By Emily Davies. Posted on
Welcome to the family Group Eight!
It's been a busy few months at Just Farmers HQ, as well as hosting our first networking event, we've run workshops in Bristol for Groups Eight and Nine - and even hosted a second workshop for Group Eight - making them the latest group of farmers to join our family!
Starting in Bristol at the end of January, twelve farmers joined us at Phoenix Social Enterprises for a day of discussion and practical exercises with Senior BBC News Producer Callum May and BBC Yorkshire Radio Presenter Andrew Edwards. (You can read about Andrew's experience being a guest trainer at our workshop here.)
Understanding what the media wants, how to tell a story and what makes a good talker were some of the topics we discussed, as well as giving our farmers a greater understanding of how the media works.
Splitting into smaller groups, our farmers then worked with our guest journalists to pitch a story and have a go at being interviewed about their chosen topic.
That evening we took our farmers out to Vegan India - Bristol's first vegan (and only) Indian restaurant, where we chatted to owner Juwel about his business and the types of people who might choose to eat vegan food.
Concluding our visit to Bristol, we took our farmers to Windmill Hill City Farm to learn more about how people in urban areas access farms, and learn about where their food comes from.
With much of workshop one about bridging the urban/rural divide and educating our farmers on the urban consumer as well as the urban media, we then moved to the Staffordshire countryside for workshop two - which meant two days of practical exercises with guest trainers Ben Eagle from Rural Pod Media, ex BBC cameraman Pete Taylor, Alex Price from Down to Earth Media and journalist and writer Clare Hargreaves.
Our farmers threw themselves into the workshops, creating podcasts and short films, learning how to speak to the camera and how to use a radio mic, as well as discovering what it takes to be a writer.
We also heard from group five farmer Flavian Obiero about his Just Farmers experience, and learned a thing or two about social media trends and how to market yourself and your brand.
It's been a brilliant four days in total, working with an excellent group of farmers - we can't wait to see where your journey takes you next!