Tech volunteer

We need technical volunteers to build on our successes since 2018. Can you help?

Right now we are:

• reviewing the 2023 election campaigns,
• updating voter data for the next campaigns,
• responding to a consultation on new county council seat boundaries,
• replacing everything we do with NationBuilder, including:
  • editing content for new web sites,
  • converting and moving supporter data from NationBuilder to Action Network,
  • evaluating the national canvassing system that is under development,
  • improving our social media presence.

How can you help? There are data tasks and writing and design tasks. Let's start with data.

Every year we review the election campaign. What worked well and what can we do better next time? You could help by analysing election results or surveys of volunteers, then create a presentation for our members.

Also every year, we update the data we hold on voters, so we are better prepared for the next election campaign. There are simple tasks like typing data into spreadsheets from this year's canvassing sheets and the marked registers (of who voted, not how they voted). And there are more technical tasks integrating data from different sources, getting ready for the new canvassing system being developed by a team of national volunteers. They will be demonstrating it to us in the next two weeks.

This year, the Local Government Boundary Commission for England has started a review of the division boundaries in Oxfordshire County Council. A county division is equivalent to a district ward, the area a councillor represents. They will release a draft set of boundaries on 1 August 2023. We will have until 9 October to respond with our own arguments and maps. If you have any GIS skills, we need you.

Since 2013, we have been using the NationBuilder software as a service to manage web sites, events, donations, emails and a database of members, volunteers, supporters and voters. As the price has gone up, we are replacing it over the next month with the national party's Action Network system, WordPress web sites and the forthcoming canvassing system.

Our best data on members, volunteers and supporters is in NationBuilder. We need to work out what data records and tags we want to keep, then decide how to convert important NationBuilder tags and fields into Action Network fields and tags before moving the data. This is a lot of work, but it can be split into many small tasks done by many volunteers.

Action Network, doesn't provide web sites, it just lets you create individual web forms to volunteer, donate, sign up for an event etc. So we will need to set up web sites for Oxfordshire Green Party and the branches which do not yet have their own web site. These will probably be WordPess sites. There are a few technical WordPress tasks that need developer skills, but most of the work is in creating web pages, editing existing pages and writing new ones. We need image designers and writers for that.

Web sites aren't much help unless people visit them. So we need to improve our use of social media to get out message out and then bring them to our website to sign up for something. Could you advise us which social media tools we should use to better reach voters and supporters and to analyse our online impact?

Please select from the list of tasks below. I am arranging more online briefing sessions in the next two weeks (including a demonstration of the canvassing system).

Sign up below to receive more detail, including a longer briefing video, a link to a Trello board and the time of the canvassing system demonstration.