Job Description for the role of Steering Group Communications Bod

version 1.0

Marc Hudson January 2014

Background

The Steering Group has no public profile. After three and a half years of existence, it has no communications plan (as admitted by Manchester City Council’s illustrious Environmental Strategy Manager at a meeting in November 2013).

“He said the Manchester – A Certain Future steering group was aware of this and trying to get a robust communications plan in place.”

It bears repeating; What on earth has it been doing for the last three and a half years then? Just sayin’.

Role

Co-ordinate/lead the creation and implementation of an effective (or “robust”, if that makes you sound more serious) communications plan with SMART goals, milestones and all that stuff.  And maybe even a website that isn’t a joke?

Be the public face of the Steering Group (alongside the Chair), responding to and creating media requests for Steering Group involvement.

Help create and implement the stakeholder engagement plan for the Steering Group.

Pe(rs)on specification

The successful candidate will need the oratory and wisdom of Nelson Mandela, the intelligence of Noam Chomsky, the credibility of Wangari Maatthai, the courage of Chico Mendez, and the class analysis of Judi Bari.

Therefore, it may need to be a job-share.

No, but seriously. If the head of comms is the one and the same person who is going to be doing most of the media interviews, they will need, at a minimum;

• good knowledge of the basics of climate science
• excellent knowledge of the direct and indirect impacts that Manchester will face in the coming decades
• excellent knowledge of the mitigation opportunities and requirements for Manchester
• good knowledge of the standard and advanced lines of attack that denialist and delayer individuals and organisations use and how to cope with these without re-enforcing them in people’s minds
• fair knowledge of national climate policy and how it affects (Greater) Manchester
• fair knowledge of international climate policy processes (especially in the lead up to COP 21 in Paris, Nov/Dec 2015).
• excellent skills at being interviewed by journalists (radio, print, television)
• excellent skills at being a panelist during climate events in (Greater) Manchester, fielding questions from attendees without boring everyone to death or being so slippery and vague as to undermine the credibility of the organisation
• excellent meeting facilitation skills, to ensure that meetings do not become static ego-foddering for the sage on the stage.
• excellent presentation skills
• excellent writing skills, able to quickly and effectively write articles of different lengths and sophistication for different audiences
• good knowledge and experience of social media (at an absolute minimum facebook, twitter, youtube, blogs) and the benefits and pitfalls of each
• project management skills up the wazoo

FWIW, I don’t think you could pay me enough money to throw away my reputation for independence and truth-telling by becoming a paid shill for a moribund reputation black hole like the Steering Group. But I may be wrong.