2016 has been our busiest year so far and we are always amazed at the diversity of enquiries we receive. One that particularly intrigued us was from a major faith community planning a workshop as part of Inter Faith Week later this month.
Scotland still has a strong faith base to its society, although fair to say that we are arguably in a ‘post Christian’ world now with most people proclaiming no faith at all or, at best, agnosticism.
Scottish Media Training based in Edinburgh, won the Inter Faith tender and our workshop will challenge a group of 15 faith-based activists how best to present their key messages – and avoid being ‘typecast’ as fanatics who are out of touch with the wider community. For the journalist, it will challenge our team to be respectful of deeply held views and beliefs without seeming to put down – or unduly ‘proclaim’ ! I suspect we will be as challenged as the trainees.
That in itself, is no bad thing. We strive to understand and get under the skin of our client’s wants and needs. Scottish Media Training is as much about learning from our clients as they are from us in many instances. The broad appeal of our training is that it can become a two way street. There has to be a good working partnership.
As a footnote, we are delivering more group workshops these days as well as traditional hands-on training for smaller groups (up to six). This is a great way to get the basics of media awareness across to a bigger number – up to 15 can be taken on a workshop – but obviously the amount of hands on training is much more limited.
As ever, flexibility is our middle name, as this Inter Faith group will unquestionably testify