August 2020 saw Activate and b-side team up to deliver a free online course for people in Dorset aged 16-25. CREATE! Developing Your Idea supported 15 young people from across the county to explore what is involved in shaping creative ideas and how to make events a reality.
In this mini-series we invite the course participants to tell us about their experience. Here’s Lola’s story.
I applied to the CREATE course as I wanted to learn more about how to make my ideas a reality and connect with other young creatives who were local to me. I had experience developing ideas creatively but felt unconfident in some of the logistics of putting on an event. Something that surprised me on the course was how supportive all of the guest speakers were of your journey and how they expressed that it was alright to make mistakes and grow from your learning. I also thought that Sammy and Molly were amazing leaders on this project as they created a safe space for all of the participants to voice ideas and have created a network for us all to continue discussing and sharing our experiences after the course. We covered a range of subjects from budgets and marketing to risk assessments and creating in a post COVID world. One key take-away that I will take from this experience is to plan and map out what you want to achieve and all of the tasks that will need to be completed so you can have a clear intention of what you are doing. I will also remember to not be afraid to ask for help as there are lots of people who are willing to support you and have been where you are before. My next steps will be to apply my learning in developing my project idea and seeing if I can put into practice the skills we worked on. I hope to put on my first event within the next year.