The online community for the Independence Ambassador Programme has now been up and running for over a month, with 326 signed up for the programme. This is a great start towards our goal of 1,000 Ambassadors across Scotland.
It has been fantastic to see many of our new Ambassadors using the forums to discuss areas of concern and their hopes for both the programme and future Yes campaigns, and the diversity of our users has been highly encouraging, ensuring that we’ll gain a balanced and varied set of viewpoints.
We can see from our survey results that people signing up for the programme are spread right across Scotland, from Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh, to the Highlands and the Borders. This also now means we are connected to around 80 Yes Groups and local political party branches.
The most popular locations requesting face-to-face Ambassador events so far (based on numbers from our survey) are Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Fife, Glasgow and South Lanarkshire. Events will be organised depending on how much demand is in each area, but will also be affected by tactical factors such as whether it is a key No voting area which needs turned, and we will also run smaller events in rural areas and on the islands. We have now started to firm up the provisional start dates set for Autumn.
We are currently finalising the training programme based on your input and building the online training content so that it is available online by the end of the summer.
It’s been extremely positive to see the discussions kicking off in the Prosper forums. So far Ambassadors have helped us by filling in our survey, discussed which areas they believe the Yes movement could improve on next time, how best to convince No voters or undecideds, and explored which topics they believe need addressed to achieve a clear vision for an independent Scotland.
Key FAQ’s which Ambassadors have requested answers to have included issues surrounding Brexit, pensions, currency and oil & gas.
The top learning priorities identified in the survey were:
- 90% of Ambassadors stated that they would like to improve their ability to recall proven answers to key Unionist objections
- 88% would like to improve their ability to understand Unionists’ point of view and tailor responses.
- 86% would like to be able to access instant rebuttals to break Unionists’ claims. These are all areas which will be addressed within the Ambassador training both online and face-to-face, and so we will end up with hundreds of Ambassadors who are fully confident in their ability to convert and convince people of the advantages independence could bring to Scotland.
- Survey results showed that 80% of Ambassadors are also interested in learning the ability to identify undecided voters from solid no voters (which are the most important group for us to target).
- 35 of you signalled that they would like to improve their letter writing skills and that means means we will have a huge and highly skilled team of influential writers by the end of the programme.
It was also great to discover what your campaigning experience has been:
- The most common activity amongst Ambassadors was wearing an independence / political badge, which 89% had experience in.
- 88% also had experienced personal advocacy amongst friends and family.
- 85% of Ambassadors had attended an organised independence event, e.g. marches and public meetings.
- 84% have had experience sharing and commenting on social media in support of independence.
- Also several of you had no experience whatsoever of campaigning for independence, even trying to convince a friend or two. As most of those people are new converts to the independence cause, we are delighted to have you on board - welcome to the campaign.
Over the next few months as the community grows we can achieve an even greater understanding of which topics need to be focussed on and which questions need answered. In this sense, the Independence Ambassador Programme is built for, and by, the grassroots independence movement. Soon the training modules will be accessible both online and face-to-face, and here at Business for Scotland we look forward to watching the community and the programme grow from strength to strength.
