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I went along with Laura and a small group of YANsters to the House of Commons last Thursday for the opportunity to meet some MP’s of the new government.
It was a great event, organised by NCVYS – it wasn’t hugely facilitated – they had a couple of speeches but they didn’t last long and it was basically about putting a load of people in a room and letting them ‘find’ each other. It was a bit of a scrabble, especially as there were a lot of people in business dress so it was really difficult to spot who was and wasn’t an MP (unless of course they were well known like Nick Hurd). The MPs had an easier time, I think, as there were plenty of young people representing each organisation there – all of them wearing t-shirts bearing the name of their organisation. Plus, they knew everyone wanted their ear so all they needed to do really was to wait.
As I tried to strategically place myself in the best place to speak to MP’s (and I found that loitering by the door – the escape route - worked well!) I had plenty of opportunity to practice my ‘elevator pitch’ with the result that I must have sounded increasingly excited as the event went on! Trying to shout to be heard above the din, engage the MP in a discussion of the key issues in youth volunteering – for me, and for Youth Action Network the lack of genuine youth led volunteering – and not sounding slightly desperate was a challenge!
As usual the young people fared much better than me being not so concerned with making a good impression on the MP but just enjoying the event and being willing to talk to anyone about their own experiences of youth action volunteering.
It was a great event and I’d like to say thanks to NCVYS for organising it. It was so good actually that here at Youth Action Network we’re thinking of copying and holding our own (much more low key) event for member organisations and MP’s interested in meeting them. We have some policy interns due to work with us over the summer months and are hoping that they’ll be keen on helping us organise such an event.
Our members are truly independent – they are members because they believe in youth action and want to join a movement of like minded organisations. We don’t fund them, meaning that they can be really honest with us in the feedback and information that they give to us. We’d really like to give our network the opportunity to be heard directly by MP’s and policy makers and we’re working on it… watch this space!
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