Look the Other Way, The Fix, Choirs with Purpose and more in our Storytelling Highlights

As we gear up for the winter break we delivered our last bit of storytelling training for the year with the lovely team at Leprosy Mission. Now it’s time to prep prep prep for the wonders that 2018 will bring including our sixth Social Media Exchange which will kick-start your storytelling for the new year.Continue reading "Look the Other Way, The Fix, Choirs with Purpose and more in our Storytelling Highlights"

As we gear up for the winter break we delivered our last bit of storytelling training for the year with the lovely team at Leprosy Mission. Now it’s time to prep prep prep for the wonders that 2018 will bring including our sixth Social Media Exchange which will kick-start your storytelling for the new year. But of course, we’ve taken a minute to gather our picks of all of the interesting and exciting new happenings in the worlds of storytelling and charity communications and fundraising in one place. So grab a cup of tea, put on a pair of headphones and enjoy this week’s storytelling highlights.

1. The Fix

A couple of weeks back we featured the Woman’s Hour series The Fix in our Storytelling Highlights, and we wanted to share it once again as this week it culminated in a very personal, and powerful episode. Producer Milly Chowles returned to The Nelson Trust, a charity that supports women in recovery, where she was also once treated for her addiction. She meets and speaks with other women who have been supported by the charity and the staff there who can see the impact of women-only recovery programmes. The series has brought to light a lot of issues and insights around women and addiction, and the systems that are involved -which have been largely formed around research into men’s recovery from addiction. We hope this is the beginning of more storytelling around this to come.

2. Look the Other Way

Across the news we’ve seen reports on the rise of homelessness in the UK, and as the weather gets colder people face harsher conditions on the streets. To highlight some of the harsh realities of being street homeless, Passage Charity have created a new virtual reality experience which puts people in the place of someone experiencing homelessness on busy Oxford Street. You could see that some people were surprised at some of the different emotional reactions they had, and it was powerful to hear from someone experiencing homelessness.

3. “Your Assessor Has Found You ‘Fit For Work’”

This year we’ve definitely seen a rise in podcasts, we have always loved the use of audio in telling stories and so are happy to see it being harnessed more and more. Theatre company Ice & Fire are sharing a new series of podcasts ‘Life on the Edge’ putting a spotlight on firsthand experiences of the Benefit System. The first episode ‘Your Assessor Has Found You ‘Fit For Work’ shares how Jayne, Bob and Mary’s working lives came to a halt due to illness and disability. They share their experiences of the benefit system and the uncertainty and anxiety they face. At #SMEX18 we’ll be leading a session on how to harness audio to share stories with impact.

4. Choirs with Purpose: Stand Together

Today the brilliant Choirs with Purpose release their Chirstmas Album ‘Stand Together’. Choirs with Purpose is a collective of singing groups for whom ‘music reaches beyond the everyday to share their messages of triumph over adversity’. The choirs include the Missing People Choir who we were honoured to have perform at Being the Story in October, and who were recently seen on Britain’s Got Talent, the chart-topping NHS Choir of Greenwich and Lewisham, the UK Hospices Choir and more. What binds them all is they each have a powerful message to share.  All profits from the album will be shared between the choirs’ associated charities. Find out more and buy a copy here!

5. Social Media New Tips & Tricks

This week we’ve seen social media sites introducing (very welcome) new features. Twitter has introduced a swish new threading feature. Threading is when you create a series of linked tweets by replying to yourself, a great way to shape a story. Twitter has made this that much easier by adding a threading button (+) where you can craft your thread of tweets all in one go and post! Instagram has also launched a useful hack, allowing us to follow Hashtags. This means we can now keep track of our own campaigns and hashtags as well as keeping an eye on the issues that matter to us on the platform.

Don’t forget to grab your ticket for the Social Media Exchange only 7 weeks away! Charity sector experts from NHS England, Crisis, Crowdfunder, Parkinson’s UK and The Bike Project and media experts from the BBC and Lambent Productions will be leading interactive masterclasses for all your digital storytelling needs. Find out more and book your place at www.socialmediaexchange.org.uk

Do keep us updated with what you think I should be finding out more about.

And if you like what you read – do help us by sharing it and spreading the word

Jude and Helena the sounddelivery team

@sounddelivery

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