MOMENTUM trained dozens of Scottish Labour activists to pass on organising skills at the weekend, in the first session of its kind north of the border, writes Conrad Landin.

The left group’s session at the Pearce Institute in Govan, Glasgow, targeted active members from across Scotland.

Participants are in turn expected to lead training sessions in community organising.

The skills include the basics of running campaigns in local areas, such as resisting the closure of youth centres, libraries or NHS services.

Activists are schooled in the process of “community mapping,” where they consider all of an area’s institutions, interests and key players before launching a campaign.

Momentum national training organiser Beth Foster-Ogg, who led the session along with the group’s Scotland organiser Jess Galloway, told activists: “It’s about using communities as a resource but also actually supporting them.”

The group, which has a joint membership scheme in Scotland with the older and smaller Campaign for Socialism, now plans to write to its members north of the border asking for expressions of interest in training from local groups and Labour Party branches.