NSW branches have turned the arduous task of re-registering Socialist Alliance with the NSW State Electoral Office into a positive campaign for membership growth and involvement. NSW law requires the Alliance to submit, by June 30 each year, detailed paperwork to maintain our status as a registered party. The process forces us to contact every single member in the state.
However, SA branches have been able to turn this anti-democratic bureaucratism (parties with MPs don’t have to apply for re-registration) to our advantage. First, we now have an accurate database of contact details for more than 800 Alliance members in NSW. We want to expand this database to incorporate further info, in particular trade union details to help us establish strong union caucuses.
Secondly, we received a great response from people we hadn’t spoken to for a while. This included offers of donations and keenness to attend branch events and/or take on Alliance activity. We concluded that, in general, most SA members are willing to do more, if we help them to do so. The fact that all NSW branches now have a clearer “map” of their members will facilitate this process.
Finally, the whole re-registration process has prompted the Sydney District subcommittee to plan a membership/outreach campaign, which will run through July and August. Its aims are to convince as many as possible of the Alliance’s sympathetic contacts to join SA, and to help existing members get more involved and take more ownership of the Alliance. The seven branches in Sydney are setting ambitious targets for new members and membership renewals. At the time many people joined SA to help us get electoral registration in 2002, we did not have the regular meetings, social activities, campaign and union caucuses, and so on that we are now developing, so there are now more, and more diverse, avenues through which members can get involved according to their specific interests and time.
An important bonus from the re-registration campaign is that it enabled us to identify parts of rural/regional NSW where concentrations of Alliance members live. We can now start planning some visits to those areas and maybe launch some SA activity with local members. If you are interested in organising or participating in such regional outreach trips, contact Paul on (02) 9690 1977.