How I became involved with Writing for a Community Magazine

 

I’ve admired for some time the work of one of my writing friends who writes a regular column for Chandler’s Ford Today. https://chandlersfordtoday.co.uk/ I’ve known Allison Symes for many years and in fact I also used to live in Eastleigh, the town to which Chandlers Ford belongs.  I’ve sometimes featured in some of Allison’s posts – if you see what I mean: https://chandlersfordtoday.co.uk/?s=Gill+James+ 

So, I began looking for something similar locally to where I live.

I found Talking about My Generation https://talkingaboutmygeneration.co.uk/about-us/ when I started working as a volunteer Culture Champion, specifically working with over 50s in the Bury region of Greater Manchester. The idea was to find opportunities for older people to become engaged with culture. One problem was that a lot of the opportunities I came across  appealed to me. And one such invitation was to become a reporter with Talking about My Generation. As soon as I volunteered I was contacted and signed up.

Talking about My Generation is also for the over 50s living in Greater Manchester. All of our reporters are over 50. We are all volunteers.  

I’ve so far written reviews, nostalgia pieces, creative writing lessons, short stories and reports on various events.

Once a week we receive information about what has been published and how our posts are performing. We also discuss topics on a Facebook page and again we get information about how those discussions are faring.

We have monthly meetings, either in person or via Zoom and sometimes these are hybrid sessions.

We are offered training sessions and so far I have attended ones on:

·         Article writing

·         Pod casts

·         Editing videos

·         Taking photos

·         Social media

·         Using Canva

All very useful.

The biggest news of all is that we were granted the Queen’s Award f or voluntary service in June 2022. A very significant year to gain this lovely award.

You can see some of my posts here: https://talkingaboutmygeneration.co.uk/?s=Gill+James If you scroll down you will see our lovely Queen’s Award badge.