![[Happy Protesters]](placards.gif)
Organizing a rally is a complex activity. In fact, this piece can only describe how STORM did it in its first year.
Demonstrations, rallies and protest marches are excellent activities for STORM. In fact, STORM sees mass action as inherently politicizing.
Mass action "brings about, in practice, the same unity that education brings about in knowledge."
The January 25 demonstration showed us how fun, exciting and empowering a protest march can be, especially when things happen unexpectedly. When students spontaneously stormed the Legislature doors and several women nearly got inside before the guards pushed them out, it showed young people's potential for even more radical action than marching in the streets.
Certainly, this happening follows STORM's belief that youth in mass action are promoters of spontaneity and voice. No matter how much you plan something, things will happen differently. The key, however, is to take advantage of those different things and be flexible enough to use them to our advantage.
We suggest making FIVE STEPS to organize a rally. These steps are interelated.
Read through the entire manual before you start planning your action. You will need to pick and choose what you would like to do, what you can do and how you can do it.
The five steps are:
The first step of planning and holding a demonstration is determining the purpose, type of demo and setting a time and date. To organize a demonstration properly having a good amount of lead time, ideally four to six weeks, is essential.
Another essential thing is to have a strong communication link between all the rally organizers. Setting up a reliable telephone tree equitably distributed should be a priority.
For example, the Canadian Federation of Students did exactly this for their National Student Strike and Day of Action. The CFS set a time (January 25) and purpose (protesting the federal Green Paper on social programmes). Then, they put out the call to student associations across Canada. Some answered, some did not.
On a more local scale, we can use STORM's organization of the January 25 protest march as an example. STORM decided to answer the CFS' call and began organizing at the very beginning of January. We decided a student strike was not realistic so instead, it decided to organize a protest march.
The target of the march, the Alberta Legislature, was chosen as the best place to meet and rally with students from the now defunct Students Against Cutbacks group at Grant MacEwan Community College. With these details laid down, STORM could then decide who else it might want to involve in the protest.
![[People Talking]](talk2.gif)
The second step to having a succesful demonstration is inviting other organizations to participate in the demonstration. There are many benefits of inviting other organizations to participate.
All of the ground work like postering and making picket signs and banners are spread out, the number of people you can mobilize increases and the responsibility if anything goes wrong is equally shared, too. Of course, if the demonstration does work well, it provides a solid grounding for future actions, solidarity or coalition, with these other groups.
An example of the difference between solidarity and coalition work is seen comes from the different roles Pipefitters Union activists and the Student Christian Movement played in organizing the event. The Pipefitter activists promised and did show up at the rally but did not participate in any STORM organizational meetings. The Student Christian Movement, however, formed a partial coalition with STORM where they participated in meetings, helped poster in addition to mobilizing their own membership.
All coalitions should form on a foundation of equal say, mutual respect and converging interest. These characteristics form the basis of trust that is so necessary in coalitions. No matter the size of each organization, each should get equal credit. Meetings should have a rotating chair that allows members of each organization to participate fully.
A single contact person from each group will provide an official channel of communication between the groups. At the end of meetings, the chair should go over all the decisions and activity delegations. Each group should take on as much work as it is able to make the demonstration succesful.
Before you do anything, make a list of organizations reasonably compatible with your organization or that are neutral but might help out.
For example, STORM received physical help from the Campus New Democrats and the Student Christian Movement, financial help from the U of A Students' Union and an endorsement advertisement from the Non-Academic Staff Association. STORM tried to contact high school students through fax and telephone, too, but the ties were too weak to involve many of them. Clearly, we needed to do more groundwork organizing.
STORM also tried to contact and involve U of A student clubs and faculty associations through a mail out, but the impact of this effort remains unknown. A new option available to STORM organizers is to e-mail a message to all student associations and interested individuals to let them know they can get involved. In general, e-mail has tremendous semi-direct contact and raises interest.
To involve any group you need to meet them, sit down with them, state your position and see if they agree with the stated purpose of the rally. Find out what their expectations are and detail your own expectations realistically. If the rally is against cutbacks and the group is, say, Pro-Choice, put a solidarity angle on your proposal citing the government as the same enemy. Remember, it is entirely possible that you will not find any organization interested in participating. What is most important is you have made contact and they are now aware of your organization.
Prioritize your list so you contact the most likely organizations to participate at the beginning. Involving too many organizations can create confusion and problems, too, so make sure the groups in the coalition are groups you can count on when the pressure is on. Try not to get bogged down in too many meetings over actually organizing the rally. Your group has a limited time to organize in. Forming coalitions should be done at least six to eight weeks in advance of the actual event.
To organize a rally or a protest march, you need to arrange for some very basic items, route and rally permits from the police, marshalls for a march, a sound system, speakers, megaphones, chants, placards and banners.
If you are having a rally in a specific area or building and depending on the circumstances, contact its security or administrative staff for information about where and when you can demonstrate there.
To get a permit to demonstrate might seem like a sell-out, but it has its practical advantages. You avoid confrontations with police and you can get the police to stop traffic in certain areas so none of your supporters get run over.
A permit is reasonably easy to get.
Demonstrating on the street or on the siewalk is equally valid, depending on whether marching in the street will cause excessive congestion. At the January 25 protest march, STORM supporters marched on the sidewalk across the High Level Bridge which made our numbers a lot bigger than it was actually.
To get a march permit, you need to have march marshalls, too. Marshalls are basically volunteers who serve the double function of security for the protesters and a contact for the police.
If a problem occurs, like a number of protesters stray off the sidewalk onto the street, it is the marshalls' responsibility to get them to move back onto the sidewalk before the police try. Marshalls should have fluorescent traffic vests to make them visible to the police and to demonstraters. For the National Day of Action, STORM had eight marshalls for 300 to 400 people.
Finally, whoever phones to get the permit should be ready to take on the responsibility of signing their name to the permit. This responsibility has the distasteful possibility of making that person responsible for the conduct of all of the demonstrators.
If something does happen like fighting, vandalism or civil disobedience, the police will hold this responsible. The other person they might hold responsible are the spokespersons. Therefore, the spokespersons and the permit signatory take on considerable legal risks for the group and they should be protected through responsible behaviour.
If civil disobedience does happen, the people involved should not be your spokespersons or the permit signatory unless they so choose.
Some public buildings, like the Legislature, offer free services like a microphone and podium specifically for demonstrations. You want to find out about things like this because they can reduce your work and costs considerably.
The disadvantage of microphones and materials supplied by the building is that they, not your organization, have control over them and can withdraw them if they want to break up your demonstration.
Finding, setting up and operating sound systems can be complicated and difficult. The best solution is to find somebody, like Mike Tully in Edmonton, who is willing and able to use his own equipment for your cause for a nominal fee or no fee at all.
This is not always the case. Look to local student unions, unions, social justice groups or even DJs or garage bands for sound systems. If you borrow equipment make sure someone knows how to run it and has transportation to and from the demonstration site.
Megaphones can be extremely expensive to buy and not much cheaper to rent, especially for low budget groups like STORM. Some local social justice groups may have them. Another place to look for cheap rentals is to local schools and universities.
Just days before the January 25th rally, STORM located two megaphones at the University of Alberta Humanities Centre Audio Visual department which rented for $3 each to student groups. Obviously, try to secure megaphones early on as you may find the megaphones booked beforehand.
Making pickets is a creative and artistic part of organizing a rally. You can get cardboard from behind department or grocery stores and water colour paints work pretty good. You can buy thin, cheap pieces of wood for the picket handles from any hardware store.
To fix the signs to the wood, you should get a hold of a heavy duty staple gun. If you use nails, you risk splitting the wood and normal staplers cannot penetrate corrugated cardboard and wood together. Considering the usefulness of a staple gun for other activist activities, you mmight want to buy one or two. Make sure you buy plenty of staples, too, that are the right size and type for the staple gun.
Rally banners are harder to make than advertising banners because they have to be tougher and have to have a very clear message on them. Plan ahead and decide what message you want to put on it first. Then determine the size you need, whether it is big enough to need air holes and how people are going to carry it.
STORM's first march banner was black cotton with red cut out cotton letters, STudent Organized Resistance Movement STORM pasted onto it. We used two tall sticks to insert into two holes especially made for the sticks on each end. The big black and red banner was dramatic and served as a backdrop to our speakers at the Legislature. Another way of doing it is to use acrylic paint on cloth.
Posters, Leaflets and Banners are the commonest ways to reach large numbers of people. Posters, Leaflets and Banners. All have to appeal directly to someone's interests before they read them. These methods should always be group efforts due to their wide scope and because they represent the organization or coalition to the public. The names of the organizations organizing the protest should be on the posters.
Posters and leaflets have the advantage of being reasonably easy to do, reasonably cheap and that they require only the amount of time it takes to post, distribute or hang them. Leaflets are especially useful in high traffic areas like the LRT, food fairs or lounges that do not allow postering.
The disadvantages to postering and leafletting is that they are not totally effective, especially on bulletin boards crowded with equally bright and attractive posters and that they are only visible for a short time before getting postered over. The options of using colour paper and of using bigger paper sizes to set them off from the rest makes postering more expensive.
Banners are more effective visually, but require more planning and materials, like paint and banner size paper. You can get banner size paper for free from the printing press offices of local daily newspapers like The Calgary Herald or The Edmonton Journal.
The trick is getting a vehicle to transport the end roll of paper from the office to where you want to paint the banner. Standard water colour paint works well.
Most locations have building safety codes that require you to fireproof the banner before you post it. Also, check where you can post it and for how long the banner can hang. To put a lot of work into making and hanging a banner just to see it torn down the next day is demoralizing.
STORM developed several relatively harmless alternatives last year to postering. The first was to write in chalk on the stone or brick walls of certain high traffic buildings. Of course, the chalk will not survive the cleaning staff that night but repeating it is reasonably easy to do.
Often, you can use chalk from classrooms rather than buy it. Seeing writing on the wall automatically attracts attention. However, the risk of getting charged with vandalism may offset the publicity value so exercise caution.
Another alternative is to make "Super Posters" out of banner paper and post them over an entire bulletin board to shout out the message. STORM used these for its last week publicity push in January.
Finally, chalking messages with P.L.O. (Please Leave On) like "Rally! Tuesday, Noon, Town Square P.L.O.") in the corners of bulletin boards in large lor medium-size lecture classes is also an effective way to reach bored classmates for days afterwards. Considering the attitudes of many bitter, cutback professors, you can likely count on them to not erase the message immediately. The primary disadvantage of this is the early hours you need to beat the 8 AM classes.
The primary advantages of class announcements, information tables and guerrilla theatre is that they provide human contact. They allow people to put a face to the organizationžs name. Consistently, making a personal connection with someone is the best way to gain peopležs interest, support and involvement. For this reason, forums have consistently been an important "support building" activity for STORM.
Class Announcements are small, informal two to three minute presentations that emphasises Why, Who, When and Where the demonstration will take place. Ask your instructor before the class begins if you can make the announcement at the beginning or the end of the class. Writing the details on the chalkboard behind you can be a valuable visual aid that will remind your classmates and the next class about the event. The potential for spreading the message this way is very high considering that you have a captive audience usually ready to receive messages. If you are part of that class, then they may even be more receptive to your announcement because they have a semi-personal connection to you as a classmate.
End off your presentation by encouraging your classmates to do the same in their other classes. If even one or two people do this, the potential for spreading the news of the protest is enormous. Most times, people do not ask questions, but presenters should be prepared with a few facts about the issue to answer any that are asked.
Information Tables are another way to get the message out. InfoTables are mobile education sites. While sitting behind a table is acceptable, the most effective use of InfoTables is as a platform to approach passers-by with a leaflet or a pamphlet about the organization and event. Typical items to have on the table are information about the group(s) organizing the demonstration, information about the issue youžre demonstrating against and a volunteer sign-up or a petition for a related cause. You may even ask for donations to support the organization(s) or rally effort.
Staffing and booking tables are the keys to a succesful InfoTable. On university campuses typically the best times for an InfoTable is between 10 AM and 3 PM in busy locations. Sometimes you will need to book table space up to a month in advance. Often campus groups can get table spots for free or for minimal cost. You also need to decide how often you want to have Info-Tables, decoration of the table itself and how to staff it. Ideally, an Info-Table should have two people staffing it. Having music with your table can make it more attractive and lend a more festive atmosphere to publicizing the demonstration.
Guerrilla Theatre captures the imagination and its unpredictable and often startling presentation makes it an excellent way to publicize upcoming events and get ideas across to the audience. The impact of a succesful guerrilla theatre can have the same educational and politiciizing effect as a succesful demonstration. However, it is considerably more complex logistically and somewhat limited in its use. There is no model for guerrilla theatre.
Of course, the most effective way to get people to participate in a rally is to tell them about it yourself. Telephone all of the people you know, whether they have shown past interest or not in the issue, tell them about the issue and about the protest. Spend some time explaining why it is important to participate and, how the issue affects them.
Education is a great issuee to organize around because it is a universal experience; everyone knows about it. Everyone's children will go to school, too. Also, everyone associates school with intelligence and opportunity and that interests people. Use e-mail; it's very easy to foward a message. Call your network of friends and tell them to call their friends, too. Ideally, you have begun to network and sread progressive ideas among everyone you know so call on this network , too.
Public Service Announcements, Interviews, Press Releases and Press Conferences are tricky. Here are a few tips.
Try to maintain a professional relationship with the media. Do not criticize them or pressure them to sign petitions or declare support for your cause. That's not their function. That kind of pressure makes them uncomfortable and reflects poorly on your organization. For example, Edmonton's Grassroots cannabis decriminalization group has guaranteed itself next to no coverage by employing a strategy of attacking and targetting the media. Your organization wants to avoid this type of marginalization.
If a story comes out as particularly degrading or wrong, having the spokesperson call the reporter to calmly let him or her know what the group thought of the story and making constructive criticism can produce good results. However, calling that reporter's editor and describing him or her as a "fascist pig" will only burn bridges and discredit your organization to that media outlet and their friends.
Never lie to the media. Lying to one member of the media is bound to become common knowledge to the editorial staff of that paper and their colleagues in the local media. Automatically, your organization becomes suspect and untrustworthy and this cann have a devastating effect on the coverage the group receives. If your spokesperson does not want answer a question he or she should refuse politely. If he or she does not know the answer, promise to find out and call the reporter back.
The role of a spokesperson is to represent the group's positions. Anyone can be a spokesperson, but to be an effective one, they need to feel confident about fielding questions with good judgement, giving intelligent and articulate answers and behaving friendly and energetically. While experience in dealing with the media is valuable, this should not be considered the be-all criteria for selecting a spokesperson. STORM's experience has shown that experienced and inexperienced spokespersons can do an equally effective job.
The spokesperson does not set group policy, either by making unapproved statements to the press or clearly contradicting STORM principles and procedures. For example, saying that STORM would cooperate with the government in any area could violate STORM's "right to remain autonomous political organization" and undermine its whole Statement of Principles.
Similarly, take caution in revealing the number of STORM members is not a wise idea in Alberta, because of the tendency of the right wing, government and media to marginalize and invalidate groups on the basis of numbers alone.
Another dilemma facing spokesperson's is the media's tendency to look for a figurehead leader of the organization. In STORM's case, we have and want no "head leader" so the spokesperson would say in response to this type of question something like this: STORM is organized democratically with each member having a vote. So STORM leads itself.
Also try to limit the number of spokespersons you have to two, a primary and an alternate spokesperson, to limit the chance of hostile journalists trying to get contradicting statements from the spokespersons.
Public Service Announcements (PSAs) are one of the most important yet least used media tool available to community organizations. PSAs are usually available through radio, especially campus and community radio, and sometimes through community television channels.
Send the PSA directly targetting shows or DJs who are sympathetic to alternative politics. If at all possible, direct your PSAs personally to one of that show's broadcasters.
As in general recruiting, cultivating person-to-person relations with the media makes it easier to get your message across and allows the media to present a more coherent picture of the organization to the public. In Calgary, STORM previous contact with the staff of CJSW's "Radio Free Poverty" show plus the show's theme makes it a prime candidate for broadcasting a STORM PSA.
Interviews allow a spokesperson to make a personal connection to listeners and viewers. They can last from a 30 second radio clip to to half an hour shows about your organization. The results of these interviews is often only a quote in a newspaper article or 15 seconds on television or on radio.
However, each interview is an opportunity to get the message out and should be used fully. Sometimes, a reporter might want you to sit on a panel. The key to performing well is feeling comfortable, keeping a cool head and being well informed. Have some facts handy on the topic you will be speaking about and be prepared to defend your controversial positions.
Send your press release in about two weeks before the event. This allows the media to plan to send a reporter or television crew. Make your press release stand out. (See example of STORM press release.) Use graphics and large text on the first page to attract attention.
Try to limit the release to three pages, yet provide the media with as much information as possible. On the bottom of the last page, put "-30-" to show the editor this page is the last. Sometimes it is useful to write a brief news story to give the reporter ideas on angles to connect to the readers.
If possible, trying to organize a pre-rally event where you can invite the media is a good thing. This event can serve the same function as a press conference, but be looser and more relaxed. This event gives the media an opportunity to do a lead up story to the rally and perhaps even advertise when and where it is taking place.
STORM invited the media to come to a placard painting the Saturday before the January 25 rally. Both CTV and The Edmonton Journal sent reporters and photographers to the event, giving the rally excellent coverage.
Having a press release for the day of the rally is also useful to articulate why protesters are there and who the protest is targetting. If at all possible it is good to have copies of the speeches ready to distribute, too. There should be a specific person or persons whose primary role during the rally of seeking out reporters, photographers, TV crews --anyone who looks like media-- to give them a copy of the rally press release and speeches, if available.
Press conferences are especially useful in situations where a lot of media want to talk to your spokespeople at one time. It allows your spokesperson to answer all of the media's questions in one shot. The press conference also lets the spokesperson control the information flow rather than let the media control the spokesperson. Be creative about your location and presentation - the media appreciates different settings and good photo opportunities.
The disadvantages of calling a press conference are that you have to make sure the issue is one which interests greatly the media and that they can be very intimidating for your spokspersons if a lot of media do appear. Psyche them up for the event with practice sessions simulating the questions the media might ask.
You advertise a press conference with a press release on what the conference will be about and so on. Press conferences can last between a half hour and an hour and a half. They should start promptly with no more than a five minute delay.
The standard format is the spokesperson(s) are introduced by an announcer, s/he or they make a statement and then answer questions. Once there seem to be no more questions, the announcer thanks the press for attending and closes the conference. It is useful, if not expected, to have copies of the spokesperson's statements made available to the attending press.
When the rally is underway, throw yourself into the enthusiasm and energy that is always generated when a demonstration happens. If 100 people come to your rally, you have had a success, no matter how many people you targetted, because those 100 answered your organizationžs call to action.
Remember, even 100 people protesting in the streets is an embarassment to your target. You may have heard someone say that MLAs and MPs consider 10 letters on an issue as a public outcry because that equates to 1000 people, 100 people per letter, concerned about the issue.
However, if we used that as an indicator, the January 25th rally, which attracted some 400 people, represented the concerns of 40,000 people, basically the University of Alberta population. Even if it was 50 people per participant, the estimated demonstration participation level of the CFS National Student Strike Day of Action, about 80,000 nationwide, represents the concerns of 4 million Canadians. Keep this in mind before you decide against using protest as a tactic.
On the other hand, remember that one protest isn't going to change anything. What does change things is the work leading up to the rally and most importantly, the new allies and experience you gain afterward. Your protest can change the way people see an issue.