Introductions
This is a rather different blog post to normal, as it’s the first one not written by Hannah. Instead, I’m using this opportunity to introduce myself as you’ll hear from me a bit more over the next few months while Hannah is on maternity leave.
Hi, I’m Leigh Way and I’m the company secretary for Media Career Advice. I’ve actually been working behind the scenes since December 2023 on a part-time basis. I help Hannah with various things such as scheduling social media posts, setting up course booking links/updating the website, posting our upcoming courses in Facebook and LinkedIn groups, prepping newsletters, admin around our ScreenSkills larger scale training programmes and general admin as well as IT support.
My background is actually as an Animator and I’ve worked in various animation roles as a colourist, game artist, storyboard artist, layout artist, lead layout artist, animator, senior animator, lead animator, animation supervisor and animation director on shows broadcast on Cbeebies, Citv, Milkshake, S4C, Netflix, PBS Kids and films over a period of 16 years.
Rather an unusual switch in careers right to be a company secretary, but the linking factor is that I’m also Hannah’s husband. After returning from maternity leave in December 2022 after the birth of our first child, it was a real juggle for Hannah to keep on top of running courses and one to one advice sessions, developing new course with additional trainers, overseeing a large scale training programme for ScreenSkills and keeping on top of the admin that running a company brings, plus of course being a new mum. So when my animation contract came to an end in December 2023 we decided that I would help out with things in the business that were easy to delegate to alleviate that pressure, whilst balancing being a stay at home dad.
It’s all been working well behind the scenes with me working around a day and a half each week when we have childcare and helping to keep the business running smoothly so Hannah can focus on the great training and one to one advice she provides. I’ll be monitoring emails whilst Hannah is on maternity leave, so if you do email us during that time, expect to hear from me. I’ll be checking in on a weekly basis, so you may not get an instant response, but I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. You’ll also receive a couple of newsletters from us with a reminder for signing up to waiting lists (see below for details of how to do that as well) and then when the courses are re-open for booking.
As a reminder during this time, if you'd like to be informed when courses are re-open for bookings, you can select the relevant training course you're interested in on our training page and sign up to the waiting list at the bottom of the training page - https://www.mediacareeradvice.co.uk/training-talks
Once signed up we'll let you know as soon as the course dates are released and you will get priority booking for 24hrs before the dates are released to the general public.
We are planning to open most courses for bookings around June/July time to allow enough time to apply for any bursary or funding opportunities.
We will also be available to run bespoke training sessions during our hiatus for the following courses:
- Step up to Production Executive/Head of Production in Unscripted TV
- Become a better manager with coaching & mentoring skills
- Understanding kit for unscripted production teams
- Developing Great Formats for Unscripted TV
- Understanding kit for unscripted editorial teams
Or completely bespoke sessions around those subjects.
We are aiming to open our one to one bookings from October onwards. If you'd like to be informed when they are re-open for bookings, you can sign up to the waiting list here - https://forms.gle/rZdVKLYs4PGjFUej8