Hannah Brady, SWCTN Immersion Producer, reflects on the first Immersion workshop.
The first workshop was high energy and designed for the fellows and the partners to share and shape ideas. The fellows were incredibly open and generous throughout the two days, with a gregarious hunger to greet, meet and get to know each other.
The thing that excites me about working with such a phenomenal team is the amount of knowledge that is being bashed around in the room. Talk about knowledge exchange – this is knowledge explosion. It was brilliant to have this many people to bounce ideas off, to learn from and be inspired by.
What I learnt from these sessions is that hosting more than 45 people for two days is a huge logistical challenge, especially when ferries are involved. Group facilitated workshops are an important ingredient in the development of the SWCTN Fellowship programme, to build a shared knowledge, language and understanding of the theme of immersion for the South West, and although ferries may not be essential they certainly brought an element of adventure.
I am excited to help shape, push and inform the development of the fellowship programme, but with this comes uncertainty. With such a new and untested process the pressure is there to ensure that we hold the space, be brave, take risks and push a new way of delivering knowledge transfer programmes.
The workshop ended with a roundup of thoughts and an exhausted team who felt optimistic, challenged, excited, confused, invigorated, overwhelmed, inspired, curious, thoughtful, fired up, inspired and privileged.
