YEAH at the Youth Led Media Summit!!

Okay, so it might be a few days late... But it's time for Steve's report on the Youth Led Media Summit.

Although I'm REALLY not a fan of early morning starts (I was up at 4am, yuck), it was an absoloutly incredible day!!

Me and Errey were on the train bright and early, working on our presentation - nothing like leaving things to the last minute!! We met up with Max Catterall (a friend of ours, ex-alton student, YEAH supporter since the beginning and the lucky guy who's shooting the cover for YM005) and hopped on the tube to Liverpool Street!!

The whole event was held at RichMix in London's Bethnal Green Road, a really amazing up and coming arts centre. We got an awesome welcome from the organisers - could definitely get used to be recognised like that!! Then luckily had a bit of a chance to chill out before the day got underway.

At 9.30 we all went off to the Cinema for an official welcome from the events host Riz Ahmed. We listened to some fantastic people talk, from some really interesting backgrounds and projects. Everyone there was in some way involved in Youth Media projects, where Young People make over 50% of the decisions.

There was a panel debate, discussing issues of misrepresentation of Young People in the media, it was a really interesting discussion, with some very strong points being raised!! On the panel, chaired by Riz, was Rod Stanley (Editor of Dazed and Confused), Bob Satchwell (from the Society of Editors), Matt Locke (from Channel 4), Rajini (from BBC Radio 1 News), Dwain Lucktung (from Ctrl.Alt.Shift) and Sir Al (the Childrens Commissioner for England).

After some rather fantastic Bagels, we were up - time for our presentation!!

It went really well, despite Errey gabbing too much, and leaving me to rush through my section! We showed a video walkthrough of YM004, our current issue.

We heard some more fantastic people talking about their projects, before heading off for lunch - Yumm!!

During lunch we had so many people wanting to talk to us, it was fantastic!! The feedback we got from the magazine was so inspiring, everyone seemed to love it!! We've now got some really exciting leads for 2010, more information on that one later!!

Then it was the moment we'd been waiting for - our workshop with Dazed and Confused Editor, Rod Stanley. It was really brilliant, really relaxed and informal. We chatted about the problems we've all faced with our projects, and how we can get around them. He told us about working at Dazed, really interesting stuff!!

After that the event sort of came to an end, but we all had such an amazing day. Met loads of really inspiring people, especially Warsan and Susana, who managed to put the whole event together, and made it run so smoothly - so a massive thankyou to them!!

I think that's just about everything from the Summit itself, but not the most exciting part of the day!! You see, we'd been planning all day to head off to the pub after the event... And Max jokingly said that Errey would probably ask Rod to come with us, so what did I do?? I texted Errey, saying we think he should invite Rod out for a drink with us... And he did.

And we found ourselves propping up the bar in a London Pub, with the Editor of Dazed and Confused. He really couldn't be a nicer guy, asking loads of questions about our magazine, giving us ideas, and just generally chatting!! It was SO surreal, but SO awesome.

That one's definitely going down in the YEAH history books!!

We had a really really fantastic day, and it has helped the project so much. It's got us so inspired, and more determined than ever to make it work!!

We've got some very exciting meetings lined up in the new year... with Portsmouth's Express FM, and with Fran from the National Youth Agency - very exciting stuff!!

YEAH

Fan-bloooooomin-tastic day all round!

Once again, a massive thanks to Max (for travelling all the way from Bournemouth!), Warsan and Susana (for making the whole thing happen) and Rod (for being generally pretty fantastic)!!

Don't forget - YM004 is available NOW on our website - what are you waiting for??

& The submission deadline for YM005 themed GIRLS & BOYS is January 5th!

And from myself and Errey...

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!