Life at Elect Her - is freeing, inspiring and there is always a lot to do!

By Mollie McGoran

Hi, I’m Mollie, and I have spent the last four months as a freelance project officer for Elect Her!

I have thoroughly enjoyed this time, working on meaningful and valuable projects with the most inspiring and motivating team to cheer me on.

As my time with Elect Her is drawing to a close I thought I’d reflect on the work I’ve been doing for the past four months. The main subject of my work at Elect Her has been continuing a collaborative project between ourselves and Engender which is looking at the change mechanisms that go into equal representation in politics. There has been a lot of work already put into this project so there were big shoes to fill. The project involves mapping the work of organisations in the women's democracy sector in the UK, though I was focused primarily on Scotland, and their campaigning and advocacy work. Their actions were then correlated to one of 45 change mechanisms that had been previously identified and then logged into a spreadsheet which it was my job to collate. I merged the Scottish and English work into one master spreadsheet and further categorised the existing info (along with some all-important colour coding!) There is plenty more of this project to contend with but I’m grateful to have played a part and can’t wait to see where it goes from here.

I have also had the opportunity to attend and even host events and workshops on Elect Her's behalf. My first event was nerve-wracking to be tackling alone. Even though I was prepared and excited, this was still the first time representing the not for profit and I wanted to get it right. It was an event with the University of Strathclyde for their annual Festival of Social Sciences, in a lovely coffee shop in Glasgow. I was on the panel, where I talked about Elect Her’s work, and the theory of change project but also answered questions about our purpose and the impact that the organisation has made. I spoke about the workshops, resources and peer support circles, all of which directly support and encourage women standing for and who are in elected office. It was lovely to hear from others on the panel, but also fielding questions and navigating discussion with the audience. It was unlike a panel I’d ever done and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

One of the highlights of my time was facilitating two ‘How to be an MSP’ workshops. The amazing Kirsty, our project officer who works in Scotland too, wrote a thorough briefing so we couldn’t have been more prepared. The workshop aimed to give an insight into what it's like to be an MSP, their role and responsibilities and to give some advice to women who were thinking about standing for elected office or who were in the process of it. We heard from four Members of the Scottish Parliament, Roz, Gillian, Emma and Carol, about their experiences with campaigning, selection, and their time in Holyrood, as well as what prompted them to stand for election in the first place. They spoke candidly and authentically which gelled well with the insightful questions from the participants. Both sessions ran smoothly (phew!) and hopefully, we can run the sessions again for others.

Myself and Kirsty also attended and spoke on a panel ‘Voting Women’ with four other activists and inspirational women, in the beautiful National Library of Scotland. We talked about the work that Elect Her does, the projects that we’ve worked on and the women's sector in Scotland more widely, looking at the past, present and future of women in politics. They also hosted a zine-making workshop afterwards, unfortunately we couldn’t stay but I left some of our funky postcards and stickers instead.

Mollie and Kirsty at the 'Voting Women' Event

In my last couple of weeks, I’ve been helping out with comms which is something I love doing but have never done in a working capacity, only voluntarily. There is a big difference between social media for a university society and communications for a national organisation! It has been a very enjoyable learning curve and I’ve been getting the hang of it slowly. I’ve made some posts to congratulate candidates who stood for councillor in December, some promoting our election handbooks and some that highlight the feedback from the Peer Support Circle sessions. I’ve still got a couple more to go (Next up is an ElectHer Wrapped!) but I’ve gained valuable skills from Annabel, our fantastic Director of Communications, which I’m very grateful for and I’m planning to take forward into future roles.

My last task for ElectHer was to organise some festive fun for the team. I| pulled together three zoom-friendly options, 1) Naughty or Nice List, 2) Festive This or That or the winning choice 3) Holiday Bingo! I made a bingo card and we went round each square and checked off each if it applied to someone in the team, with things like having wreaths, liking candy canes or mulled wine, or seeing a pantomime or a nativity. It was nice to spend time together, learning more about each other's traditions and festive plans, and just chatting nonsense. We also heard about Elect Her's achievements for the year which lifted spirits even higher!

Finally, I am grateful for my time with this fantastic team. I will miss our weekly catch-ups, chatting about everything big and small, celebrating our wins and offering support where needed. This is the first space where I’ve felt able to speak freely about what energy I’m bringing into work that day and I’ve also learned to be more mindful about others' situations. I never fail to leave a team meeting refreshed and motivated, even on difficult days. Even though I’ve had an amazing time working on projects, attending events and workshops and designing social media posts, learning from these exceptional women has truly been the highlight of this experience (and that’s saying something because I really love Canva!)