What next? Our #WomenEd strategy for 2019-2020

by Alison, Jules, Keziah, Liz, Sameena and Vivienne   - @Alison Kriel, @JulesDaulby, @keziah70, @EquitableEd, @Vivienne Porritt

Thank you so much to everyone who attended our 5th unconference at Sheffield Hallam University, led workshops and #LeadMeet presentations and joined in the discussions on Twitter and Facebook. It was certainly very special! Once a year the strategic leaders of #WomenEd meet together after the unconference and discuss the strategy for the next year.

For 2018/19, it was to reach out to more women who don’t use twitter. To achieve that we wrote #10%braver,

developed a partnership with CER Education to reach supply teachers and developed a new website. The website just sneaked into the year and we have the network pages to populate, but we’re still counting that one!     

So what do we hope our #WomenEd family will achieve in 2019/20? We have 3 goals. 

1. Building on the website we want to improve communications overall.
• We are close to 30,000 followers on Twitter so we would like that and more – would be a great Christmas present!
• Our blogs and events will go on the website and we will set up the network pages as soon as we can.
• We want as many people as possible to sign up for our newsletter so please sign up here if you don’t already get the newsletter in your emails. This means you won’t miss any key messages on twitter.
• We also want to communicate with network leaders more regularly. The method may vary with each network whilst we will be in touch every two months as a minimum.
• We will publish the JDs for strategic and network leaders on our website so expectations are clear for existing and new leaders.

2. We want to be strategic about the potential for growth for #WomenEd.
• We are writing a second book and it’s fantastic that we have 25+ writers and chapters being supported by Keziah and Vivienne. We will work with those who submitted potential chapters to develop blogs and use our website for this resource.
• We are a global community of volunteers which has both advantages and disadvantages. It means we are only responsible to the members of the community - everyone who engages with us via twitter, Facebook and in our face to face and online events. It also means there are limits to our capacity.
• So this year we will research whether it would be better to become a formal entity that can apply for grants to help us with communications and administration. We have all done extraordinarily well to grow as a voluntary group and we may stay as this. We need to see what is possible, however, to achieve our third strategic goal.

3. We also agreed our vision for global growth.
We want to develop national networks for countries and also networks that are closer to where people live and work. For example, we have @WomenEd_Aus which is a national team of network leaders and we hope that this team will gradually support the growth of networks in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth etc. We have @WomenEdNorthEast (a region of England) so do we need @WomenEdEngland as we have Wales, Scotland and NI? That would leave @WomenEd as the overarching global account.

 That sounds like enough to be getting on with for a community of volunteers and we are really want to know your thoughts on any of these topics, especially No 3.

Keep being #10%braver!

Alison, Keziah, Jules, Liz, Sameena, Vivienne

Update on Strategic Leaders supporting 26 Networks

Alison – East, England; South East, England.
Keziah – Wales; West Midlands, England; East Midlands, England; @WomenEdBookClub.
Jules – South West, England; @WomenEd_Tech.
Liz – Nederlands; Czechia; Italia, Deutschland, BeLux; Singapore, Espana.
Sameena – North West, England; Yorks & Humber, England; MENA.
Vivienne – North East, England; London, England; Scotland; Northern Ireland; Jersey, United States; Canada; Alberta, Canada; Australia.