In February, HOT applied to the BBC to take part in their Open Doors programme. Open Doors provides an opportunity for small local organisations and charities working with under-represented communities to spend a day at the BBC where they provide expert advice about the media and how to get local stories noticed. We were successful in our application and on Wednesday 29th March, Sarah Waddington, The Outback Manager, was lucky enough to spend the day at the BBC studios in Leeds.
We asked Sarah how the day went:
‘Around 12 other representatives from local groups around West Yorkshire attended the day, and it was packed full from start to finish with workshops led by Media experts from the BBC. Workshop themes included social media, how to write stories for the media and what makes a good story. As well as these, we spent some time in the morning in the radio studio talking to one of the presenters, had a tour of the BBC building, met the Look North presenters and then got to see Look North being filmed live.
There was opportunity to network with the other delegates and we swapped contact details with radio and television reporters for our region. The BBC are keen to hear more stories from diverse or disadvantaged communities so hopefully the contacts made at the event will be useful for spreading the word about HOT’s work in Calderdale’
Find out more about Open Doors