On November 27th-29th 2019 Our BUD team arrived in Grimsby ready for Phase 1.
As we arrived at Centre4 our team was impressed by the great community space Centre4 has for hosting local people and businesses. Paul welcomed us with a big smile and ensured we had a tour and access to the space and equipment we needed.
We got the ball rolling with our first workshop on Wednesday afternoon “Developing your story”. The workshop was super fun and engaging with lots of laughs and learning. Highlights of the first session for me were the levels of passion being seen and felt as participants began to share their stories, and noticing the clear connections being formed as each person shared their why. Anita and Georgina introduced us to the importance of a comms plan in developing and sharing our stories for local communities and businesses. There was a lot of enthusiasm and interest in learning more about being strategic with storytelling for change. BUD provided a fantastic takeaway toolkit for telling our stories while engaging with a clear comms plan. Each participant seemed excited to explore more. Some of the things that stood out to us was how much collaboration and connection there was just from this 1st session. Groups said – We didn’t know you did that and we’ve been here for years. Some agreed they would catch up and see how they could work together as they shared similar goals.
Day 2 Thursday
We ran 3 amazing workshops. We kicked off in the morning with “Telling your story through social media”. This included exploring a variety of platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and youtube and how each can be used and how to utilise these platforms for storytelling, we looked at posts, hashtags and videos. Each participant was informed and equipped, the confidence levels began soaring in the room. As we harvested feedback the guys shared the workshops made them feel #inspired #informed #empowered.
After a delicious lunch (in Centre4 cafe) our next session theme was “Events & Invitations”.
During this session, the objective was learning how to get more people attending our community events. Georgina informed us around the Eventbrite platform how to create the event, share invites and manage attendees. Each participant also really appreciated the 5 top tips provided for all these platforms. Anita led us into discovering the best way Canva can be used for designing posters, posts, slides and invites. During the workshop we created posters with Canva for any actual upcoming events and shared it with the room, the conversations flowed as people began creating and sharing the posters and events. One lady following our workshop used the Canva poster she created with us as an advert for her upcoming ladies event.
After a refreshing break, we dived into Workshop 3.
“Storytelling through video”
Lee shared about vlogging, youtube, and how to create a channel and make use of clear CTAs (call to actions) to engage our audiences better. For some participants they never heard of CTAs or how to include these on videos, this part was new and different, but the group really grasped the tips and tools provided extremely well. Georgina encouraged us all to actually leave the room and make a video now. The group were a bit challenged, some had nerves but all participated in recording their own videos on smartphones and tablets, then we laughed a lot at each other as we shared the videos on the big screen, however, we needed the popcorn. Each one received positive and constructive feedback from the group and learned from one another. We saw the guys implement the tips and tools we shared using clear storytelling and CTAs attached to their videos. Phase 1 was awesome, we all learned and laughed and looked forward to returning for Phase 2.
Phase 2 February 24th – 25th 2020
We began our second two days of training with Centre4 Grimsby on the Monday morning after we grabbed our teas and coffees, Georgina had some energising icebreakers for us, then we started digging deeper into comms and exploring branding. We all engaged in some great discussions and activities about branding and logos, this really helped highlight our need to have an identity as community organisations. To have colours and logos that communicate our purpose and passions. Anita and Georgina facilitated the group in developing a comms strategy. We heard some amazing feedback and participants began to plan ahead strategically about their usage of social media, emails, and twitter posts, this led to some WOW moments for the group as some shared this really helps us manage and share the posts with more intentionality. Our focus for the remainder of the time was to raise up others to facilitate in the local setting, we had an amazing two sessions on:
“Facilitation tools and practices”
These sessions really empowered the group to be able to facilitate their own teams and groups, looking into the key tools required and what great facilitation looks like in practice. Two participants (Nikki and Tanya – Community Organisers at Centre4) eagerly accepted the challenge to facilitate us delivering a few sections of our own workshop back to us. This was awesome to see the impact and activation, these ladies went off and began preparing the space, materials, session plan, and questions. They came in very professional-looking, and you could see the amazing effort they made. Of course, they absolutely outdone themselves by delivering a great session. Not pressure delivering back to the main facilitators that had just trained you of course. Here is some of their feedback about the experience. To be honest hearing this was quite overwhelming, but it’s why we do what we do.
Phase 3 March-April 2020
Now this was the moment of truth, could the Centre4 team successfully deliver the workshop we designed “Storytelling to build your audience”? We were due to support them at the annual gathering of all catalysts through the Empowering Places programme with Power to Change. However due to the COVID Crisis it was cut short, BUD did however have the great privilege of facilitating the whole group through their own “Stories for Change” skills sharing session.
So we were challenged with the idea of doing something online. Georgina would be happy to lead with support from Centre4. Sounds feasible and straight forward, doesn’t it? Georgina being Georgina suggested that Nikki and Tanya could lead on as much or a little as they wanted, seeing how great they facilitated in person, she was confident they would be great. They stepped up to the challenge and exceeded expectations. In short, they led about 85% of the delivery of an online session to other catalysts, which participants enjoyed thoroughly. They did a wonderful job, we were super proud.
Our time of collaboration with Centre4 has been fruitful and inspiring. Fruitful for the local participants in growing in confidence in storytelling, sharing stories for change via social media, learning top tips and tools for comms and utilising a variety of platforms Canva, Eventbrite, youtube and more. Over this project, we worked with 28 participants. The feedback we harvested was quite inspiring including; “I am now confident” “I believe I can do this”“I have been empowered and inspired!”Our participants also commented, “I learnt more about clarifying the purpose, mission and vision of the organisation”. Another shared that she enjoyed “learning how to make social media work for my business”.
In our BUD review, we felt the objectives were met and more! We simply equip, enable and empower others to Lead Positive Change, throwing in some tools, processes and coaching along the way. This project was a blast! Centre4 we thank you for a great experience and look forward to hearing more success stories from your amazing team in the future.
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