Conversation toolkit

• Set a location, time and date to survey your community – and register an event on our website so we can help you recruit others.
• Make sure you have all of the resources (listed below) before the day of the action. Get in touch with your ACF contact for any questions about this.
• Be the contact person for volunteers for your action, and ACF staff (if needed).
• Coordinate the community climate survey action on the day (step-by-step outline below), making sure every volunteer gets briefed and has the resources they need for the action.
• Collect each volunteer’s petitions and conversation reports at the end of the action, then upload them here.

All resources are available at our Resources page.

Bring for each volunteer (including yourself):

• 10 community climate survey script
• 1 double-sided petition (plus a few extra just in case)
• 1 double-sided conversation report for each volunteer to report back on every conversation they have
• 1 flyer to show people in conversations, or if you can, print 10 copies for each volunteer so they can hand them out after conversations for people to take home!
• 1 conversation tips and facts sheet

Some other resources

• Conversation training video: A video for everyone to watch before your survey – either at home beforehand or together on the day.

Also bring a few spare pens, a clipboard for yourself, and your mobile phone (in case volunteers need to contact you).

Choose a time and a place for you to survey people in your community. Outside busy shopping centres are great, as are kids’ footy matches, markets, your church, local park or anywhere else you can think of. Plan on a three hour session, so you have enough time to meet, brief the other volunteers who join you, survey your community, then debrief.

Pick a good spot to meet the volunteers who join you – ideally somewhere that’s easy for people to find, and where you can sit down and have a chat when everyone arrives. Maybe some park benches, a rotunda or a cafe?

Register your community climate survey. If you created an event at Count Me In, we’ll register that event for you.

Recruit others to join you. Let your friends and family know what you’re doing, and share the link to your event widely. The more people in your team, the more people you’ll be able to talk to. Of course, you can do the action on your own too, and as often as you like.

Get everything ready for the day. Familiarise yourself with the conversation resources and make sure you have enough copies for each volunteer. Watch the training video so that you feel comfortable with the conversation. Remember you don’t need to know everything there is to know about climate change, you’re just talking to real people and empowering others to do the same.

Get in touch with your volunteers the day before – either send them a text or give them a call. Confirm the details, remind them to look at the conversation resources beforehand (especially the training video), and remind them to bring water, a pen and a clipboard or something else to write on.

Arrive 15 minutes early and as people gather, introduce yourself and others. 5 minutes after your arranged meeting time, brief your group. In summary:

• Welcome everyone, and briefly remind people why having these conversations are important. Use the flyer to talk people through the strategy for the campaign.
• Invite each person to introduce themselves, and share why they care enough to be here volunteering today. People will share their personal narrative in the conversations during the survey, so this is a good time to get people to practice!
• Hand out the resources and take them through the script, and if people haven’t seen the training video (or want to see it again), watch it together on someone’s phone.
• See if people would like to practice with each other before starting (this might take 10-15 minutes).
• Answer any questions people might have. If you’re not sure, don’t worry – this is an ongoing learning process and you can help each other troubleshoot again when debriefing after your surveys.
• Agree as a group on:
  • A time and place to reconvene afterwards. You might like to schedule a time in the middle to check in or have a quick break. It’s up to you!
  • Who will cover what area.

Get out there and have conversations! Remind people to fill in their conversation reports as they go, and don’t forget to take a few photos so we can show how many of us are out across the country surveying our communities.

Debrief and collect each petition and conversation report. Hear how people went, and share things that went well or were difficult. Feel free to pass any feedback on to ACF by emailing [email protected].

Thank everyone and encourage them to host their own community climate survey, or come to another one! Let them know that in the week of July 15-20, there will be a national week of action where they can join others in the ACF community to deliver the results from their conversations. Make sure you collect everyone’s petitions and conversation reports, but they can keep their scripts for meeting with their MP. You might like to invite people to join you for a coffee afterwards – this is, after all, a social movement!

• Report back by taking photos of the petitions and conversation reports, then uploading them here. This is critical for us to build our movement and demonstrate our collective power.
• Deliver the results to your elected representatives. All across the country people are telling their local MPs about their conversations and what people want them to do – check out this guide to help you get started!