Saturday 13th February 2010

I’m taking a few days off to get some essential chores around the house done. On Friday I met some very nice people from North Derbyshire, including the local MP Natascha Engel, who was a guest speaker with me for a ‘campaigning’ session being run by the Sheila McKechnie Foundation at the African Caribbean Community Association centre on Saltergate in Chesterfield.
There were around 13 delegates at this event and I’ve already interviewed 5 or 6 of them but it was good to re-establish contact. The idea was to improve the campaigning and media skills of volcomm sector groups in the region.
I was pleased to talk about my role as a community reporter for the BBC and about how we’d like individuals and organisations to work with us – especially helping us to identify ‘real people’ as case studies for projects, schemes, initiatives etc.. I played them some audio examples which helped them to understand how we tackle media interviews and then did a Q&A with the MP. Very enjoyable and thanks to my old mate Colin Hampton from the Derbyshire Unemployed Workers Centre whose celebrating 25 years of campaigning and community work in Chesterfield.
for more information about the Sheila McKechnie Foundation go to www.smk.org.uk