Salford Update!

Hey guys,

After moving to Salford in September to top-up my HND from Belfast Met to a University of Salford Film Production Degree, working BBC Manchester Events, moving up from Junior Researcher to Researcher and gaining broadcast TV credits on 2 different shows, I think a blog update is wellllllll overdue 😅

Let’s start with the BBC Manchester events, I recently had the pleasure of working BBC Digital Cities Week Manchester as a runner!

After being invited to work the Belfast Digi Cities Day in November by (previously mentioned in this blog) Sarah McCaffrey, I met Louise Brown, the events manager for the Digi Cities events happening across the UK.

Sarah really helped me out by bringing up to Louise that I was based in Salford, just outside Manchester, if she needed a runner for the Manchester Digi Cities, and Louise contacted me after Christmas to book me on!

I worked 3/5 days of the weeklong event, day 1 being the digital skills day, where I got to help sign people in, set up the registration desk and (as it took place in BBC Quay House in Media City) had to escort all attendees around the building, as the venue was an active, working BBC Office.

I also got to sit in on some of the sessions, and got to see some of the Belfast speakers’ again, including Amrit Singh’s (@MrASingh) TikTok session which I found really interesting!  The whole day has sessions on how to best utilise social media, podcasts, and a BBC Blue Room Tour which explained all about the latest ‘deep-fake’ technology, data protection, and how it could potentially be used (and misused) by the media (this was my favourite session)

Day 2 I was helping out with the Hello Culture Remix, which took place in Media City’s Social 7, which was a gorgeous bar/cafe that had a lovely big conference room where we were based most of the day.

I spent a good chunk of the morning of Day 2 at the registration desk, ready to sign in any late arrivals, and was walking between the bar and the conference room when I saw an older gentleman I thought I recognised.

After confirming with another bystander that it WAS, in fact, him, I realised that it was TV presenter Nick Hewer (who I know from The Apprentice!) who was in just having a cup of tea.

After walking past his table about a million times like a stalker, I got a photo with him as proof! Despite working in TV for a couple of years now I’m still not over the fact that when you work in TV, ya sometimes get to meet people who are ON the TV 😂

When home in NI I always get asked if I run into loads of celebs since I hang about Media City all the time and now I’m just really excited to have a name to drop 🙌🏻

Day 3 I was working the ScreenSkills Screen Futures day which took place in The Shed in Manchester Metropolitan University. 

They had loads of great sessions running throughout the day, including storytelling masterclasses, and sessions on how to get funding for your shorts and an employability toolkit, which had loads of useful info about being a freelancer!

I had an absolute blast working the events this week and it was an amazing opportunity to make new contacts at the BBC and in the industry over here, whilst simultaneously getting to sit in on the sessions and learn more about the industry.

I’ve also been asked back to run for another event this week which is really exciting and will hopefully lead to even more work opportunities!

Thank you so much to Sarah for giving me the Belfast Opportunity, and to Louise Brown, Shirley Benson, Louise Blythe, Sophie Butler, Gareth Peel and the whole BBC Team for having me on board! 😊 Xx