I was pleased to have the opportunity to attend this class arranged by Transition Exeter and Exeter University Green Society. There were 25 participants from transition and other environmental groups as well as a wide range of community groups including representatives of asylum seekers, local churches, a Romany community, and Travellers.

The day was well-paced, enthusiastically led by Cathy Debenham who has extensive experience as a journalist and who clearly enjoyed working with us, along with insightful presentations from a newspaper journalist and a radio journalist.

We covered many aspects of working with the media, including:

• Why do publicity
• How to write a press release (structure, style)
• Targeting the story and contacting journalists, meeting their needs
• Preparing for interviews
• And very briefly, online PR and social media.

An extra bonus was the opportunity to network with other participants over a shared lunch, and to collect contacts for possible future shared events. I also benefited from doing a short afternoon workshop specifically for transition group members including from Totnes and the Transition Network.