What do snowflakes, The Fat Gay Vegan and kindness all have in common? All of them have featured in The Exchange, our new initiative to create spaces for people to talk about issues they care about.
Our first event for The Exchange took place back in November with a panel discussion entitled ‘Generation snowflake: Fact or Fiction?’ The term ‘generation snowflake’ has been used in the media to describe younger people who are perceived as being more sensitive and easily offended. Were young people really as easily offended as some people were saying or was it all much ado about nothing?
To help us promote the event, we worked with one of our Digital Media Gurus to produce content that was particularly aimed at our students. Izzy wrote a fantastic blog explaining to them what ‘generation snowflake’ meant and why they should come along to The Exchange. Izzy also filmed interviews with students, and the final video was so good we decided to show it at the start of the discussion.
The event, which took place in Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, was a great first outing for The Exchange and whilst it wasn’t without its challenges – including two panel members dropping out at the last minute(!) – we learned a lot about how we could develop the project. We were also pleased to see that our efforts to promote the event to students had paid off and that students were keen to attend events like The Exchange.
Our next event for The Exchange took place in February. Soon after the ‘generation snowflake’ discussion, we met with a group of students and settled on the title ‘Can Veganism Save the Planet?’ What we didn’t expect back in December was just how prominent vegan lifestyles would become. As we began to promote the February event, veganism seemed to be everywhere and every day there was some new guidance on what we should be eating.
We were able to secure a fantastic panel thanks to the efforts of Tom Walters, Mary Connolly and Steph Allen. Dr Melissa Lazenby, a doctor of climate science at Sussex, chaired the discussion which covered topics including food production and diet, as well as asking whether concerns about climate change should limit an individual’s freedom of choice. The event opened with another great video produced by our Digital Media Gurus Izzy and Mariana.
The six panellists – including the awesomely named Fat Gay Vegan (aka Sean O’Callaghan) – had much to say on the different topics and you can watch the full discussion on Facebook. I’ll leave you to decide if you think veganism can save our planet or not.
As well as being a sold out event, over three quarters of the audience at ‘Can Veganism Save the Planet?’ were students and that’s something I’m particularly proud of. We want students to be part of The Exchange, whether that’s through commenting on social media, having student panel members or asking the Digital Media Gurus to create engaging content around each event. To see so many students in the audience and actively taking part in the discussion made all the hard work to organise and promote the event worth it.
I feel like we’ve managed to achieve a lot with The Exchange. Not only have we put on two events at ACCA, the Events team have also started to host satellite events at Small Batch Coffee on Western Road, Brighton – the first of these was in November and featured Jo Cutler talking about her research into kindness. If you haven’t been to a Small Batch event yet, you can book your ticket to the next one on Wednesday 20 March at 7pm. It’s great to see The Exchange working just as well in the beautiful surroundings of ACCA’s auditorium as it does in the more intimate setting of a coffee shop.
For me, The Exchange has been a great example of External Relations pulling together to work on a project. From the media relations team bringing in journalists to cover the events and helping to secure panel members, to our alumni relations team putting us in touch with great alumni speakers, lots of people from the division have had a part to play in the success of The Exchange.
Thank you to everyone who’s helped to get The Exchange off to a great start – I can’t wait to see how The Exchange develops in the future.
Dan is a Communications Officer is the External Relations division.
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