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Dragons Den - Essex County

UPDATE REPORT ON DRAGONS DEN £1000 AWARD TO
ESSEX COUNTY BRANCH

Tracey Sparkes, Branch Development Officer, Essex County Branch

Following a successful bid at the Regional Dragons Den event, the Branch was awarded £1000 from the Regional Pool to fund a “Recruit a Friend” project.

With the £1000, we purchased 100 x £10 High Street Vouchers to give to members who recruit a work colleague.

The thinking behind this idea is that members would start dialogue with their colleague(s) about the union, where perhaps the subject had not arisen before.

This started quite slowly, but has now really taken off.   To date, we have received 61 “Recruit a Friend” application forms back.

We have publicised this in our branch newsletter “Outlook” (which goes to all our members individually to their home addresses), on the Branch website as well as produced posters for notice boards and advertised it at events and recruitment stalls.

We have been monitoring this carefully to see whether any particular members are recruiting more than one new member, with a view to approach them to become more active in the Branch and, to date three have since agreed to be new contacts for their workplace.

We have put a closing date on this exercise for the end of the year, but with a view to extend it if the forms continue coming back in.

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