On Saturday 27th January John and Anne attended an “Amnesty Surrey & Borders“ conference in Woking. The event was organised by Arianna Pisetti with the aims of bringing groups in the region together, discussing how to rejuvenate our local Amnesty groups post pandemic and exploring how we could support each other. Groups represented included Woking, Guildford, Godalming, Runnymede, Ripley, Redhill and Sutton.

John presented the experience of the Sutton group since 2020, which was greatly appreciated by all and which provoked an extensive and productive discussion. The other groups were particularly interested to hear about the content and organisation of our meetings, the efficient way we communicate with our members, our range of speakers and cases and also how we plan to raise our profile in the local community and with other organisations.

It was agreed that the groups attending the meeting would share details of future events and speakers and possibly set up an email group to exchange ideas and keep in touch.

This was followed by an informative Community Mapping session with Thea Ioannou from Amnesty UK covering how to encourage new members to join local groups and how to build and use contacts within the local community. There was particular emphasis on linking up with organisations with shared values. It is the intention to hold a Community Mapping workshop at a future meeting for the Sutton group.