Tutor Profiles

Frances Dredge

With a senior management background in media and communications, I am passionate about education as a door to new horizons. Managing FEU Training has further emphasised to me how important it is for us all to gain new skills on an on-going basis to survive and thrive in the creative industries.

A qualified tutor and business coach, I enjoy working with people to help them maximise their potential.

Louise Grainger

As Equity’s Marketing, Events, Training and Membership Services Manager, I am responsible for several on-going training initiatives relating to freelances.

I am also a qualified tutor in the life-long learning sector.

Muriel McClymont

With a senior management background in the facilities management sector, I now enjoy a successful self-employed portfolio career.

I am a qualified life-coach and I deliver a range of training courses that are specifically designed to meet creative freelance learning needs.

Kate Willoughby

As a working actor and writer, I use social media such as Instagram to run specific campaigns to promote my work including the various creative projects that I am involved with.

A member of FEU Training’s project team for around five years, I am experienced in running training sessions for fellow freelances and enjoy working with attendees from the four entertainment unions involved. I also have a background in developing training for community and corporate projects.

Selina Brown

I work as an actor, writer, teacher and facilitator and have more than five years experience in writing and delivering training courses in creative and corporate fields. I am passionate about empowering individuals through creativity and have developed a range of innovative workshops including those for vulnerable adults and young people focusing on building self-esteem.

Jo Breeze

I’m a crowdfunding consultant specialising in the arts, with a 100% funding track record on projects I’ve managed. With over a decade’s experience in digital marketing, and five years’ experience in crowdfunding, I’ve learned what makes the difference between projects that fall short and projects that sail past their target – and how to plan for success.

Nicholas Cass-Beggs

Building on my theatre skills and experience, I began Business Presence Consulting to help individuals and organisations improve communication to better enable them to achieve their business goals.

Through tailored workshops, I share practical tools and tips on a range of skills including body language and confidence building with the aim of empowering professionals to reach their potential and gain the best results.

I have over 20 years of experience as a performer and have extensively trained and worked as an actor, dancer and singer.

Isobel Collyer

I am a singer, actor and voice coach with over 20 years experience of teaching voice. My full-time training at the Royal College of Music and at Arts Ed was complemented by an intensive training programme and apprenticeship at The Voice Workshop in London, where I learned from an interdisciplinary team of Alexander Technique and yoga teachers, a physiotherapist specialising in ribs and spine and an orthodontist whose speciality was the tempero mandibular joint.

With an extensive knowledge of vocal anatomy, I have worked with actors, singers, teachers and other public speakers from Britain and abroad to ensure that they are maximising the potential of their voice in any given situation. As well as private teaching, I run courses for theatres, choirs, businesses and arts organisations.

Susie Fugle

I’m an actor with over 30 years experience in theatre, TV and radio. I have also been performance coaching including designing and developing programmes in presentation skills, communication and collaboration for 19 years.

My practical experience and insights are drawn from leading and producing a wide variety of performance-improvement related projects and from the world of the performing arts. I hold an ICF Certificate in Professional Coaching Practice.

I work with a wide range of UK and European clients including the Arts Council England, Aardman Animations, KPMG and Deutsche Telekom.

William Gallagher

I write Doctor Who radio dramas, stage plays, non-fiction books and journalism for BBC News Online, Radio Times, technical magazines and newspapers like The Independent and The Los Angeles Times.

My Creative Productivity course came out of a firestorm of overlapping deadlines where I handled some brilliantly and some very badly. There’s no time for theory, this is real: practical things you can do immediately and that I am doing every day.

Matt Helm

I am a freelance professional guitarist and guitar teacher based in London. I have built up my teaching practice from scratch over the last 5 years.

Before becoming a full-time musician, I worked in the financial services sector. I spent time in many departments from product development to customer service. Often liaising between these different areas, I became fascinated by the ways in which people communicate and how, by understanding different communication styles, you can build more productive working relationships and achieve better results. This knowledge has helped me immensely in my freelance career, enabling me to work effectively with all types of people.

Karen Kay

I have over 30 years experience working as a journalist and broadcaster, across national newspapers, women’s magazines, TV and radio. I have edited numerous magazines, worked as a freelance brand consultant and commercial copywriter, and ghostwritten books and editorial for various public figures.

Over the last decade I have developed a media training and communications coaching business, Shoot the Messenger, working with business leaders and spokespeople representing global brands, public sector enterprises and start-ups.

Rebecca Lammers

An American in London, I have extensive expertise in delivering training to a range of audiences including freelance creatives.

I am an active volunteer within the education spectrum supporting students and professionals from various backgrounds.

Dan Mason

Dan Mason is a journalist, media consultant and trainer, specialising in digital communication and social media.

Prior to starting his training company, Dan worked extensively in the UK regional press and was the award-winning editor of daily newspapers including the Coventry Evening Telegraph and Birmingham Post. He was also managing director of Coventry Newspapers and a managing editor for Newsquest in London. Over the past five years, he has trained in digital media all over the developing world as well as in the UK.

SA Mathieson

I have worked as a journalist for nearly two decades, the majority of that time as a freelance, making extensive use of data.
I write for publications including The Guardian, The Register and ComputerWeekly.com and work as an associate analyst for IT market intelligence firm Ovum.

I lead training courses on data journalism at City Lit in London, have run an in-house course on the same topic for the Press Association and corporate clients and provided coaching on it for media undergraduates at Birmingham City University.
As well as using data in journalism, market intelligence and training, I have used it for many years to improve the running of my own freelance business.

Cemanthe McKenzie

I run New Media Angels and have a burning passion to help with strategies and come up with new branding and design ideas that can help share your creative brand as well as how to define and implement new tools and ideas into a successful campaign.

Gary James Merrill

I have been a freelance journalist and writer for two decades. For the last twelve years, I have also taught a variety of media and journalism-related subjects at universities in the UK. I currently teach BA and MA students at the University of Gloucestershire.

Rachel Murrell

A freelance screenwriter, journalist and conference producer, I have joined one writers’ group and founded two more including one now in its fifth fantastic year. I am also a member of a pan-European freelance journalists’ group.

Toby Reynolds

Toby Reynolds is a freelance trainer and award winning film studies tutor and academic with in-depth experience in both public and private sectors, as well as in creative writing and journalism. Having juggled full-time employment, academic study and FE/HE teaching over the past ten years, he brings a practical, clear-headed and flexible approach to his training.

Qualifications include a PGCE in PCET (FENTO benchmark standard), a Masters and PhD in Film Studies, PRINCE 2 introductory certificate, and NVQ 3 in Business Administration.

David Thomas

David Thomas founded David Thomas Media in 2005 to support small businesses and freelances with communications and business skills training.

David is a highly experienced broadcaster, journalist, trainer, communicator and business manager. His background includes radio and online production with the BBC, and his expertise has taken him all around the world, working with partners in Eastern Europe, the Far East, Africa and the Caribbean.

Since 2005 David Thomas Media has worked with more than 2000 people who are freelancing or setting up a small business. UK clients have included the BBC, ITV, BECTU, Equity and FEU.

Sue Walker

I have been a television journalist for over 20 years. I began my career in Scotland, before moving to London to work in BBC Television’s News and Current Affairs Department and then decided to go freelance working mainly on investigative documentaries.

For the past 10 years, I have been providing career development advice, including face-to-face and group sessions with Skillset (the Sector Skills Council for Creative Media) as one of their industry practitioner advisers. Clients have included: new entrants, experienced media professionals and generic careers advisers working in FE and HE. I am also a crime novelist and Lecturer in creative writing.

Chris Wheal

I am an award-winning freelance journalist who has shifted from print to online media.

I write news and blogs professionally for a number of websites and have experience of building websites from scratch. I am a director of Chris Wheal Associates and teach on a number of the NUJ Training professional courses.