‘Foot in the Door’ Visit The Capital

We invited all our FITD young people to London for the day, for some networking and workplace tours. For many of them, it was their first trip to the capital. They really enjoyed soaking up the whole London experience, even electing to take the Underground for all their journeys (not just the first one, as originally planned).

Escorted by Daniel Porter-Jones from the Foundation, they first headed to LBC radio, in Global’s flagship headquarters in Leicester Square. They were able to observe the last half hour of James O’Brien’s time on air, live from behind his producer’s desk in the studio. They then had a networking session with him before all heading to Little Dot Studios’ fabulous offices in Shoreditch.

Having done a key FITD weekly project responding to a creative brief and pitching to Little Dot Studios, it was fascinating for the cohort to see the team in situ. Whilst there, they all recorded some video in pairs with help from Little Dot staff, then headed into a round table discussion with Jane Turton OBE (CEO, All3 Media, Royal Television Society), Dan Jones (CEO, Little Dot Studios), Sophie Hakes (ATF Trustee) and James O’Brien (broadcaster). The young people held their own, without hesitation, and the professionals were incredibly impressed with their confidence and attitude. We received glowing praise about them all. It was a strong mark of how far their self belief had grown since starting the programme. The Andy Taylor Foundation originally chose Sharp Futures to run our FITD course as we knew they put a lot of focus on self development and personal confidence, with sessions on subjects like imposter syndrome. Their excellent pastoral input and the impact really shows. We are very grateful to the nurturing approach of the whole team, particularly Ewan Vinnicombe Wallis who led the programme.

The cohort headed back on the train to Manchester that evening, tired but inspired. A huge thank you to all the busy professionals who took time out of their days to make this happen. Little Dot Studios and All3Media were a huge part of the success of our inaugural programme. Having been part of both organisations during his lifetime, Andy would have been incredibly proud to see their support.