Meeting: Listening Campaign Kick-off
On February 7th, BC Health Coalition members gathered virtually to launch our 2024 Organizing Strategy and Listening Campaign. Here's the roundup on the campaign plan, details on how to get involved, and all the resources you'll need for next steps!
A Listening Campaign is a focused season with a few goals:
- Unearthing your stories of our health care system that call for change
- Connecting with local community members who have appetite for action
- Informing the Coalition's campaign priorities
Yes, I'll build power for public health care!
Between February and April 23, you're invited to build our network of relationships by organizing "house meetings" with people in your network. A house meeting is a small group conversation between 6-10 participants that builds relationships, finds leaders, unearths stories that call for change, and identifies areas of shared appetite for action. It can happen in a house, but also in online, at your community centre, in your break room at work, at your union hall, in church basements, or in the park!
Here are some resources to support you:
- Our Listening Toolkit includes more details on the Listening Campaign and House Meetings, as well as a house meeting leader's guide and discussion questions. Click here to download.
- "How to lead a House Meeting" online training, Thursday February 15 at 1pm. Click here for details and recording.
- House Meeting Commitment Card | Use this form to invite house meeting participants to take a next step for the campaign
- House Meeting Report-back | Use this form to report-back on your house meeting
- Podcast: Listen, Organize, Act! Organizing & Democratic Politics | S1E3 The Other Basic Tool of Organizing: House Meetings
What happens next?
February - April: Listening Season
This season includes House Meetings across the province as well as some Deep-Dive Workshops that will provide a chance to deepen our understanding of health care problems and solutions. It's a period of relationship building and investing in the local leaders who have appetite to make a change in their community.
April 23: Action Planning Townhall
The townhall will bring all listening campaign participants back together to hear a report on key themes, stories, and issues that emerged from our listening season. It's a participatory democracy exercise where we'll hear from the public about whether what came up in our listening campaign resonates and see if we've missed anything major. Everyone will get a chance to identify which issues are a priority by identifying where they want to put their time and energy.
May 23: Platform Launch
We'll take what we heard during the listening campaign to health policy experts and practitioners to craft a health care platform rooted in the people's priorities. On May 23rd, we will release a people's vision for a strong public health care system. We'll use this as the gold standard of what we expect from candidates in the provincial election, with the aim of enabling local groups to build support for public solutions in their communities.
May - October: Community Campaigns
Stage 2 of our Organizing Strategy will involve townhalls about public solutions in cities across BC, organizing workshops to equip local groups to build local campaigns, and a plan to involve volunteers across the province to build support for public health care commitments during the provincial election. More details to come!
