Winning big

CN sat down with Sammy Connell, from NASUWT - The Teachers’ Union to talk about their Annual Conference, which won big at the ABPCO Excellence Awards
Winning big
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CN sat down with Sammy Connell, from NASUWT – The Teachers’ Union to talk about their Annual Conference, which won big at the ABPCO Excellence Awards.

The NASUWT’s Annual Conference is where its policies are agreed and its National Executive

Committee are held to account. With 1,000 attendees, it is the Union’s single most important event of the year and an opportunity to showcase the work of the organisation to its members, potential members, decision-makers and the public.

Being recognised for being the Best Event by an In-House PCO, in 2022 NASUWUT set out to completely transform the annual conference with a focus on sustainability, accessibility, becoming digitally advanced and wellbeing.

Well in advance of the conference, it surveyed all those members who had recently attended an NASUWT conference or event:

  • 76% said they felt either comfortable or very comfortable using a digital device.

  • Of those who felt uncomfortable, a minority felt training and support wouldn’t help them.

  • 79% said they had a smart phone, 46% a tablet and 56% could bring a laptop.

These results provided the data to proceed with moving to a truly digital-first conference, which included the decision to go paperless (traditionally, we would print 15,000 documents).

The organisers were warned by other trade union contacts that it would be impossible to host a truly democratic conference without the use of paper, due to the fact that Union Annual Conferences are democratic and debate led.

NASUWT knew a minority may not have access to digital devices or technological issues so we ensured a limited supply onsite. It offered support for members including pre-conference how-to guides and videos, onsite training sessions, dedicated app support desks and a giant 55’’ iPhone showcasing the functionality.

In terms of impact…

• 92% rated their conference experience as good or excellent.

• 87% rated the app as good or excellent.

• 90% rated their ability to participate and engage with the conference good or excellent.

In addition to the success with UK-based delegates, the international roundtable became truly hybrid with speakers from nations including Iran, Bahrain, France and many more. The technology circumvented all the challenges usually associated with travel, visas and immigration – essential as Covid-related travel restrictions remained in place in many countries.

Ultimately, it permitted our stakeholders to engage and shape the debate on teacher policy across the globe.

What’s next?

So, what has been learnt and what is next for the NASUWT conference?

Due to budget constraints the event could only live-stream the main conference sessions. Going forward, the organisers would like to expand this offering to include seminars and other content whilst measuring the impact this had in-terms of increasing activism.

NASUWT also wish to evaluate the carbon impact of the event immediately afterwards and have robust reports to share and compare, whilst looking to reduce this for future events. 

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