Every year PVM have 2 meet ups with the Community Reporters. This is a chance for PVM to update the Community Reporters with news, opportunities, and developments and to find out what they have been up to and to get feedback from them. 

In September we had our second meeting of the year. The meet up took place online and we update the attendees of the work we have been doing developing our anti-racist commitments and the actions that we are taking to ensure that they are part of PVM’s everyday work, so they won’t be just words without substance.

Actions that we have taken so far –

• using anti-racism as examples in our Responsible Practice training
• increased the diversity of our board members
• increased the visual representation on our website and in the visual content that we gather, use and share.

As well as updating the Community Reporters it’s also a chance to gain feedback. This was positive and powerful with people saying how important it is to have a place of support and solidarity for people to come together to discuss, offload, and support each other. This brought about the idea of creating a regular support group. It was just the beginning of an idea, but we shall be exploring it further.

We also talked about the feedback, reflections and actions from the ICR conference that took place in the spring and discussed how we can take these ideas forward to shape next years conference.

The next online meet up for the ICR will be Thursday 24th of March 2022 from 12:00 – 1:00pm

Sign up through Eventbrite here.

Kath Peters – PVM Project Manager

And that’s it… another annual Institute of Community Reporters (ICR) conference has come and gone, and what a blast we had. A BIG thank you to everyone who made it possible – those working behind the scenes running the tech, people who led workshops, folk who braved the livestream and to everyone who got involved in the workshops and online discussions. Without YOU it simply would not have happened.

As part of the day, there were some livestreams. The morning livestream got things off to a great start with from Maff from Camerados, who brought us the sunshine from his lovely garden as well as meaningful insights from his own stories of lived experience. As well as Maff other guest speakers discussed the impact and power that lived experience storytelling has had on them. The morning discussion set the tone for the rest of the day. If you missed it, you can watch it here: 

The team at People’s Voice Media then led a workshop called people were able to have conversations about what good lived experience storytelling practice looks like. People came up with some practical and insightful ideas that we aim to put together as a manifesto, (of sorts), that we can bring into practice here at People’s Voice Media and influence others to adopt as well. So, watch this space as this is developed further!

There were also 6 satellite workshops running through the day that other people involved in storytelling delivered. They were all online except one which was facilitated in a wonderful outside space. These workshops explored different areas of lived experience storytelling. From, ‘Stories of the Storytellers’ that looked at the theme of ownership of storytelling, to, ‘An Invitation to a Brave Space’ which focused on how to make spaces safe for authentic storytelling to take place, these were just some of the themes.

People’s Voice Media were also back on the workshop front with a second event that was about exploring what a Day of Action might look like around lived experience… and was it a good idea in the first place. Various ideas about what this might look like were discussed. Some people explored doing ‘story jams’ which hopefully could be happen around a real campfire, or if not a virtual one. Short films with stories were mentioned and stories in different languages.

Other ideas that emerged around a Day of Action were:

• A campaign about the value of stories as a legitimate form of data and a valuable tool for learning and development
• A day in which we speak truth to power! Love this!
• Positive stories of change – when people power works well 
• A campaign that flips the idea of ‘hard to reach’ on its head and tries to engage professionals who are ‘hard to reach’ or not currently involved in discussions around lived experience and co-production 

All of these are seeds of ideas that could be developed, and we will be getting in touch with workshop attendees to see if people want to take this forward, or any of this discussion forward in anyway. 

The afternoon livestream brought all the workshop leaders – the People’s Voice Media crew and the satellite workshop leaders – together, to reflect on their sessions. You can watch it here:

I think it’s fair to say that the conference generated healthy discussions, ideas and reflections that will steer us in the right direction for future practice. Bringing people together and listening to insightful reflections of practice and who wholly support the way forward was inspiring and re-energising. There was a sense of hope that the Future of Lived Experience is in safe hands. Thanks a million for joining us, and keep in touch!

Kath Peters, PVM.

We are looking for people to run local workshops to explore the ‘Future Of Lived Experience Storytelling’.

APPLY NOW

We want to commission 5 workshops that explore the topic of ‘The Future of Lived Experience Storytelling’ with different groups of people to be part of the 3^rd annual Institute of Community Reporters (ICR) Conference on the 2^ndJune 2021.

At the conference, we want to open-up a conversation about the future of lived experience storytelling and explore things such as:

• the role of lived experience in achieving social justice 
• how we and other organisations can work better with stories and the people who share them
• the types of spaces that are secure enough for authentic storytelling to take place.

Your workshop should respond to the above – or some of the above – in some way and contribute to this conversation. 

The content, location, style, who the workshop is for and pretty much the whole shape of the workshop is up to you, as long as it is in-keeping with the overall topic of the conference. 

Key Details

• Your workshop should take place between 11:30am and 3:30pm on the 2^ndJune 2021.
• Your workshop should be at least 1 hour long.
• The workshop leader needs to be available between 3:45pm and 5:00pm to join an online livestream to share with the world the key ideas/discussions that took place in the workshop.
• Your workshop should create an equitable space for people to be a part of the conference’s conversation. 
• Your workshop should ideally – and where safe – take place offline in a specific geographical location (this is not essential and back-up plans should be made in case it needs to move online).
• The fee for each workshop is £250.00 upon receipt of an invoice.
• Each workshop leader should send a little bit of feedback post-workshop to us (i.e.; who attended, what was discussed/learned, what worked well and what didn’t).

To apply to deliver a workshop, please use this online form

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1rKlApPkA0tN0L5MTdf7ah3IggPTCe4yb8o_Pi6riGgQ/edit   to tell us about the workshop you would like to run. 

The form asks for: 

• Contact details of the organiser and social media details (if any)
• A short outline of your workshop and what topics you will be exploring 
• Where it will be held
• Who the workshop is for
• How you will ensure the space is inclusive and welcoming
• A short back-up plan in case COVID-19 means the workshop has to go online
• A short statement about how your workshop embeds our core values – https://peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk/about/ 

The deadline for applications is 5pm on Monday 3rd May 2021. We will contact all applicants to let them know about our decisions by Friday 7th May 2021. For further information contact Kath at kath@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk  #ICRCon2021