Phase 4 – Preparing the Workshop

(2 weeks prior to the workshop)

The theses for your election compass obviously can not be written all by yourself. They need to represent the society as a whole. The choice of theses decides over the quality of your election compass. You need to get this right! Your theses need to cover the most important matters for the next legislature. They need to be objective and impartial. The wording of the theses has to be simple enough to understand and to the point. Take this task seriously, it is the most important and the most difficult.

To achieve theses of good quality, you should run a workshop with a sample of your audience:

• Gather a group of young and first-time voters (teachers in your team will come in handy).
• If you like, you can also gather voters of all ages.
• Make sure, the group is representable for your audience! No gender, race or religion should be excluded!
• Set a date and find a large enough room with a projector – maybe a class room?
• Send out invitations and gather replies. Your group should have about 20 - 30 members.
• Get the political programms of all participating parties.
• With the help of your experts, gather topics of policital interest from the programmes and newspapers and sort them into categories (e.g. Social, Environment, Work, Traffic, Infrastructure, Energy, Economy, Finance, Tax, Security, etc.).