My official job title is "Media Coordinator". It means almost nothing! It does, however, afford me some very varied and very interesting tasks. Often, I'm waving a video camera around. Occasionally, I'm in front of one. Once, I remember being interviewed by a Christian cable TV channel at CRE (Christian Resources Exhibition, for those not in the 'industry'...) about youth work with a guy from Youth For Christ and thinking why was I being interviewed alongside this "expert" when I'm just a jumped-up techie?! But most of the few media "appearances" I've done for Urban Saints have been on the radio.
I get pretty nervous when I have to do this but by all accounts, I've done OK so far - maybe I do have a face for radio?! This week, two things have happened that have made me think about my broadcasting career.
Firstly, podcasts. I love podcasts and usually have about five on the go at any one time. At Urban Saints, we're looking at podcasts for our leaders and young people and inspired by the very commendable Youthwork: The Podcast, I've been pondering ideas for us to put something together. But the reality is that, unless I suddenly get a whole team volunteer next week, it will probably be me who has to make it. Probably should brush up on my radio voice!
Then there was the message on my voicemail. From Radio 4. They wanted to ask us about why we changed our name, in the context of changing Christian attitudes to the Crusades. At first I thought
"Oh my, I'm going to be on Radio 4!" But then I more rationally thought
"What can I tell them? I'm not really smart enough to go on Radio 4; I don't know anything about the Crusades and it's not really why we changed our name anyway!" So I basically dismissed it as a non-starter...
On Tuesday, a colleague announced that he had heard a discussion about the Crusades and Crusaders had been mentioned, where they speculated about the reason for the name-change! I had to confess I had been given the option to put our side of things. Fortunately, the consensus was that it was actually quite a positive mention and they wouldn't have wanted to hear about what we do now, so perhaps it was best for them to draw their own conclusions...
Oh well, Radio 4 can wait (until I'm a little more well-read!) as I'll have my own podcasts to worry about first!
I love to blog. Well, actually, I LOVED to blog but I may have found a new distraction. I'm ashamed to say though that one of the reasons for this new allegiance is laziness / time management - I'm "too busy to blog"! So for me, Twitter is the perfect solution - a hyper-trendy, micro-blogging site and even I can string together "less than 140 characters" regularly and on demand! Not too busy for THAT... plus I can combine it with some Urban Saints research for using Twitter for promoting / uniting the movement.
