Progress so far...

Hello all,

Well, a lot has been happening over the last couple of weeks that we thought we should fill you in on. We had our meeting with Sara from Media Talent Bank to pitch our ideas and have the official handover. It went really well and she seemed to support the majority of our ideas which is a definite bonus as this is something we were quite concerned about.

Sara also gave us our budget for the project and this will cover the costs for the changes to the website, as well as the events we are hoping to hold in conjunction with re-launching the website.

From this we went away and put together a budget forecast and Jaime and Alex are meeting with Sara again on Wednesday to go through it.

We were a little unsure of what we needed to include and so we all did some research so we could get some rough estimates of where the money would be needed/spent. Alex met with Matt from MTB to go through the changes we want to make to the website and the feasibility of us being able to do it in time, within our specific budget. It turns out that our ideas are a little too ambitious and will be too expensive for us to afford. And so from this we are going to prioritise the changes we really want to make to the website because we want to make sure we have enough money to spend on the events.

As the offline aspect of Media Talent Bank is very important to the success of the website and how it functions, we want to spend more of the money on ensuring these events are a success. They will also be a taster of what is to come in the future with MTB even when our project is finished.

As you know, we want to hold a workshop mid March where there will be a chance for individuals to join and practice their skills. At the moment we are hoping to have two workshops going on at the same time but for different specialisms - all these details will be decided on Wednesday so watch this space for further information! The next event will be a networking evening which we will combine with the re-launch of the website. Professionals and students will be invited so they can integrate and learn more about the purpose of MTB. We are hoping to hold this towards the end of April.

We had the idea to hold another event at the beginning of May and when we were thinking of how to organise this we met with Caroline Officer at BCU who asked us to collaborate with an event she wants to hold on behalf of the Production Hub (which she has set up herself). Caroline's idea for the event is to use it as a networking day where professionals will attend but it is also a chance to showcase some of the third years work. Our responsibility will be to help organise and set up the event which is a great opportunity for our project but will also be brilliant coverage for MTB as there will be a lot of people from industry attending.

The event has been confirmed to take place on Thursday 6th May and plans are already underway so we will keep you posted on the work so far.

Caroline has been a massive help advising us on various aspects of the budget and organising the events which has been invaluable and will help us to really make the most of this opportunity to transform MTB.

This whole process has been opening up many opportunities and no doubt by the next time we fill you in on the latest news, the plans will have changed yet again. It is really great to experience the professional environment and how our original plans have developed into something so much better.

We are all really excited about how the project is going and it is very busy busy...but in a good way.

I think that is just about all for now, enough to keep us going for a while anyway!

Jen