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Communications and Media Officer

Closing date: 4pm, Monday 10 January 2011
Interview date: January 2011

Introduction
Role profile
Background
How to apply
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Introduction

Starting salary up to £33,900 - 35 hours - London

Friends of the Earth is the UK's leading environmental campaigning organisation with a number of high profile successes under our belt - including the world's first national law to introduce legally-binding cuts in carbon emissions.

We are looking for a highly skilled and motivated Communications and Media Officer to deliver high impact coverage and profile for our work.

Part of our award-winning Communications and Media Team, you will bring bags of creativity and initiative to the task of generating media coverage, driving promotional activity and building strategic relationships.

First class writing and project management skills, along with strong media relations, journalism or PR experience, are essential.

We give all applications equal consideration. Job share applicants are welcome.

Supplementary information:

If you are highly creative - with both feet planted firmly on the ground - then this could be the job for you.

We are looking for a skilled and motivated Communications and Media Officer to promote Friends of the Earth and its campaign messages and public engagement activities to the media, supporter audiences and the public.

As part of our award-winning Communications and Media Team, the successful candidate will play a key role in delivering strategic media and communications work around our campaigns to prevent dangerous climate change and biodiversity loss.

The role sits within our newly-created Fundraising, Communications and Activism directorate and has a key role to play in working across the directorate to maximise our impact with media and supporter audiences.

The successful candidate with have particular responsibility for helping to promote Friends of the Earth's brand through:

- Developing and nurturing relationships with celebrity supporters

- Developing and managing publicity and communications activity for strategic partnerships

- Managing publicity for events to raise Friends of the Earth's profile and income

The role includes planning and delivering media and communications strategies for our core campaigns and activities, managing incoming media inquiries, building relationships with journalists and writing and editing media materials and other copy.

Strong marketing, media relations or public relations and relationship management experience within a national organisation is essential. You will enjoy working as part of a team that takes a proactive approach to boosting Friends of the Earth's media coverage and public profile. You will be a strong project manager with a sound understanding of media relations, creative PR techniques, web 2.0 and brand management.

Your PR and communications skills are more important than your previous experience of environmental issues. You will be able to inspire people across Friends of the Earth with creative communication techniquesthat shape public opinion and political thinking and engage celebrity supporters in line with agreed strategic priorities.

You will join a seven-strong team whose collective responsibilities and skills include:

· Providing an effective and rapid response to high profile media issues

· Offering a first class service to journalists including swift access to information, comment, interviewees and organisational expertise

· Writing articles, press releases, statements and internal and external briefings using language that is understood by our target audiences

· Creating and implementing communications and media strategies for campaigns

· Developing and managing relationships with celebrity supporters

· Managing media and public relations issues

· Producing online content and managing our presence on social networking sites

· Briefing and training Friends of the Earth spokespeople

The Communications and Media Team works closely with many other teams in Friends of the Earth including Campaigns, Activism, the Parliamentary Unit, Publications and New Media, Creative Communications and Fundraising.

You may be required to travel, both nationally and internationally, and to occasionally work outside core office hours.

You will also take part in the rota for our team's 24-hour out-of-hours media service.

Role profile

Role: Communications and Media Officer	Home team : Communications and Media
Purpose of role: To use public communications to promote Friends of the Earth's work to key audiences	Reports to: Communications and Media Manager
Required to perform a combination of the following, depending on team/unit and experience: Deliver outcomes: Apply specialist communications expertise to generate positive publicity for Friends of the Earth's in line with our communications objectives. Develop and deliver communications strategies - including aims, audience analysis. Use public-facing communications to achieve activity or campaign objectives, coordinating with others internally and externally to deliver them. Deliver a broad range of media coverage by using different communication approaches. Develop others: Educate and train colleagues on the development of PR strategies for generating publicity and raising the profile of Friends of the Earth's public information programmes, and on the development of initiatives and links with Local Groups on PR work. Support less experienced team members. Recruit volunteers including intern or placement students or government-sponsored trainees. Train and supervise the volunteers and review their work. May have delegated authority for allocating and managing the work of other staff or consultants. Build relationships: Develop effective external relationships with others who may publicly support or participate in communications work, media and publicity activities e.g. celebrities; media; external organisations; staff in the Friends of the Earth network. Manage Friends of the Earth's reputation and brand through public communications, including alerting appropriate staff and coordinating an organisation-wide response to issues. Create positive publicity for the organisation by attending and/or representing Friends of the Earth at internal and external conferences and other meetings relevant to the programme; represent Friends of the Earth to the media as appropriate. Ideas and solutions: Contribute to team planning and strategic communications development. Use creative skills to increase Friends of the Earth's public exposure.	Expertise: Needs to have: Specialist experience in one or more of the following areas: Experience of delivering successful communications using public or media relations, or developing public information programmes. Demonstrable ability to rapidly assimilate and retain knowledge relating to Friends of the Earth's campaigning, fundraising and marketing strategies. Proven ability to develop, plan, manage and evaluate communications projects. Proven ability to write promotional materials and articles for publication to a high standard. Focus of expertise: Applying specialist public communications expertise and project management skills to maximise publicity for Friends of the Earth. Focus of development: Building experience and knowledge of using a range of specialist communications techniques as appropriate. Keeping up to date with industry developments. Building own specialist area of communications skills.
Career stage: Specialist	Levels: 2-8, references at 4 and 6
Other essential requirements for the role-holder: Occasional travel and work outside core hours. Take part in rota to meet Friends of the Earth's need for 24-hour media cover. Role specific requirements: N/A

Background information

Salary
The starting salary if you are based in London is in a range from £25,515 to £33,900 a year.

The top of the salary range for this role is £38,720 a year. If you are employed to work less than a full time 35 hour week your pay will be based on the number of hours you work as a percentage of full time.

We have a competence based career stages pay structure. Each competence level relates to a pay level.

Based on what you demonstrate during the recruitment process, we gather evidence to assess the level of competence on our career stage structure that you already fully meet. We pay you at this level. Please note: we do not negotiate your pay level.

After you join, you can progress your pay by demonstrating increased competence at annual appraisal against the criteria for the career stages associated with your role profile.

Pension / Life Assurance
You can join our group personal pension scheme after three months service. You can choose from a range of socially responsible funds. We will match your contributions up to a maximum of seven per cent of salary but you may contribute more if you want to build your pension up.

Friends of the Earth also provides life assurance for all employees, to pay out 4 x your annual salary in the event of your death while you are employed by us.

Place of work
You will be based at our Head Office near Old Street

Hours of work
35 hours per week. Friends of the Earth operates a flexi time scheme with normal core office
hours of between 10.00-12.30 and 14.30-16.30, within a working time bandwidth of 07.00-20.00.
You are entitled to an unpaid lunch break of between 30 minutes and two hours.

If you need to work evenings and/or weekends, you should record it through the time recording system.

Holiday
The holiday year at Friends of the Earth runs from 1 January to 31 December each year. Holiday entitlement is initially 25 days paid holiday per year. You can accrue an extra day’s holiday entitlement, up to a maximum of 30 days, for every full year of continuous employment at the beginning of the holiday year (1 January). You are also entitled to paid time off for public holidays. There are some exceptions to this such as when you are on maternity / adoption leave or long term leave of absence.

Diversity and equal opportunities
We give all applications fair consideration. We have a Diversity Forum to drive us forward to being a more diverse organisation in all we do.

We regret that Friends of the Earth does not yet have full wheel chair access.

Working culture
Everything we do, from the day to day operational work to strategic planning, is done with a commitment to participation.

It works for us. We want you to feel involved in all that we do: able to contribute to decision making in ways that make sense and work for you. You can choose not to participate but if you don’t you still have to accept decisions that we take in this way.

It’s an opportunity and a responsibility. We all

accept responsibility with authority and accountability for their actions
act as leaders and visionaries
participate and contribute in an appropriate way at the appropriate times
actively follow through on decisions made through agreed processes, even if they do not agree with the outcome
are willing to be swayed by others
exert self-discipline
praise and challenge themselves and others, rather than waiting for feedback from on high
exhibit respect for others in the organisation
are transparent in the way they do things
show trust and confidence in each other
respect expertise
celebrate success and talk up their organisation internally as well as externally
provide constructive feedback
recognise the importance of communication and sharing information across teams

Loans
We offer interest free loans to all staff for the following:
Season ticket - up to £5,000
Bicycle - up to £5,000 to buy a pedal bicycle for travel to and from work
Personal Development - up to £2,000 to pay for courses, qualifications etc that we do not directly fund
Total of all loans cannot exceed £5,000, the current taxable limit.

Childcare vouchers
You can sacrifice some of your gross salary to buy vouchers for childcare. This can be worth doing as you don’t have to pay tax or National Insurance contributions on the value of the vouchers.

Removal expenses
If you have to move home to be able to take up employment with Friends of the Earth you can claim up to £3000 removal expenses, payable on submission of receipts. For further information and to find out if you qualify contact Human Resources.

Discount card
You can get a card which allows you discounts at local leisure centres.

Online Shop
Our online Shop stocks an extensive range of reading materials on environmental issues from the political to the practical. Staff and volunteers are entitled to 30% off ALL titles sold in the Shop. Log onto www.foe.co.uk/shop

Flexible Working
We consider applications for flexible working arrangements from staff with at least six months service. This can be:

Reduced hours: where we agree that you can work fewer contractual hours than in your current role.
Job Sharing: where we agree that two people can share the same role.
Changing Office Location: where we agree that you can work from a different Friends of the Earth office.

Background information
Friends of the Earth is making life better for people by inspiring solutions to environmental problems.

We are:

the UK's most influential national environmental campaigning organisation
the most extensive environmental network in the world, with around two million supporters across five continents and more than 75 national organisations worldwide
a unique network of campaigning local groups, working in more than 220 communities throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland
dependent on individuals for over 90 % of its income.

Organisational structure
We employ about 150 paid staff, based mainly in our London Head Office. We also have a Supporter Care unit in Luton and smaller regional offices in major cities across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Volunteers play a vital role in our success as an organisation and we currently have around 75 volunteers working in our national and regional offices.

We are led by a management team of our Executive Director and other staff who bring the necessary strategic and operational expertise to ensure we achieve our Strategic Plan. We do this through activities and programmes of work, mostly in cross-functional teams. Members of this management team have individual responsibilities to ensure the delivery of specific activities and collective responsibilities for ensuring the delivery of the whole plan.

All staff member are part of a ‘home team’, led by a team leader who provides professional support and development, coaching and other line management functions.

Here are the strategic aims we want to achieve by 2013.

Biodiversity and ecosystem services
To halt biodiversity loss and reverse the loss of ecosystem services by 2030 at the global, regional and national levels, in ways that protect the rights of people who depend on ecosystem services and enhance the sustainable use of natural habitats.
Climate change
To get global concentrations of greenhouse gases on a trajectory to prevent average global temperatures exceeding 2 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels by promoting solutions, including the securing of legal and economic frameworks to reduce emissions in an equitable way and in a way that does not undermine biodiversity objectives
Sustainable Economies and Resource Use
Identify the major transformations that must be made to the UK economy and economic policy, and secure actions to achieve these - so that we respect global environmental limits, ensure fair access to resources and pollution capacities, and deliver well-being to all people; and help catalyse transformations to the global economy. And implement improvements to UK and EU resource use.
Rights
To secure a substantive right to a healthy environment in UK law; strengthen the Aarhus procedural rights; and empower people to use their environmental rights.
Delivering Sustainable Development in Nations and Regions
Make a significant shift towards sustainable development in regions and nations, and assist the move towards Sustainable Development in the UK, predominantly through the delivery of the low carbon communities campaign but also assisting in the delivery of resource use, biodiversity and rights solutions as identified in other Aims and, where necessary, responding to significant cases of environmental injustices affecting those campaign areas.
International
Through effective collaboration with others secure a strong and co-ordinated FOEI federation that wins international campaigns on mutually agreed programmes.
Reputation and Reach
Through the delivery of the Brand Strategy: ensure that Friends of the Earth’s prioritised audiences recognise Friends of the Earth as the leading organisation that involves people in campaigning for solutions to the global sustainability challenges and makes life better for people.
Supporter Development Aim
To maximise the value and commitment of all the people who support us.
Activism
In the UK, Friends of the Earth is supporting and empowering its expanded activist networks to act with sufficient force to achieve its campaign aims.
As a result, substantially more people in the UK feel empowered to take political action for environmental solutions.
Fundraising
To create a secure and stable income base for the organisation, sufficient to implement the strategic plan
Organisational Development
Friends of the Earth is fit for purpose to deliver the strategic plan.

How to apply

We want staff to share our vision and join in our success. We aim to recruit the best person for any vacancy. We communicate our vacancies widely and openly and are committed to giving all applicants fair consideration.

We use the information you give us in your application form to decide whether to invite you to interview. We want you to do the best application you can. Here's some guidance to help you.

First

Role profile first. This sets out what we are looking for under specific headings which we call the competencies of this role. You need to relate your experience to these same headings which appear on the application form.
Introduction (and supplementary information). This tells you about the work you will be doing if you are successful.
Background – the terms and conditions of this role and some of the benefits of working here

Applying

Please note : We're unable to sponsor a visa application for anyone who cannot supply the original of one of documents accepted under the Asylum and Immigration Act (1996) as evidence that you're allowed to work in the UK. Please do not apply if you cannot fulfil this legal requirement.

The headings in the application form match those in the role profile. Think about how well your knowledge, skills and abilities fit what we are looking for in the role profile and supplementary information. Don't just tell us that you have the skills listed in the role profile or say that you believe you can do the job. Under each of the headings please give us real examples of what you did, when and how you did it and what part you personally played.

Check you are free to come on the planned interview date. If not, please tell us on your application why you can't come and tell us when you are free to come.

Keep a copy of your application form before you submit it online or post it to us.

We send an automated email in response to online applications but can't acknowledge posted forms.

We encourage online applications but you can also download a copy of the application form as a PDF and post it to us.

Shortlisting

At least two people assess how closely your application matches what we are looking for and decide the interview shortlist. We contact shortlisted candidates by phone and ask them to come to interview.

Interviews

If we invite you for an interview we will ask you in more detail about what you have done so you might want to remind yourself what you wrote in your application and be able to talk to the interview panel about it. We often ask candidates to do a job-related exercise to help us assess their competence in particular areas; some are given unseen on the day of the interview, others you will be told about in advance of the interview so you can prepare. When we ask you to interview we will tell you if you will have to do an exercise. If we haven't contacted you by the interview date your application has not been successful.

Feedback

If we interview you, we will let you know the outcome and are happy to give feedback if you would like this. Many of our vacancies are very popular and unfortunately we don't have the resources to be able to offer feedback to you if you were not shortlisted.

References Please give names and contact details for 2 people not related to you, who can give us a reference based on direct personal knowledge of you and your abilities. All appointments are subject to receipt of references that are satisfactory to us . One of these references must be your current or most recent line manager or client if you are undertaking consultancy work. We will not contact them without asking you first or before making an offer of employment.
Name	Name
How does this person know you?	How does this person know you?
Address	Address
Email address	Email address
Tel No	Tel No

Work History Please list below your working history starting with your current or most recent job and work backwards. Say where you have worked, start and end dates, your job title and if this was paid or voluntary work. If there are any significant gaps please explain these. You do not need to tell us in this section about your skills as you can do that later.
Employer	Start	End	Job title	Employee/Volunteer/Note