Recruitment - local branches on the road to growth

Recruitment is hard work and hard-pressed branch representatives often tell us, historically, it's the thing that suffers as they deal with the growing load of local disputes and casework.

But with the cuts biting our sector along with other public services, it's got to be a priority for everyone.

UCU's national campaign has already added an *extra* 1200 members since its launch, but branch activity is going to be vital. We will return to sustainable growth to the extent that our branches are supported and enabled to embed into the routines of branch life regular activity to encourage non-members to join.

Already, we're seeing some great and inspiring local examples, with several branches bucking the national trend.

Southampton UCU have worked hard to embed recruitment into their regular activity, making sure they target all new joiners, attending new staff inductions and holding recruitment stalls around all their local campaigning activity.

A little further south-West, Exeter University UCU have been shown the value of improving branch communications. The branch have used improved and regular emails, together with a local newsletter, handed out by volunteers to ensure that the union's profile was raised at a time when there were big local issues on the campus and people were looking for the union's view.

Both branches have seen growing membership as a result.

Read all our branch reports here

A reminder that you can download our induction presentation and speakers notes, together with lots more.

See also our guidance on good use of email communications, newsletters and websites.