One of my volunteering roles is as Public Relations Officer for the Essex Association of Change Ringers and I have been looking at our online presence recently. We have a website https://eacr.org.uk/ a Twitter account, Facebook page and an Instagram profile @essexbells. All of which need some work on to make them better at engaging with our members and our external audiences and stakeholders. The one thing we didn’t have yet was anything on YouTube.
Well that’s all changed now and I’m pleased to announce that the Essex Association’s YouTube channel is now live. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwQcGeDDYSzKVw-m4huwKZw The difficulty being, with no actual ringing meetings, competitions, dinners, socials or other events actually happening, other than online, there’s not a lot to post.
Never fear though. I’ve kicked off with a recorded training module based on the ART and Central Council of Church Bellringers recruitment and retention workshop, and it would be great to get some other training materials posted too.
The other thing I’ve been doing is recording a series of getting to know people interviews with ringers from across the Association. The first one is with the Master and we get to find out a bit more about his work for the Association, his memories of learning to ring and what he gets up to when he’s not ringing. It was really interesting to hear his story and what he enjoys about ringing.
I have 10 other interviews “in the can” ready to upload every couple of weeks or so and a couple more interviews lined up ready to record. I’m looking forward to finding more people to talk to and get their stories.
Its been a great little project to do and I’m not an expert at interviewing, nor at editing, but I think you’ll see over the coming months that my skills have improved a little bit and I am trying to make it look a bit more professional. 😜
I’ve always found it quite sad that although we spend time with people in a ringing room, we know so little about them really. We might get a sense of what they do for work or study and maybe where they may (or may not at the moment) be going for their holidays, but other than that, we probably don’t delve too deeply.
One of my interviewees flies light aircraft, another ski’s regularly, another has spent time with tribes people in Africa and another makes acrylic art. Everyone has something interesting about them and I hope that this series allows others to find that out and sparks different conversations and maybe inspire people to try something different.
Its good to talk 🗣
Bells, Bakes & Bettering Myself 