Welcome to my latest Sal's Diary post! If you’re a follower of my bath.co.uk column (and if not,
why not?) then you’ll have noticed that lately I’ve been getting terribly
excited about The Great Bath Feast, which is a brilliant festival that runs for
the length of October and celebrates food in Bath. Most of the events I’ve been
attending have been all about a fabulous meal, but yesterday I tried something
a little different – a workshop set up by food branding specialists The Collaborators,
and run by Bristol Story, actors and experts in all aspects of storytelling.
I’ve got to confess right now that I was a little wary of
the concept of working with professional actors on my brand storytelling. I
wondered if it might be a little bit… hippy. But I’m delighted to admit that I
was totally wrong, and it was actually a brilliant day.
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| Don't you just love that tea cosy? |
After a cup of tea (served in the most beautiful china,
naturally) and a biscuit, we got stuck in with a physical warm-up, and then
throughout the morning we worked through various exercises to help us draw out
different parts of our brand story. Each time, we then talked it through with a
different partner, who identified the most interesting and memorable points
we’d made. We all agreed that lots of those points came as a surprise to us –
it’s great to get an outside opinion on what’s most captivating about your
story!
By lunchtime, we’d worked up a good appetite, so it was
lucky that we were working in the upstairs bar of the Bath Brew House, because
they quickly rustled up a fabulous meal – boards laden with spit-roast chicken,
pulled pork, sausages, homemade baked beans, different salads, nachos and deep
fried avocado – I kid you not.
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Behold the map of my mind
(terrifying thought) |
Thus replenished, we cracked on with the serious part of
the day – drawing out the emotional parts of our stories, and then bringing it
all together. Some of us were a bit hesitant about getting vulnerable, but
actually once the stories came together, you could clearly see how a bit of
emotional weight made all the difference in holding your audience’s attention.
Before we performed, though, Bristol Story subjected us to their own special
brand of torture – standing in front of a crowd of people in total silence, and
staring them down for thirty seconds. Half a minute has never felt so long –
but it was a great way to shake off any nerves about speaking to a crowd, as
nothing is worse than having nothing to say!
Although the workshop was aimed more at food brands than
writery types like myself, it was a properly valuable experience that I feel
will make a real difference to how I present Sal’s Kitchen in the future. I’d
heartily recommend future events by The Collaborators and the lovely BristolStory – click their names to find out more about both of them.
