Political Party Activities

MF Teambuilding & Strategic Planning Workshop

29-31 August 2008, Glenmore Pastoral Centre, Durban

The workshop for the Minority Front was well attended by representatives from all parts of KwaZulu Natal and was focused mainly around preparing the team for the election campaigning period that would be starting soon. Areas that were covered included team building, strategic planning and an opportunity to experiment with new political and social models. Delegates had the opportunity to engage with each other and the different structures in order to ensure that the team had a common vision of what needed to be achieved.

NADECO Leadership and Teambuilding Workshop

15-17 August 2008, Saints Hospitality Centre, Durban

Mr V. Ngema (Member of Parliament) attended the workshop, and the 5 Year NADECO Strategic Framework was produced as one of the critical outcomes of this engagement. "It was hard work but highly pleasing to facilitate this important process." (Themba J. Blose, Executive Director, Blose&Blose Development Consultancy, workshop facilitator)

ACDP Strategic Planning Workshop

25-26 July 2008, Glenmore Pastoral Centre, Durban

DDP hosted a strategic planning workshop for the Provincial Executive of the ACDP in Durban. The workshop focused on improving the functioning of the team in terms of needs identified by the team. The workshop focused on setting up a proper communication strategy and a good team support structure to the various branches of the Party. The deputy leader of the party at National level as well as the KZN provincial Head were present and were impressed with the level of participation as well as the outcomes.

DA Workshop: Self Awareness and Relationship Management

9-10 July 2008

The workshop was commissioned in order to provide the role of Constituency Operations Manager (COM) within the Staff structure of the Democratic Alliance with theoretical input and support with regards to managing their relationships with Public Representatives and Members of Parliament and the Legislature. The workshop was attended by the COM’s and their line Manager, the Regional Director. The scope of the workshop was to provide the COMs and their manager with an opportunity to learn some new skills and perspectives to enable them to better manage their relationships, handle conflict, develop assertiveness and empower themselves in the face of these challenges.

Leadership and Teambuilding Workshop: African Nazareth Democratic Movement

6-8 June 2008

The workshop was facilitated by Mr JB Karumbiza. Researcher (Rural Sociology, Development, Land and Agrarian Economics) University of KwaZulu-Natal. The party showed enthusiasm and eagerness to participate in the upcoming elections while appreciating the odds they have to go through. A strategy and six month plan was drafted. The party brought people with very diverse backgrounds. They acknowledge that they need to embark on an ongoing process of learning to be able to articulate the social and economic issues and other concerns that they have in a politically useful and relevant way.

Leadership Workshop: United Democratic Movement

31 May - 1 June 2008

A team building and leadership workshop was held for the leadership of the UDM recently. The workshop focused on how to make the team work more effectively and efficiently as well as looking at issues of value based leadership. Participants were drawn from all structures of the party and shared their ideas on a range of issues and space was created for constructive dialogue and debate. The Deputy President of the party the Honourable Prof Ntopile Marcel Kganyago (Deputy Minister of Public Works) was present for the duration of the workshop.

Team building and leadership workshop-Aspirant Young Political leaders

(14-16 September 2007)

Every year, DDP is holding multi-party workshops by bringing youth members from different political parties together. This year, members of 6 political parties attended with the purpose to debate and work around the concerns and challenges facing the youth of this country.

After this workshop, delegates had a clear understanding of the South African political context and the role of young people within party political structures. Furthermore, the value of team work and organizational dynamics was repeatedly stressed.

Team Building Workshop for IFP (eThekwini)

(4 - 9 August, Durban)

The IFP caucus of eThekwini requested a workshop in order to build and strengthen their team to be better equipped to work more effectively in terms of service delivery for their constituency. This team building workshop was conducted over 3 days and included all councillors.

Capacity Building for Political Parties
(19 - 21 July, Durban)
This capacity building workshop for political parties brought together young leaders from six different political parties in KwaZulu-Natal in order to workshop on issues around leadership. Many of the delegates were already in leadership positions and therefore possessed a good degree of positional power within their party structures.
The purpose of these workshops is to let people experientially participate in a process that surfaces real leadership issues and to use these examples to introspect and learn about leadership.