26 Feb 2025
How to make a campaign scarf
The important thing is decorating your scarves with messages and images to represent your local community. So, you could get crafty and knit, crochet or sew your own scarves if you’d like to. Or you could decorate old scarves, collecting them from your community or buying them from a charity shop.
How to add messages to your scarves
Invite people to create a fabric or paper patch to attach to your scarves. They can add images representing how they feel about the energy crisis, handwritten messages sharing their experiences of cold homes or demands for action from the government.
Make your scarf activity accessible to everyone in your community by collecting messages online as well via email, social media or our Action Network template (send us an email and we can set you up on Action Network). You can then attach these messages to the scarves yourself.
We’ve got a limited number of craft kits available to help you make your patches. Get in touch if you’d like a kit. Otherwise, check out our instructions below.
As well as personal messages and drawings, invite your partners to create a patch with their name or logo. You might also want to include local data on the energy crisis (which you can find on our map) and your group's name. Use our template letters and numbers to help with this.
Engage your community
To make your scarves as impactful as possible, aim to show the breadth of support for your campaign. The best way to do this is by running community scarf-making sessions. You could run events in a local community space like a library, or invite people to make patches at a stall or workshop at local festivals and events. Think outside the box to try and reach new people in your community, especially those most impacted by the energy crisis. Find out more about how to run campaigning events and stalls.
Another great way to engage local people is by working with local partners. Ask to run a scarf-making session together, or share resources so they can run a session of their own. Find out more about building partnerships and local support.
Promote your scarf-making sessions to your mailing list, on social media (you can use our template posts) and by putting up posters in the local area. Invite your partners to do the same to reach as many people as possible. Remember to include a way for people to submit messages online too.
Once people have made a patch, you can give them a United for Warm Homes fabric patch in return to attach to their own scarf. This means they can show their support for the campaign and keep spreading the word. Order United for Warm Homes patches.
How to share your scarves with your politicians
Involve your local politicians by asking them for a meeting, inviting them to a scarf-making session or bringing your scarves to a local event they’re attending.
Share your community’s heartfelt messages and urge them to take action. If your politician is supportive of the campaign, invite them to take a photo with local people wearing the scarves. Then ask them to continue championing the campaign by:
- Sharing the photo on their social media and expressing their support for warm homes.
- Wearing a United for Warm Homes patch on their own scarf.
- Raising the issue within their party or in parliament.
If your politician isn’t willing to meet, don’t worry. You can still get their attention by using your scarves in a photo stunt. Take a photo with lots of local people wrapped up in the scarves or attach your scarves to local landmarks to create an eye-catching image. Share these photos on social media and send out a press release explaining why you made the scarves and the lack of engagement from your politician. This will help put pressure on them and spread the word about the campaign locally.
Find out more about how to win commitments from decision makers on warm homes.
