As the wife of the Chair of the Arts Centre Board I attend a number of events to accompany him and have decided to document my thoughts on these events. Nigel Hildreth has been Chair for about 30 years and during this time I have attended a variety of gigs ranging from the entertaining to the thought provoking, from popular to niche and from unusual to informative.
Last night I went on my own, by choice, to the Citizenship Journalism evening – which interested me as I am the social media co-ordinator of the Colchester Twinning Society.
As such I run the Facebook page and was keen to pick up ideas as to how to move forward and promote the society more.
The evening was well attended, much to the surprise of the Arts Centre who were expecting a small turnout.
It never ceases to amaze me whenever I go to Arts Centre that each event draws in a completely different mix of people and yesterday was no exception. There was a diverse age range and some people had travelled from Clacton and Frinton and probably other surrounding villages – which explained why I hardly recognised anyone there!
The evening was hosted by Anthony Clavane, an experienced journalist and a member of the Arts Centre Board. He showed us an example of some work he did of a video diary and I thought that this was something I could do. The other member of the panel were an eclectic mix of people – a student of journalism at the university of Essex, an aspiring journalist, a Fanzine editor, a local journalist, the media co-ordinator of the Arts Centre and an activist who writes blogs and produces podcasts.
After a presentation from each of the panel and a break for drinks and nibbles, the floor was open for questions. Again, these were varied – fake news, how to widen one’s audience, and freedom of information.
The evening hasn’t really ended there as we all have an opportunity to come to another session later in the month and gave our contact details so our various interests could be pursued at another time.
This is an exciting venture and another first for the Arts Centre to widen its community involvement. I look forward to future events with anticipation.
Wendy Hildreth