Public and Commercial Services Union

Our communications awards celebrate and recognise the work reps do to keep members informed and involved in our union.

Winners of PCS’s first ever communications awards were due to be presented with their prizes at annual conference as View went to press.

Four categories were contested: best group magazine; best feature; best branch newsletter; and best photograph.

The clear favourite in the best group magazine category was Llais, the journal for our members who work in the Welsh Assembly.

The judges felt it offered a broad range of articles, written in a member-friendly way and laid out attractively, with one commenting it was “easy on the eye”.

The standard of entries in this category was high and judges were looking for magazines that engaged their readers in an accessible way.

The Land Registry magazine Progress was highly-commended for many of the same reasons as Llais, being judged a good read and well laid out.

There was a good range of entries in the best feature category, and the panel was looking for ones that stood out as interesting and relevant.

There were two runaway favourites and the winner was ‘Are you being bullied?’, from London Calling, the newsletter of the London Indirect Taxes branch.

The judges felt it presented well something that is always a relevant and important issue for unions.

A feature about the history of the black civil rights movement, ‘Can we do it? Yes we can!’ from Graffiti, the newsletter for members in the Identity and Passport Service north west branch, was highly-commended for again tackling an important issue well.

A tribute to activists

The best branch newsletter category was hotly contested with a broad range of submissions.

The judges felt the winner, Branching Out, was had a good range of articles, and was presented in a digestible and interesting way.

There was a limited choice in the best photograph category with not many entries.

The winning photo was a shot taken on the Put People First march from the point of view of one of the marchers.

The judges felt it encapsulated what happens on a demo, giving a sense of atmosphere.

It was a close call between this and the runner-up, a humorous picture of a dalek sporting around its head a PCS picket’s armband.

The panel said it showed imagination and was something that members who have been on a picket line would relate to and find funny.

The awards were judged by PCS vice president John McInally; View editorial board members Julie Bremner, Steve Comer, Emily Kelly, Kevin McHugh, Phil Morcom and Derek Thomson; general secretary Mark Serwotka and president Janice Godrich; and PCS’s head of campaigns and communications Tom Grinyer, View editor Sharon Breen, and design studio manager Sian Manaz.

In the foreword to the judges’ comments booklet produced to accompany the awards, Mark and Janice praised the standard of entries.

“It is a tribute to our activists, whose time and resources are often stretched, that there is clearly so much good and effective communication out there,” they wrote.

“We are confident these awards will provide a springboard for even more success in the coming year, a year that will undoubtedly require us to be on top of our game.

“A big thank you to those groups and branches that submitted entries this year and, to those that didn’t, we hope you are inspired to get involved and enter next year.”

Sponsors

The PCS communications awards are sponsored by: