Testimonies

Testimonials and Quotes from Corporate Clients:

 

Faye West – Birmingham City Council

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“I’ve worked with Pro-Actors on many occasions, and would recommend their services to anyone planning an event or conference. They’re really flexible in their approach and come up with great ideas about how we can get our messages across in a way that appeals to the audience. Pro-Actors add that extra something to the events they’re involved in. Delegates really enjoy their performances and they’re flexible, professional and a great bunch of people to work with. I’d definitely recommend their services.”

 

Nat Clegg – The Development Alchemists Ltd

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“ProActors are a valuable addition to proactive training. Through our experience of working with ProActors we have come to realise the benefits of using professional actors in our training events and activities. Using real actors can add a critical sense of realism to our work. Often our clients need the experience to practise their beliefs and methodolgies in a safe environment before putting them to the real world. ProActors have added this opportunity for many of our clients and staff. This has been a fantastic way forward for us. In short, if you want the best in role play to add value to your training events, use ProActors.”

 

Cathy McTaggart – Organisational Development Consultant

Pro-Actors have played a key role in supporting the delivery of two high profile business transformation projects at Birmingham City Council, the largest local authority in Europe.
As part of the Housing Transformation project, Pro-Actors provided actors to conduct role-play and provide feedback at Assessment Centres for over 250 managers. Following the successful delivery of this project, as part of the Excellence in People Management project, Pro-Actors provided script writers and actors to support the production of a range of short films for managers. The films were part of a learning package to support the implementation of a new appraisal system for over 4000 managers.
I’m particularly impressed by Pro-Actors’ ability to quickly make sense of complex situations. The Pro-Actors approach was to work collaboratively with me, ensuring that business requirements were quickly understood and potential problems quickly overcome. Although a small outfit, Pro-Actors provided a pool of high quality actors with excellent acting, role-playing, improvisation and feedback skills. Pro-Actors ensured that actors were fully briefed and closely monitored the quality of all performances.
Perhaps the best accolade I can give, is that some senior managers who were initially sceptical of using any actors, including Pro-Actors, in the projects, later had nothing but praise for them. ProActors are a credit to their profession. I’m happy to recommend ProActors.

 

Bob Morrison – Partner, Optimus Associates
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Having been on the receiving end of a number of learning videos that failed to deliver the learning, I was very pleasantly surprised by the way that Pro-Actors never lost sight of the key learning points and even brought added value to the finished product. They quickly understood the culture and needs of the organisation. Working from an initial concept and the most basic of outlines, they developed interesting scripts, sourced a diversity of actors and completed filming, editing and production within the very tight timescales given.   They were even flexible enough to make late changes and patiently respond to suggestions from amateurs like myself.

 

Janice Morrison – Birmingham City Council Business Implementation Officer

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The use of role-play within training and assessment centres proves essential.  The actors are extremely talented and are therefore able to highlight areas of concern or drive home key messages through various interpretations. They are professional and flexible in their approach and are a pleasure to work with.

 

Sue Madeley – Simm Consulting

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Using ProActors gives my delegates the opportunity to try out their new skills in a safe environment. Toni, John and their team simulate a wide range of working conditions for individuals or groups based on a either a pre-determined situation or one chosen by delegates. The success for us emerges through the actors improvisational skills layered over a solid foundation of experience and business knowledge. This results in a situation that is realistic and appropriately challenging. With a thorough de-brief and constructive feedback the client’s moments of learning are able to embed.  Similarly, group work using a forum theatre model is engaging, memorable and fun.  I’ve personally worked with ProActors on a wide range of challenging and exciting projects including assessments, interviews, leadership development, Myers Briggs, Belbin, change, transition and conflict management programmes as well as a range of generic training and team building days. Their huge sense of fun and ability to generate trust creates such good quality learning through practice and the relevant, useful and specific feedback means that I go back to them time and time again.

 

Bobbie Petford – Black Country Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

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“Pro-Actors are a very professional company – totally reliable, highly skilled and easy to work with. They have been invaluable to the assessment of our trainees.”

 

Tania Hale – West Midlands Fire Service

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“Just a quick note to say thank you for sending Chris yesterday, he was fabulous and the officers were very impressed with him, his feedback was essential in the decision making process and we thank you for your continued support.”

 

Kate Lucre – Kia Kaha Services

“Thank you so much again for yesterday, I am so excited to see the edit.”

 

Samantha Holland – Homeserve

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“I have had the privilege of using the resources pro-actors  offer now for the past 18 months to support the practical activities for our businesses Middle management development programme. Members of the pro-actors team have always been extremely prompt, extremely efficient, extremely professional and have on all occasions allowed my delegate groups to experience a great learning and development opportunity. Nothing is ever too much trouble for the team to work with and they offer suggestions continuously to ensure each experience has a rich source of learning. Discovering this company to support our business was a real find! Highly recommended. Thanks pro-actors!”

 

Testimonials and Quotes from Community and Schools Clients:

 

Richard Weafer – Trident Sphere

Working in conjucntion with the Together We Matter project, a local service user driven learning disabilities group, ProActors was tasked to formulate an effective professional interactive drama presentation based on service user experiences. The challenge for ProActors was to demonstrate these experiences as ‘live events’ with the intention to be a visual experience for the target audience and of course an enjoyable experience for the participants. The dramas were to be followed through with live interactive discussion groups highlighting the experiences felt by service users. The target audience was a mix of service users and professionals with both local authority, regional action groups, local community policing teams represented. Given only a short window to formulate scripts and subsequent rehearsals ProActors managed to work with inexperienced individuals very effectively and showed respect, understanding and empathy, The final production being a visual experience that both audience and participants thoroughly enjoyed, stimulating promised action from local professional representatives.

 

Martyn Copus – Holly Hall School, Dudley

“Great success last night, everyone is really pleased, so well done.  We will be wanting you back for September!”

 

Natalia Perera – Birmingham City Council

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They put our cast at ease and built their confidence.  Their good humour, professionalism and dedication were invaluable, and they were able to bring out the best in our actors, culminating in a fantastic production… I wouldn’t hesitate to work with the Pro-Actors team again.”

 

Yvonne Rathbone – Social Education Co-ordinator, George Salter High School, West Bromwich

“The workshops have been a huge success … has been invited to work with our feeder Primary schools next term as a result … provided not only knowledge and insight but also enthusiasm and interest.””

 

Claire Barker – Hollygirt School, Nottingham

“The girls thought you were wonderful and they (and I) were impressed by your wide and relevant knowledge and your engaging and relaxed approach.  I felt that you struck just the right level of informality with them.”

 

Quotes from Corporate Participants:

“Your ability to respond flexible and immediately to the situation is just what we need. Your objective insights during feedback are a crucial part of our assessment.”

“I’ve met people like that. It was good to learn how to deal with them.”

“It’s a unique opportunity to see how our people really work. Not just in an interview or a written exercise, but on the spot, face to face.”

“I learned how important other people’s perceptions are. It was also good to have a go at speaking to a large group.”

“This was just the thing for our team. We’ve learned how to work together more effectively and the group dynamic stuff was a revelation!”

“Great stuff, more please.”

“The film creates a definition for performance management and focus. In turn it means that people management can modify its principles to their own working environment. They can see on screen how to adapt to changes. This raises standards.”

“Very useful to see how the new system works in practice rather than reading through the guidance document. It’s faster and clearer too.”

“We’re so impressed with the attention to detail in the films. Being on the ‘shoot(!)’ was a great experience too. Thanks you for the opportunity, your hard work, your commitment to the project, and a fantastic new resource.”

 

Quotes from Community and Schools Participants

“It was a good way to bring communities together regardless of age, religion and class.”

“I enjoyed the mime bit on the train and learning about the old songs.”

“When John came on in the silly hat, all the audience laughed. We had lots of fun.”

“I learned to rap. I’m 84! I also learned a bit about the young folks in my area. They’re not so bad! I’ll be able to stop and chat with them when I see them in the street rather than rushing in as fast as I can.”

“We’re all going to stay in touch. All of us. We’re a team now.”

“People think you can’t dance when you’re like me. I can show them!”

“They’ve covered curriculum areas in history, drama, dance, music and media. It was all covered so seamlessly, the kids didn’t even notice they were learning! Great fun, and really valuable.”

The inset session was great. I was sceptical at first, but the storytelling techniques were fabulous and I’m definitely going to try it out for my next class assembly!”

“Thanks for everything, I wish we could do it all over again.”

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