LWN Weekend Leadership Schools

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Our Weekend Leadership Schools are designed for women who are in or thinking of taking on leadership roles at any level in the Party, from branch officer to parliamentary candidate and everything in between. The course is very intensive with a high trainer/trainee ratio and plenty of time to think about yourself and your future. You will acquire new skills, learn how to build your profile and play to your strengths and meet some great Labour women.

The weekends will include sessions and workshops on issues such as team-building, problem-solving, meeting challenges and developing self-care and resilience (amongst others) as well as a dinner on the Saturday night.

Our next three Weekend Schools planned, are as follows:

Previous weekend schools have been held in Sheffield, Durham and Swindon

LWN heavily subsidises the cost of the weekend for women who are members. If you’re not a member you will need to pay the full charge, but if you wish to join there is a special rate available. If you are a member, and are on a low wage or on benefits, you can apply for a bursary which would enable us to waive the fee altogether.

The fee includes accommodation on the Saturday night, dinner on Saturday, breakfast on Sunday, lunch and all refreshments (except alcoholic drinks) on both days, and all training and materials. Detailed charges are on the application form but, basically, they are as follows.

                        LWN Member Rate                £150

                        Non-Member Rate                 £320

                        Joining Offer                         £175 (not including membership subscription - join here)

If you live locally to the venue and don't want to stay overnight it is possible just to attend for both days at a lower cost, but it is not possible to attend for one day only; each School is a developmental course rather than just a series of workshops.

Because we want all women who attend our Schools to get the most out of them, we have a couple of criteria;

• you must have been a member of the Labour Party for at least a year, and
• you must have a basic working knowledge of how the Party’s structures work at local level.

As with all our training, places are limited, so you need to apply early. To do this, please complete the application form here.

Jean Black Bursary Fund
All LWN’s training opportunities are subsidised by our membership and fundraising income. However, the Jean Black Bursary Fund allows us to go further and enable women who wouldn’t normally be able to afford training opportunities to participate and reap the benefits from it.

The Jean Black Bursary Fund is open to any LWN members (membership must be active at the time of applying for your training) who are low-waged, on benefits, or single parents.  If you are successful in your bursary application, the bursary will cover the total cost of the training plus an extra £50 towards travel or caring costs. We currently offer five fully funded bursary places per course.

If you would like to attend our training and receive a bursary, please use the link above.

Within the application form, there is a tick box to say you wish to apply for a bursary. Anyone wishing to apply for a bursary must do so by the application deadline (stated above), and once this deadline has passed, we will email you with specific requests regarding the bursary.  

Please be aware that as our bursary scheme has a limited number of places available, it is often over subscribed, and that we therefore cannot guarantee to be able to accept every application.

Please note that all fees must be paid 2 weeks before the course you are attending, and that if you book a place and then fail to attend without giving us reasonable notice we will have to charge you the full non-member cost if we can’t reallocate your place. This is because we will still have to pay the venue even if you don’t attend, and our funding comes from our members.