Events

This workshop will provide you with tips and techniques that you can put into practice in your organisation straight away, to increase your impact and confidence.

This event is fully funded for VCSE organisations in Gloucestershire.

Event information

• Date: 19 June 2025
• Time: 9:30am to 3:30pm
• Venue: The Growth Hub, Oxstalls Campus, GL2 9HW
• We're now taking waitlist applications for this event. To add yourself to our waitlist, please complete our Waitlist Application.

Workshop overview

When a leader communicates with confidence and clarity, they can drive greater support, inspire change, navigate difficult conversations and foster a culture of enthusiasm and dedication.

From engaging donors, volunteers, and beneficiaries, to winning grants, building strategic alliances, handling public scrutiny and energising their team; every aspect of a charity leader’s role requires effective communication. Communication that resonates and moves people to action.

This workshop will provide delegates with tips and techniques that they can put into practice in their organisation straight away, increasing their impact and confidence.

Participants will learn how to:

• Develop a purpose statement: a simple message summing up why their organisation exists
• Articulate their value proposition: in a sentence, what makes them distinct in how they deliver impacts
• Adjust their tone and language for different stakeholders
• Write themselves a short speech
• Use storytelling with confidence
• Build their own personal ‘leaderful comms’ plan
• Work with colleagues to enhance charity-wide communications

Real-life application of learning

To make the most of this learning experience, delegates are invited to bring along any key documents that form their reference points for a piece of communication that they would like to deliver.For example, they may have an all-staff meeting coming up, an important announcement to make, end-of-year impacts to present, their charity’s strategic vision to launch, a bid to bring before funders, or an AGM speech for community stakeholders. Or perhaps they simply feel it’s time to reinvigorate their team on a Monday morning.

Trainer information

With a career spanning more than 30 years in PR and strategic communications, Sarah Bryars became a freelance consultant in 2025. With a career spanning more than 30 years in PR and strategic communications, Sarah became a freelance consultant in 2025. Her primary focus is helping boards to communicate their vision and expertise, so that they can exercise their influence more clearly and powerfully. Sarah’s services include communications adviser, trainer, messaging strategist, and executive ghostwriter.

Formerly the CEO of an award-winning PR agency, Sarah brings an understanding of commercial and governance roles at board-level. She is a Trustee of the Friends of Westonbirt Arboretum, the charity which supports the National Arboretum in its mission to protect trees and enrich lives. Appointed Vice Chair in 2025, Sarah sits on the charity’s Finance & Risk Panel, and the joint Friends/Forestry England Westonbirt Future Development Steering Group.

Sarah was awarded an MBA from the University of Gloucestershire in 2018, focusing her research on driving innovation through effective communication.

Get in touch

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Join us

Our members work together to make lasting, positive change within local communities. Membership is free for VCSE and statutory organisations delivering services in Gloucestershire. By joining us, local organisations become part of a wider community and are able to access a range of enhanced benefits above and beyond our usual fully-funded support. You can find out more on our membership page.