Reflecting on Creativity Works

21 July 2016

As this year's Creativity Works: Festivals and Live Events programme draws to a close, our participants can finally relax and begin to reflect on their journeys.

Many started the programme with little-to-no experience in the sector but have left with the skills, confidence and contacts needed to take their first steps in their new career path. The process has by no means been easy - the last few weeks have been challenging and intense to say the least - but every single person did brilliantly and we couldn't have been prouder of them as they finished things off with a bang at their LDNXY graduation event (more on this soon...)

As you may have seen in previous posts, throughout the programme everyone on the course has been recording their experiences and progress on their own blogs. At the beginning of the programme all of the participants also set themselves personal goals and identified skills they wanted to develop and improve on. Now we've reached the end, here are a selection of excerpts on how they have found the experience...

Shezell set herself the task of encouraging good communication throughout her team:

'In the group, I experienced some difficulties such as communication barriers. There is no such thing as perfect communicator. Everyone’s communication skills is at different levels with some preferring one to one verbal communication while others prefer group communication.

One of the ways we looked to solve communication issues was to introduce WhatsApp, which many employers are now using to improve communication and ensure that everyone are part of wider conversations.

As an example, during my placement with The Streets, all the volunteers were added to Serious’ WhatsApp group... I used the WhatsApp group to let the wider group know that the session was coming to a close and that I needed help. Within minutes, help was on the way. It’s such a great way to communicate!'

Read her full blog post here.

For Anika, the programme offered the opportunity to come out of her shell and make a positive start to the next stage of her life:

'I took the course because I wanted to get straight into something rather than to just sit around being bored at home all day after finishing my college course. During the course I wanted to develop my organisation and planning skills and also boost my confidence and communication skills because I’ve been shy all my life.

During our week of training we were told we would need to start a blog, which I wasn’t too keen on doing because I wasn’t sure if I was able to put a blog post together as I was so used to just sharing my opinion in under 140 characters. But after I had wrote my first blog post, which was my music review and the artist actually re-tweeted the link to it, I realised it wasn’t so bad after all.'

Read her full blog post here.

Kadian also crucially gained confidence and belief in herself through the process:

'I wasn’t sure if I would be on this course as in the past I have applied and gone to different interviews, recruitment sessions and have been unsuccessful. So for me to hear that I was successful and made it on to this course I was grateful.'

'... my confidence has grown I have become more outgoing... and my team work has gotten stronger... Also pushing myself outside my comfort zone in terms of travelling to different places which was a difficult to do at first but I overcame the challenge.'

'... creative writing was a challenge for me... getting my idea on paper has always been a challenge but getting support from Fran and Amy who have helped me a lot in creating my first blog which has been useful.

My critical skills have improved because normally when I attend events, I don’t look at the details such sound & lighting, putting together a budget etc which is important when putting on an event. Being on this course has opened my eyes to the production side of things and gives my knowledge of opening my own business in Events.'

Read her full post here.