Agenda Comms

Home
United Kingdom
London
Agenda Comms

Here to help you think big, be brave and stay real when communicating for social impact. We’ve been embracing change over recent months. Welcome to Agenda.

You may know us as Slack Communications; you may have worked with us over the last 10 years, heard us speak at events, or followed us on social. Our leadership team has grown. We’ve got new services, new skills, new knowledge – all of which we’re looking forward to sharing with you under our new name, Agenda. Our name and look are different, but you can expect the same energy, culture of cooperati

on, and commitment to your success that we’ve always offered. When you work with us, you get:

* Your very own team of comms professionals who have exactly the skills you require, built around your goals and budget.

* A programme of work tailored to your specific needs. We always work with you, rather than doing stuff to you, drawing on the latest insight, learnings from others, and our collective experiences to create significant and sustainable impact.

* A partner in comms whose values match your own, acting as a compass for all we say and do. You can read more about what we stand for. For more details on the range of services offered, please visit our website:
https://your-agenda.com

05/11/2025

Which one of our team grew up in the Solomon Islands?

Meet Rebecca Haack, our operations manager who is the glue that keeps us all together!

Rebecca covers all things related to business, systems and finance, and she’s essential to the smooth running of Agenda.

Here’s what else you should know about Rebecca:

🔸She’s worked in strategic and organisational management for over 20 years, across the charity/voluntary, community development and public planning sectors.

🔸Rebecca has a Masters in Community Development and Peace Studies.

🔸Based in Glasgow, Rebecca lives with her husband and two cats and likes spending time in her garden, chatting to visiting birds.

🔸She’s also passionate about human rights and social justice, and loves travelling and going to music gigs and festivals.

To get to know us all a little better, sign up to our quarterly newsletter where we share comms insights, tips and big ideas: https://your-agenda.com/latest/our-newsletter

04/11/2025

Want to change the world? Start with your comms.

Are you a charity, union or social impact organisation looking to sharpen your messaging to make real impact?

Our newsletter delivers:

💫Free practical resources
💫Expert comms advice
💫Event invites & discounts

Get smarter, stronger comms — subscribe now: https://your-agenda.com/latest/our-newsletter

03/11/2025

The clocks went back and we got an extra hour in October: we’ve put it to good use with another busy month supporting great causes and helping organisations improve their comms strategies.

Read our monthly round-up now: https://your-agenda.com/latest/blog/monthly-round-up-oct25

31/10/2025

🎃👻 The pumpkins are carved and the ghoulish decorations are up, but for many organisations it isn’t Hallowe’en bringing the scary...reputational risks are a real fright all year round, especially the ones you can’t control, for example, celebrity partnerships.

While it’s true that star power can light up your campaign, it can also cast long shadows – so to make sure yours is more treat than trick, follow our helpful concoction:

🕸️ A ghost in the machine? Do your risk assessment. Know what could come back to haunt you.

🕯️ The witching hour: Be ready to act fast if something goes wrong.

🪞 Mirror, mirror: Make sure your celebrity’s values truly reflect your own.

Treat celebrity partnerships like a haunted house: go in prepared, stay alert and don’t ignore the warning signs.

For more (non-Hallowe'en themed!) tips, read the full article: https://your-agenda.com/latest/resources/navigating-the-risks-of-working-with-celebriti

27/10/2025

Which of our team judges the British Journalism Awards?

Meet our co-director, Becky Slack!

Becky is an expert in media and political communications in the UK and internationally.

What you might not know about Becky:

🔹In 2021, she gained a Masters in Political Strategy and Communications from the Brussels School of International Studies and is a massive comms theory geek – which means she’s always up to date with the latest theory to back up comms practice

🔹Drawing on nearly 30 years of experience as a journalist and editor, she judges the British Journalism Awards, and has also written a book about Effective Media Relations for Charities

🔹She’s happiest when trying to use her communications and fundraising skills to create a world where everyone can thrive

🔹Born in the UK, Becky has also lived in Australia, France and now Belgium. She likes to spend her free time soaking up Gent’s café culture and practising her terrible French and Dutch language skills.

To get to know us all a little better sign up to our quarterly newsletter where we share comms insights, tips and big ideas: https://your-agenda.com/latest/our-newsletter

24/10/2025

Want to get your hands on some top tips, ideas and advice on everything comms?

We’re all about learning and sharing at Agenda so we’ve collated our ‘how to’ guides into a one-stop-resource ready for you to use, for free.

We’ve themed them around our strategic comms pillars of insight, influence and impact, and with topics covering:

💫How to frame and develop your storytelling
💫How to write a value proposition
💫How to set and measure KPIs

You can see all the resources here: https://your-agenda.com/latest/resources?page=1

We’ve drawn on the expertise of our co-directors, Vic Barlow and Becky Slack, and our brilliant associates, who have years of experience working in-house and with agencies across the charity, union and membership sectors.

Why not take a look – and let us know what else you’d like us to cover?

21/10/2025

Which of our team ran a microbrewery in South London?

Meet our co-director, Vic Barlow!

Vic has worked in large complex organisations and small start-ups, and offers depth of experience in both strategy and tactics.

What you might not know about Vic:

🔸 Starting her career in journalism, where she once interviewed Chewbacca, Vic next became a press officer Local Government Association then on to teachers’ union, NASUWT

🔸 As the Assistant General Secretary, Vic oversaw the comms for the historic ballot of Association of Teachers and Lecturers members – which led to its amalgamation with the National Union of Teachers – creating the National Education Union

🔸 Her clients now include the Society of Radiographers, train drivers’ union ASLEF and youth homelessness charity, Centrepoint

🔸 There’s an entrepreneurial side too – Vic set up a microbrewery in South London

🔸 A self-confessed spreadsheet addict, Vic can also be found in her garden – probably with a trowel in one hand and well-crafted beer in the other.

To get to know us all a little better, sign up to our quarterly newsletter where we share comms insights, tips and big ideas: https://your-agenda.com/latest/our-newsletter

17/10/2025

🚧At Agenda, we spend a lot of time in our discovery phase, figuring out where you are now, where you want to be and how we’re going to get you there.

And when it comes to our CRM projects, we are fanatical about our foundation stage – because your strategy must drive your choice of platform.

Here’s what solid prep looks like 👇

✅ Start with strategy
Know what your organisation wants to achieve – recruitment, retention, influence – and make sure your choice of platform can be configured to capture the information and deliver the activities to serve those goals

🗺 Map what you already do
Understand your existing processes and data flows – what needs to shift into a new system, what needs creating, what needs scrapping

🔍 Dig deeper
Find pain points in workflows, duplication of effort and where better data and functions could ease processes and reduce workload – and share any quick wins en route

💬 Engage your people
Get input from staff, reps, volunteers and members early so they can reveal their current ways of working and share their aspirations for what better tech can achieve for them

At Agenda, we’ve helped ASLEF, AEP and BALPA with their CRM procurement and implementation so they can recruit, retain and engage members more effectively. The second of our two-blog series sees Vic Barlow exploring how to build strong CRM foundations: your-agenda.com/latest/resources/how-to-build-solid-foundations-for-a-new-crm

16/10/2025

💡Are you still relying on spreadsheets, post-it notes and your boss’s head to store information? Are you using unconnected platforms for people’s details, event sign-ups, email distribution, surveys, elections and payment collections?

Then it might be time to consider a CRM. More than a place to record names and bank details, a CRM is a one-stop-shop to manage, and learn from, your organisation’s activities:

▶️A place to hold every person's details and their interactions with you – including when they joined, renewed or resigned – so you can spot and act on useful trends

▶️A means of communicating with people via integrated apps – so you can see who is always engaging with your emails, surveys, events and organise them into more active roles

▶️A seamless way for people to update their details including their opt-in preferences – so have clean and compliant data

▶️A source of information to populate dashboards for reps and officials to see their local numbers and trends

At Agenda, we’ve helped ASLEF, AEP and BALPA with their CRM updating, procurement and implementation so they can capture and analyse their data more effectively.

In the first of our two-blog series, Vic Barlow looks at how data can power your organisation’s next move 👇

https://your-agenda.com/latest/resources/using-data-how-a-crm-can-support-your-organisational-strategy

15/10/2025

You’ve written your communications plan – but how do you make it stick?

Too often, well-designed comms plans gather dust because they’re not embedded across the organisation. The first challenge is writing the plan – the hardest bit is getting people to use it and build it into the way they work.

We’ve pulled together some practical tips so your plan creates real change:

🔹 Define what success looks like – in one clear sentence that everyone can remember.

🔹 Understand and plan for barriers to change, whether cultural, procedural or technological.

🔹 Secure senior leadership buy-in early.

🔹 Build a cross-departmental project team to carry momentum.

🔹 Set clear KPIs, milestones and tools for tracking progress.

🔹 Celebrate quick wins, share stories of success and enlist “super adopters” to spread enthusiasm.

🔹 Embed the plan into objectives and performance reviews so it becomes part of everyday work.

Read the full article on how to make your comms plan stick 👇

👉 https://your-agenda.com/latest/blog/how-to-make-a-comms-plan-stick

09/10/2025

One of our ongoing challenges as a comms agency is striking the right balance between sharing the stories that attract media attention – since bad news often drives headlines – and ensuring our clients’ voices remain hopeful and solutions-focused.

For NASUWT, the teachers’ union, the media provides an excellent route to influence policymakers, demonstrate its work to members and encourage the public to support teachers.

So how could the union improve its chances of getting coverage and reaching the audiences that matter? At the start of this year, we helped NASUWT understand in detail how the media had been framing education stories, and how the government had been talking about teachers. We found:

* Crisis coverage dominated, particularly around teacher shortages and policy failure, which often reduced teachers to victims or costs. This needed countering with stories that gave teachers agency and authority.

* Evidence-based, solutions-led stories did exist - and when they elevated professional voices and offered credible alternatives, these 'real life’ stories cut through more than general critique.

* After the election, Labour’s positioning changed from crisis and protest to partnership and progress - giving NASUWT a chance to reframe its storytelling and show its mission aligned with the government’s ambitions, without losing its independence.

🗞️Want to know more about Agenda’s Comms Lab research? Read how we helped NASUWT reframe its positioning: https://your-agenda.com/our-work/all-case-studies/strengthening-education-communications-in-a-changing-policy-landscape

Address

Virtual
London

Website

http://www.your-agenda.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Agenda Comms posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Agenda Comms:

Want your business to be the top-listed Media Company in London?

Our Story

Slack Communications helps businesses, charities and individuals tell their stories more effectively so they can reach their full potential. We do this by:

Reviewing your current communications and marketing activities to help you understand what’s working and what’s not.

Writing communications and marketing strategies that will help you reach bigger and better audiences and to sell more products and services.

Providing you with advice, support and training so that you and your team achieve your potential easily and effectively.

Our work falls in three key areas:

Editorial We make multiplatform magazines and newsletters; we report the news and shout about successes; we write features, speeches, reports and presentations.

PR and Communications We help people reach new audiences and start conversations; we build and strengthen brands and reputations; we organise briefings, receptions, conferences, and parties.

Training We train people in how to tell their stories more effectively; how to work with the press and how to make the most of tools such as newsletters and social media.

Since 2013, our talent collective has worked with businesses, charities, media outlets and government bodies. We have working knowledge of social affairs, business and charity management, and tourism, among others.

We have helped secure our clients coverage on TV and radio and in the pages of newspapers, websites and magazines in more than 20 countries around the world. We have enabled them to grow their digital presence, reach their target audiences via websites, email and social media, and have trained them so they can secure the best possible bang for their marcomms buck.

How can we help you today?