You are probably reading this page if you’ve been asked to speak at an Ignite Chelmsford meet up. This page is designed to give you a bit of background a guidance.
Our meetups are designed to connect and excite people, building networks and a sense of belonging. We see them as a place to get inspiration and ideas, share passions and problems and raise awareness of what is going on in Chelmsford and beyond.
We ask people to talk for 15 minutes so there is plenty of time for questions and discussion.
It would be helpful to give a brief outline of what you do, with a focus on drawing out issues and themes that would be helpful for others. The idea of the talks is to spark ideas and create conversations, so feel free to be provocative and challenging, as well as sharing content you feel would be inspiring or helpful. Think about stimulating a good Q+A!
If you havent got something particular you’ve been asked to present, here are a few questions you might find helpful in preparing.
- What excites/interests you? Where did you get your ideas? Who/what has helped you? What is your personal role/motivation?
- What have you found difficult? What problems did you encounter? How did you solve them? What would you do differently another time? What tips can you share?
- What are you working on at the moment? What would you like help with? What would you love to be able to do/create? What could you help us with-what skills can you share?
Ignite’s key purpose is to bring together those working and volunteering with Chelmsford’s cultural, creative and heritage industries to share ideas and skills, provide support and create new opportunities for collaboration. The audience is generally quite mixed, with people from a variety of creative backgrounds.
There is a laptop and projector (should you want one). We find the ideal file format to be PDF but we should be able to accommodate Powerpoint too. If you can email your presentation 24hrs in advance beforehand that’d be handy, then we can make sure everything is set-up and ready for you.
As well as time for questions and discussion there is space for networking, socialising and capturing thoughts and ideas. Talks are always finished by 9pm and we hope you will be able to stay after your talk to join in some creative conversations.
Finally, if you would like to plug Projects / Gigs / Merch / Websites or have any flyers or promotional material please feel free to bring things along. You are also welcome to ask people to share anything on social media etc. so you may want to add links in your talk.
If you want more help or would like any other equipment for your talk please let us know.
Thank you!
The Ignite Team