Making the move from member to activist

After working in schools for several years, Hull City branch member Naomi Coxon was well aware how government spending cuts were not only making life difficult for schools staff but also for the children and families they serve. 

But after seeing how the previous government was promoting divisive rhetoric instead of real solutions at its party conference a couple of years ago, she decided she wanted to start playing a more active role in the union.

“It was after listening to Tory conference, on top of the evident issues in schools and public services, that I became active with UNISON,” Naomi says. 

That’s why Naomi signed up for an online introduction to the world of the union. 

“I saw there was a one-hour lunchtime training called Get Active in UNISON on the website and I thought, ‘I’ll just pop onto that and see what it actually means’,” she says.

Spending those 60 minutes in the online session, learning about different union roles, branch campaigning and the UNISON College training available to activists, turned out to be exactly what she needed. 

“I’ve always been a member when I’ve had jobs that have enabled me to be a member, but I always thought the union was just something you go to when you had a problem – I didn’t realise we, the members, are the union,” she says. 

Almost immediately, Naomi booked herself onto the Pathways to Activism one-day course in Leeds, which was led by Regional Learning & Development Organiser Rose Bent. 

“I found it really inspiring to feel that sense of belonging for the first time, being sat in a room with people who thought in the same way I did and were doing something about it,” she says. “The best thing about the course was the people I met: there were people there that were already quite active, and they really gave me the feeling that a branch officer role was something I could do.” 

Buoyed by the confidence of the other members on the course, Naomi volunteered to become Hull City branch’s very first women’s officer.

 “I would never have considered it without going on the course and meeting the amazing people I did,” she says. 

And encouraged by her branch to take part in last year’s National Delegate Conference (NDC) to find out more about how the union works, Naomi says he learned a lot in the company of the other Hull City branch delegates in Brighton.

“I remember getting all the paperwork through in advance and reading all the motions and thinking, ‘I don’t really know what I’m doing’,” she says. “But then I got to conference, I saw how it works – that it’s the members that have the power to say, ‘This is what we want UNISON to work on’.” 

On her way back to Hull, Naomi decided she wanted to do more, so she enrolled on the next training course for new stewards. 

“We all turned up not knowing what to expect, what we could do, what our abilities were, what we’d be expected to do, and all from a really wide range of different roles,” she says. “But Megan and Danny who delivered the training didn’t talk down to us or anything like that and they were able to bring out things in us we didn’t know were in there already.” 

Naomi credits all the different UNISON College courses she’s taken with helping her find her place in the union. All the courses have been massively important, both knowledge-wise and for networking as well,” she says. 

“On all the courses I’ve been on, at a certain point in the day you’ll all start exchanging your email addresses with everyone, so you’re building these little mini-networks that then turn into bigger networks.” 

Being part of those networks helps Naomi better support her members, she says.

“There are so many circumstances where that network-building is really beneficial for knowing where to go for knowledge if you don’t have it – being able to signpost people is pretty important.” 

Naomi always highlights to members how UNISON College offers something quite different from standard employer-provided training courses. 

“Every single training day I’ve been on with UNISON has been different – they know what they’re doing and you come away thinking, ‘I’ve really gained something from that’,” she says. “The way the training is delivered makes all the difference, it makes you feel part of something, it makes it interesting, it makes it really enjoyable – and I’d say that of every UNISON College course I’ve been on.”