We’re hiring: Community and Events Organiser
**applications for this role are now closed**
About the Role
We’re looking for a confident, collaborative, and energetic community and events organiser to help us broaden and deepen our relationships with communities and organisations in Bristol.
The Cable is not your average newspaper. We’re a pioneering community-led cooperative newspaper, and our award-winning newsroom is owned and supported by more than 2,700 local people. Founded in 2014 as an alternative to local media owned by big corporations and influenced by advertising interests, our mission is to produce truly independent journalism that serves Bristol’s communities. Together, we hold power to account through groundbreaking investigations, we campaign for change, and we amplify marginalised voices.
You will be the driving force for growing the Cable’s presence and connections in Bristol, through organising events that connect people with our journalism and wider conversations in the city, facilitating community engagement to help us produce journalism with, not for, people, and enhancing the impact of our free to access print newspaper.
You will play a key role our values-driven and purposeful team, with freedom to shape your work, evolve your role, and shape our community & outreach strategy and organisational strategy, with support and input from the wider team. You will be able to learn, share, and be supported by team members who you’ll be collaborating with.
Aside from community & events organising, you will be part of the Cable cooperative staff team. We all have a shared stake in the work we do and how we work together, so all team members contribute to key decisions and the overall direction of the Cable, including our priorities, strategy and general operations.
We offer a generous holiday allowance, including extra paid leave over the winter festive period, a yearly training budget and peer mentoring to help you progress in your career and develop your skills.
Key Information
Contract: Permanent, subject to funding.
Hours: 3-4 days per week (7.5 hours per working day). Please indicate your preference in your application, and feel free to contact us in advance to discuss if you have any queries.
Entitlements: 36 days annual leave pro rata, including bank holidays, plus up to 5 days extra paid time off at Christmas, and up to 15 days unpaid holiday allowance, both pro rata. We also have a pension scheme with a 3% employer contribution and 5% employee contribution.
Salary: £23,649 pro rata (Note: The Cable is has an equitable pay structure where the pay differential between the lowest and highest paid is no more than 20%. This is band 3 out of 5 – 10% above base. See below for more info)
Location: Bristol Cable office: The Station, Silver Street, Bristol, BS1 2AG (with work from home flexibility, but you will need to be able to attend the office several days a week)
Applications closing date: 11.59pm Sunday 5 June 2022
Interviews: Within week commencing 13 June 2022
Any questions?
We have office hours for this role, where you can book a slot to chat to the Cable’s Membership Lead Lucas Batt about any questions you have relating to this role. You can book a chat here: https://calendly.com/lucasbatt/bristol-cable-hiring-office-hours
You can also email applications@thebristolcable.org. Remember to tell us which role you are applying for (we’re hiring 3 roles at the moment)
We particularly encourage applications from women, people of colour, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, and people from working class backgrounds.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead the planning and delivery of Bristol Cable events, in collaboration members of the Cable team and external partners, including:
- Quarterly print launch events, to celebrate the release of new editions of our print newspaper
- Regular topical members’ meetings and high-profile public events where we use a Cable story or series as the launch-pad for discussion and debate within Bristol (for example, our recent event on renting in Bristol)
- The Cable’s Annual General Meeting, our biggest member democracy event of the year, in which members learn about Cable work and vote on key issues to help guide the Cable’s strategy.
- Hold responsibility for our overarching community outreach strategy, working closely with other members of the team to develop and deliver this.
- Be a visible presence for the Cable out there in the city, attending events to engage people in the Cable
- Develop mutually supportive relationships with groups and organisations in the city
- Promote and support engagement such as callouts and co-production, to centre communities in our journalism, in collaboration with others on the team
- Collaborate with others on the team to develop projects and initiatives that develop a sense of community and belonging for Cable members
- Develop and deliver the outreach strategy to make our Community Calendar into an essential community information hub
- Conduct research and interview people in our target audience in order to build relationships and understand what types of news and information they need to thrive. Produce research reports to support the Cable’s editorial and membership strategies and decision-making.
- Support and enhance the distribution of our flagship quarterly print newspaper, to maximise its promotional impact for growing membership and reaching out into Bristol’s communities
- Support the coordination of freelance member-distributors who deliver copies of the Cable for free to homes and venues across the city
- Coordinate hand-to-hand distribution of the Cable in prominent locations around the city, working with Cable coordinators and freelancers
- Manage the coordination of print delivery and venue distribution with our courier
- Increase the effectiveness of our print distribution by strengthening relationships with existing venues, sourcing new ones, and developing a network of distribution boxes
- Manage the member inbox and related member communications and administration
Person Specification
We would like you to have at least some skills, experience or aptitude that demonstrate how you meet each of the essential criteria below, and where possible, the desirable criteria as well. Please refer closely to this person specification in your application.
We welcome examples drawn from your personal or voluntary experience, as well as paid employment.
Essential
- Experience
- 1+ years experience delivering events or engagement as part of a small team or organisation, ideally a mission-driven organisation, including logistics, promotion
- Experience with facilitation and participatory approaches to events or workshops
- You have a track record of building and maintaining effective relationships with external stakeholders and communities
- Skills
- You are a confident, personable, and effective communicator, with excellent verbal and written English, with expertise communicating with a wide range of audiences
- A skilled facilitator, able to enable the participation of a diverse range of individuals in conversations and activities
- Confident in taking the initiative to reach out to individuals and groups, and can be a recognisable and approachable representative of the Cable, including speaking at events and public forums.
- Self-motivated, able to take the initiative to turn ideas into reality with a hands-on, can-do approach
- Excellent organisational and project management skills, great attention to detail, and comfortable with iterative processes and working in a dynamic environment
- Ability to work independently and across teams, with limited supervision and to pro-actively seek information and solutions
- You’re insightful, and able to spot opportunities for collaboration and partnership working
- Knowledge and motivation
- An understanding of the democratic and community needs relating to a new model for local media
- You are passionate about the Cable’s mission to centre communities in local media, and transform our city through in-depth, investigative local journalism
- You are passionate about helping to create an inclusive, anti-oppressive organisation and consider accessibility in the ways you work, such as in event design.
- You would feel comfortable in an environment without traditional management and hierarchy, which relies on initiative, willingness to think strategically about your own work (with support from colleagues), and an enthusiasm to develop your skills around interpersonal communication, meeting facilitation and collaboration.
- Flexibility to work occasional evenings or weekends, as needed for event coordination
Desirable
- Knowledge of communities and networks in Bristol
- Experience as a community organiser, voluntary or paid
- Experience of working with people from diverse cultural and social backgrounds
- Experience organising events with participatory or interactive elements
- Experience supporting community co-production
- Familiarity with G-suite/Google workspace products
- Good spreadsheet skills
- Experience managing freelancers or volunteers
- Experience with coordinating the logistics of distribution, in particular of magazines or flyers
What we offer
- A permanent position in our staff team, subject to a 3 month probationary period and funding.
- A salary of £23,649 (pro rata), with opportunities for increases.
- 36 days annual leave pro rata, including bank holidays, plus up to 5 days extra paid time off at Christmas, and up to 15 days unpaid holiday allowance, both pro rata.
- A pension scheme with a 3% employer contribution and 5% employee contribution.
- Flexible working based on team hours, and a period policy, to help you work when works best for you
- A personal training and professional development allowance to help support you in your work
- You will play a key role in a values-driven and purposeful team, with freedom to shape your work, evolve your role, and contribute to our strategy.
- Opportunities to take on cooperative management responsibilities
About the Cable
The Bristol Cable is a community-owned media cooperative, owned and supported by thousands of people across the city. We’re recognised internationally as a pioneer in the movement for a new media, our mission is to redefine local journalism as a community asset, which is accountable to our readers. Together, we hold power to account through groundbreaking investigations, campaigning for change, and amplifying marginalised voices.
We produce award-winning local journalism, in print and online, made free to access for all by members. We don’t chase breaking news, but instead dig deeper into key issues with original angles, including the local impacts of national and international issues.
Cooperative working
The Cable is a co-operative, and we collectively share responsibility for managing the organisation, following the principles of Sociocracy. So, as well as the responsibilities listed above, being part of the Cable team also involves some participation in helping to run the co-op, after an initial settling in period. We don’t expect you to have any particular skills in organisational management – just enthusiasm for taking part.
Equitable pay structure
As a grassroots organisation with a big mission and brilliant people working here, salaries in the Cable are lower than we would like to pay our colleagues. We’ve come a long way since being founded by dedicated volunteers eight years ago, and are continually working to grow our income and raise salaries as we do that.
In 2021 the Cable team developed a new pay structure which aims to be transparent, objective, and equitable in how we decide salaries. The system involves an annual self-allocation to agreed criteria such as levels of responsibility, with peer support and team review. We have 5 salary bands staff can be allocated to, depending on the number of criteria they meet, with £21,499 being the lowest salary, and £25,799 the highest (a 20% differential).
New roles are allocated a banding based on our expectation for the criteria they meet, with the possibility to go up a band after the 3 month probation period, depending on whether more criteria are expected to be met.
As a member of the Cable team, you will be able to be involved in helping shape our pay structure as we continue to evolve it, and we aim to continue to raise staff salaries as we grow our income.
Anti-oppression
We recognise that our society contains many overlapping systems of oppression and that these injustices may be reproduced in how we work. We are learning more about our part in these systems and thinking strategically about how to change working practices, policies and systems so that we can challenge these unjust systems, as well as supporting colleagues who face particular oppressions in their daily lives.
This is a work in progress, and happening at individual and collective level. We expect all staff to educate ourselves on oppressions that we may not have experienced directly and to contribute to our work to make our organisational structures, practices and culture more inclusive and liberatory.
How to apply
Apply by using the link below. The deadline to apply is Sunday 5 June at 11:59 p.m.
We particularly encourage applications from women, people of colour, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, and people from working class backgrounds.
Interviews of shortlisted applicants will be held in person at our office on Silver Street in Bristol, the week commencing 13th June
If you have any enquiries about the role or application process not answered above please email applications@thebristolcable.org.
This application form is a space for you to tell us about your experience, skills and approach to working which make you suitable for the Communications Coordinator role.
Please refer closely to relevant parts of the person specification in your responses, providing concrete examples of where you demonstrate meeting the criteria where possible, and what you specifically achieved in those cases if relevant.
You may want to draft your responses to this application form in a different document. You can find all the questions listed below in this document: Bristol Cable Community and Events Organiser application questions. Download or make a copy of it to draft your responses before pasting them in to the form here.
