Community engagement apprentice Review

Help set up, support and grow all Jisc communities, sharing best practice and promoting success. Organise community manager training for staff, create new process to capture member voice and organise community events around Jisc's annual membership events to increase awareness.

Creating a plan for organising events and key contacts to keep in touch with. I've learnt about the power of community and what it takes to make them effective. In process of doing COLF and community manager training. Improved my interpersonal, communication and planning skills.

My direct team is very small but friendly and we work very well together. The work can be challenging but it is interesting and we get to try new things which keeps the work exciting.

The course is well detailed but very overwhelming in the first few months. It takes time to understand the structure and all the various course materials, but it helps that I have good support from my line manager, mentor and tutor.

I have catch-ups with my line manager most days and monthly catch ups with my mentor and tutor who are great at answering my questions. I also keep in touch with wider business contacts e.g marketing planning manager/director/business partner to get updates.

My tutor is very welcoming and great at explaining things I have problems with.

The course has given me a framework to understand business models and approaches that I can transfer to my community engagement work. Especially in regards to planning and communicating effectively and why they are so important.

Some online activities since the pandemic. (Pre-pandemic there would have been more.) I volunteer for a mental health charity Shout weekly (outside of work hours)

No

It depends on the team, Jisc is doing great things but they still have a lot of improvements to make with their culture and transparency with their staff.

Jisc do many things, don't worry about learning it all. Focus on understanding their mission/strategy and what they hope to achieve by helping education and research institutions.