LEAF
 

LEAF Speak Out Toolkit

LEAF’s new online communications toolkit has been launched. Written and developed by leading agricultural communications experts, it is packed full of easy-to-use guidance and resources, providing step by step support for farmers and researchers, helping them think about communications at every stage and providing guidance on best practice.

Access the LEAF Speak Out Toolkit
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Testimonials

‘With film­ing for a Chan­nel 4 broad­cast loom­ing I vis­it­ed the Speak Out web­site for help. The site was con­cise and easy to nav­i­gate around. It holds all the infor­ma­tion I need­ed on how to approach and han­dle such a task. After vis­it­ing the rel­e­vant sec­tions and access­ing the wealth of infor­ma­tion on the site I felt much more equipped and con­fi­dent to deal with a pre­sen­ter and pro­duc­tion crew. I found infor­ma­tion on how to pre­pare, how to present and how to get the mes­sage I want­ed across, which was invalu­able on the day. All the tech­niques, skills and tips I gath­ered from the Speak Out site made the whole expe­ri­ence much more enjoyable!’

Fay Johnson, Rectory Farm, Leicestershire

‘The web­site has a great toolk­it area that pro­vides a use­ful resource for top tips and ref­er­ence mate­ri­als for all of the areas cov­ered in the train­ing – it’s impos­si­ble to remem­ber every­thing! I cir­cu­lat­ed the web link to the whole of BBRO so the val­ue of the infor­ma­tion was shared wider than just those that attend­ed the training.’

Vicky Foster, Head, BBRO

‘We receive hun­dreds of vis­i­tors to the farms every year. So I am well used to speak­ing to groups large and small. Nev­er­the­less, you are nev­er to old to learn, espe­cial­ly when encour­aged to ​“see our­selves as oth­ers see – and hear – us”. I there­fore found the two Speak Out Train­ing Days I attend­ed invalu­able. They not only helped improve how we present our work to the many dif­fer­ent audi­ences we engage with at the Inno­va­tion Cen­tre. But I also found the hints and tips of great use when it came to film­ing a sto­ry for BBC Coun­try­file and con­tribut­ing to a num­ber of Radio 4 Farm­ing Today pieces in recent years.’

Davy McCracken, SRUC Kirkton & Auchtertye Farms and LEAF Innovation Centre, Crianlarich

‘What we learned from Speak Out was the impor­tance of paus­es, help­ing you to talk with peo­ple, instead of at them! We take lots of paus­es and allow peo­ple the space to ask the ques­tions they want to ask, rather than answer­ing ques­tions nobody asked. Our expe­ri­ence is that the pub­lic are not usu­al­ly both­ered about see­ing fan­cy pow­er-washed trac­tors and drills, they-re more inter­est­ed in how good a lamb’s life is or what the tags in their ears are for. Speak Out helped us with engag­ing the pub­lic on the impor­tance of British meat and know­ing how to share the right kind of infor­ma­tion with the pub­lic. Now we like to share three mes­sages, three times, in three dif­fer­ent ways, using sto­ries and anec­dotes that keep peo­ple inter­est­ed in the truth about farm­ing that we’re try­ing to get across.’

John Renner, livestock farmer at North Bellshill Farm in Northumberland (LEAF Demonstration Farm)

We would love to hear your feedback on using the LEAF Speak Out Toolkit. Click here to email us with your feedback!