This section will tell you how to get your MLA involved in your campaign.

Your MLA/s should be championing your river and the key focus for the ‘Our Rivers NI Campaign.’ Your MLA can lobby officials and the Environment Minister Edwin Poots, putting your river on the map, whilst at the same time moving rivers up the political agenda.

The extent to which your MLA will put time into your river will depend on how serious, how relevant and how important they consider the problems to be. Most MLAs take up issues because local people and organisations contact them with a well presented concern. If you contact your constituency MLA he or she should certainly write letters (to officials and Ministers) on your behalf if you ask them to, and will copy you the response. Don't forget, your MLA will get hundreds of letters and emails each week, so make yours personable and clear about the issue and how it affects their constituents as well as being clear about what you are asking them to do.

Constituency issues and casework make up a significant part of most MLAs workload but often they are doing this work behind the scenes. You are not only presenting a well researched case that needs representing, you can also give them the means to show their support to the wider constituency, without taking up lots of their time or adding in a big way to their workload.

To get your MLA Involved just follow these steps:

1) Find out who your local MLA is. Go to www.theyworkforyou.com. Go to ‘Your representative’ and type in your postcode – this will tell you who your local MLA is. You may live in one constituency but want to stand up for a river in another MLA's constituency. If this is the case, write to both MLA's. Example letters can be found here. If you are a group, see if one of your members lives in that MLA's constituency - they will respond better to a constituent contacting them on your behalf.

2) Write them a letter requesting a meeting at their next surgery. Use our draft letter to an MLA from the Our Rivers NI website. Describe the specific issues affecting your water body, and make the letter as personal as possible and relevant to the constituency/catchment and the waterbody you are concerned with.

3) Follow this up with a phone call to check it’s ok meet them. Their phone number should be available on the MLA's own website. Use an internet search engine such as Google or Yahoo to locate their website, then go to the contact information section on the website. Call them, ask if they have received the letter and arrange a suitable time to meet them.

4) Meet them and give them an overview of the issues your river faces. Before meeting them prepare a mini-agenda, outlining the key points you want to talk about – these should have already been outlined in the original letter you wrote to them. Make sure you stick to the point and ensure your message is heard. Also, ensure that you ask your MLA to visit www.ourriversni.org.uk and Stand up for their River by putting their pin in the map.  Be as positive as possible and point to solutions to the problems.

5) Get them to stand up for your River - Request a Photocall with you, the MLA and the local press at the river of concern. Ask them if they would like to come and visit your river so that you can talk through its problems, and mention that you would like to arrange a press Photocall with them standing in or by your River with you (make sure you let them know about this in advance and get them to bring appropriate clothing!).

You will need to find a stretch of river that is shallow, slow flowing and accessible (for press) enough to wade in, to literally make your stand. A press opportunity is a potentially strong incentive for them to attend, a bit of positive media attention for them should go down well! But remember your MLA will only spend a certain amount of time in his/her constituency and their diary gets booked up weeks in advance.  If  you are up for organising a 'Stand Up for Your River' press call, contact their office

as soon as possible and get it in the diary.

6) Asking your MLA to raise the issue in the Assembly. There are various ways your MLA can do this - we can help you. Contact Claire Cockerill or John Martin at ccockerill@wwf.org.uk and john.martin@rspb.org.uk for guidance on what you might

ask them to do.

Remember the more engaged an MLA is, the more they will work on the issue.