One way or another, this forum, this network of non-governmental organisations, regions and associations will have to be able to make its voice heard and, when necessary, heard by the Convention.
And if the public doesn't make its voice heard, it will.
The legendary naturalist John Muir once wrote: "Whenever I met a new plant, I would sit down beside it for a minute or a day, to make its acquaintance, hear what it had to tell".
Certainly, parliament can make its voice heard, but it can hardly change anything that the government has decided to do.
Labour, whose leader has no instinctive affinity with the EU, may struggle to make its voice heard, but it is sufficiently committed to Britain's continuing membership to decline to play political footsie with the timetable.
The third sector has to make its voice heard so it can influence the policy and practice decisions that make a lifetime's difference to children and young people who find themselves in or on the edge of the care system.
Ahead of internal company elections to works councils this March, it is keen to make its voice heard, cause trouble and recruit support.One of SUD's feats is to have made the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), France's powerful communist-backed union, seem moderate.
They reflect the fact that many Europeans want a Christian church available at times of grief or celebration even if they rarely darken its doors.Europe's churches have long been wondering if they should rest on these ancient privileges, or if instead active Christians should become a small, more effective minority that can make its voice heard on issues it cares about.
And it urges the industry to "make its voice heard" at the UN climate conference in Paris in December (COP21).
This reaffirmed its status as a world power at a time when it had been struggling to make its voice heard.
