A Day in the Life of: A Community Relationship Officer at Hull Truck Theatre
06 May 2022 | General News
The play Teechers Leavers '22 presented at Hull Truck Theatre has inspired us to share the journey of our work colleagues working at Hull Truck Theatre. What is your role and how long have you been in it?
We plan to speak to a number of people working in theatre about the roles they play, what their work involves, how they learnt the skills required, and if their work is always what they wanted to do.
First up - A Day in the Life of: Elisha, Community Relationship Officer at Hull Truck Theatre.
My role is community relationship officer and I started June last year, so have been here around 10 months.
What do you do (in a nutshell!)
I plan and deliver the theatre’s community engagement work, making sure as many people in Hull know about our theatre and have access to the arts. My work helps to break down any barriers people may face in visiting Hull Truck or engaging with arts in general, including financial barriers, travel and accessibility. We do this work through lots of partner organisations and community groups across the city.
What did you do before your current role?
Before I started this role, I was studying at university and working part-time in a local pub and then the pandemic hit, and I finished that from home.
How do you think your education helped you to understand the qualities that the role needs?
My degree was in journalism, so had lots of communication skills built in. We would often have to drop into different situations and adapt, but I think my own lived experiences were valuable too. I’d had a similar life experience to some of the people we work with so understood some of the challenges and barriers people were facing.
What jobs did you think you might be interested in when you were at school?
I had my heart set on being a political journalist until I did work experience and disliked the environment so much, I was totally put-off. Afterwards I considered teaching or continuing studying.
What are the challenges of your role?
There are only 5 days in a week! Often the groups I work with will meet on the same day or at a similar time, so I don’t get to see everyone each week. Making sure I can visit each group whenever we have something to offer is important so I often have to plan a schedule and ask colleagues to support where they can.
How did you find out about the role of Community Relationship Officer at Hull Truck Theatre?
I saw a targeted advert for the role on Facebook and realised I had some of the skills required and knew I could learn the ones I didn’t have, even though I’d had no formal training or education that was theatre related. I also saw some of the work is done where I live so was really interested and knew how much it could benefit the community.
