My Community Reporter Journey

I remember the moment I had the urge to blog about something, it was early 2009. I was watching the Richard Linklater movie Dazed and Confused and realising how many of the cast had gone on to big careers I began to make sense of the connection by writing it down. I’d been on Facebook a few years already, so used the notes function I published my thoughts. I was immediately bitten by the bug of blogging. I went on to create Contented Mummy, my alter ego of sorts, trying to write with my own voice on parenting and other passions in my life.

I’d been blogging on The Argus for a few months when the opportunity to have taster training sessions with the new formed Community Reporters came up. My writing had gone a bit stale, I had returned to work, found it hard to fit it in my schedule but also been hard hit by the feedback I had received in the comments section. It was clear I needed to be inspired and supported by other bloggers and writers, I needed to feel I had a voice again. As we were the guinea pigs for the first taster sessions, we brainstormed what kind of things we wanted to learn and put the dates in our diaries for our next classes. We all read each other’s content, gave feedback and encouraged each other to develop stories we were only curious in writing at that point.

The journey continued from there, the Brighton & Hove Community Reporters network was born. A monthly meeting was set up with guest speakers from media organisations and technical experts, more taster sessions were offered then a formal six part training course, all for free. Through SCIP, a local based not for profit training company who facilitated the group, we were put in contact with organisations and events in the community to report on. I had more content ideas than I could find time to write. We did a team assignment covering the Brighton & Hove Adult Learning Festival plus I organised a group project to investigate ‘on the streets’ how the population of Brighton & Hove were going to vote in the general election. We explored new formats for reporting, podcasts and video then publishing on platforms such as Wordpress plus learning how to integrate everything with Twitter and Facebook which I was already using. Importantly we learn about legal aspects of publishing and our responsibilities in this area. The network was presenting me with endless possibilities to publish my voice and giving me confidence to do so.

It’s exciting to think where the network could go from here. Through BHCR I can keep abreast of local issues, hot topics in digital publishing plus help promote events and causes around the city. Best of all, I get to spend time with some amazingly interesting people from all walks of life in my city, most of which I would never have met otherwise. We’ve applied for our badges which will help us build credibility with members of the community, especially for me when talking to parents. We are already sought out by local organisations to report on events. After being sponsored by a private company to attend the Cybermummy 2011 conference in London, one of the biggest group events for bloggers in the country, I realised that most of the insights and discussion being shared there for £105 a ticket, we are getting for free with BHCR. So my next step will be to help spread the word to more people in Brighton and Hove the good work the network is doing.

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