Wayne Senior, Content Team Supervisor
I have a mission – to raise awareness of No Panic. There are different approaches to this, and in 2023 I helped get three of these off the ground – Content Team, Social Media Team and Student Teams. All of these approaches are being taken by teams to make them more sustainable. If everything is done by one person and that person suddenly leaves, suddenly everything they did just stops. The Content Team and Social Media Team would both raise awareness of No Panic, by featuring content from outside the charity, and asking those who contributed that content to promote us on their socials.
Of these three approaches, I decided to take responsibility for supervising the Content Team. At first, the team was just me, with contributions from any No Panic volunteers I could persuade to write articles. I managed to persuade Brian and Craig.
I got things started with a 4-part series on the breathing exercise. The 4th part was exclusive to the Members Support Email. It combined two scenarios from the blog, going out and eating. At this time, I was planning for us to create more member-exclusive content. As time went on, I realised that to do that consistently would create more pressure for the Content Team. That doesn’t mean we will never create members-only content; it is something that will only happen on rare occasions.
Some of our patrons contributed articles. Actor Christopher Lee Power wrote a testimony. Many articles on the subject of panic attacks, are about what you can do to manage a panic attack. Natasha Devon approached this subject from a different angle, aiming her article at people who may witness somebody having a panic attack.
By April, I was struggling to maintain the momentum. Sourcing articles was proving difficult, and I hadn’t managed to recruit any volunteers. Thankfully, Mindless Mag picked No Panic to be one of their featured charities. This meant that their writers (people working towards a writing career) would provide us with several months of content. It gave me the breathing space I needed, and things began to turn around.
Caroline Slack shared her experience of anxiety. People often share their experiences of anxiety as a first article. Meghan Gamble however, did something different. She shared her brother’s experience. Not all articles were about personal experiences. Some authors preferred to offer advice. Shirley Tabugbo shared her advice on managing anxiety caused by spending too much time online – a problem we probably don’t talk about enough. Mollie Huntington introduced us to the 333 rule – an approach that people may not know about. I didn’t know about it.
As we were publishing these articles, I was able to recruit 2 Content Team editors – Millie and Daniel. Millie recently wrote about the fear of crowds.
The content from Mindless Mag helped me to realise the value of having our own contributors who would share their experiences and advice. I began to see the Content Team not just as a way of raising awareness of No Panic, but as a way of providing a platform for people with experiences and advice to share on anxiety. I decided to recruit Content Team contributors.
Craig (who I mentioned earlier) is the only Content Team contributor from inside No Panic, and we’ll be publishing a new article by him in a few weeks; I’ve already read it. Megan is the first Content Team contributor I recruited from outside the charity. In her first article, Megan told us how she took a year out of education to work on her mental health. Fiona referenced a 90s song in her first article. Her second will be published in a few weeks.
My approach has been to keep a consistent schedule, publishing one article a week, usually on a Friday. We have just about managed that. But what do you do if you get several articles all about Christmas very close to the big day? Last week, the Content Team published 3 articles to the blog. Patron Ruth Cooper-Dickson shared 5 tips for managing your anxiety during festive social events, and Chaima Kenache made her debut with some advice. You can bookmark those links for next Christmas.
I can’t predict the whole year, but I can tell you that next week, we have the first article from another new Content Team contributor. This isn’t Hannah’s debut. Hannah’s debut was the recent revival of our YouTube channel. We will also publish more articles from outside No Panic in 2024. If you would like to contribute either as a Content Team contributor or a guest writer, please let us know using the form on this page.
In conclusion, building the Content Team has been a good challenge. The Content Team has kept to a consistent schedule. We have published a variety of articles on anxiety. I hope this time next year, the Content Team will be able to look back and be proud that we have published articles from a variety of people on a variety of anxiety themes. Perhaps Christmas won’t be the only time we publish more than one article a week.
If you have read some of the articles published by the Content Team this year, whether directly from the blog or after clicking links on social media, thank you. I hope some of what we shared was helpful to you.
