JCIP #298 - Garry Miller

In episode 298 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Garry Miller.Garry is a communications professional and worked as a publicist in the BBC Sport communications team at the same time our Founder Freddie worked at the BBC.Garry’s first proper job was working for Wigan Council, where he cut his teeth across a range of areas including policy, project management and investigating benefit fraud.His big break came when England hosted the 2013 Rugby League World Cup.The organisers put a call-out for volunteers, including one role of press officer for the tournament. Garry applied for the role and was successful. He then took 6-8 weeks of annual leave just to do the role.After the World Cup finished, he went back to his day job but it wasn’t the same. He had got the sport bug and wanted to get back in the industry.He started volunteering for the Wigan Warriors rugby league team to help with their game day operations and unfortunately was then made redundant from the council. Afterwards, he landed a job with the Rugby Football League, the sport's organising body in England and worked for them for four years. He had the opportunity to work with the England national team and at all major events for the sport, including the Challenge Cup tournament, ‘Magic Weekend’ and the Super League Grand Final.After four years, he felt he had done everything he could in that role and he saw an opportunity at the BBC in their Sport team. From there, he worked on every big BBC Sport announcement and campaign you can probably think of, as well as podcasts and setting up interviews for all the titans who worked there at the time, including the likes of Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer.In 2022, Garry left the BBC and moved to a new role with the Trust Alliance Group (TAG). Based in Warrington, TAG provide a range of products and services to build, maintain and restore trust between consumers and businesses.In this episode we discuss Garry’s career from Wigan Council days to where he is now, the glitz and glamour years in the Beeb, and why he wanted to leave to do a role which provided him with more purpose and impact.For Garry’s mental health, we discuss a period of struggle he went through whilst working at the BBC around five or six years ago. We discuss the factors behind it, being prescribed medication, which he is still on now, the positives its brought and the side-effects and the support he had at that time in work and outside of it. We finish by discussing his partner’s post-natal depression when his son was born. We talk about the impact that witnessing her mental health difficulties had on him and how he supported her through taking on more caring responsibilities for his son until his partner was able to overcome what she was going through.As always, #itsokaytoventSupport Us:Patreon: www.patreon.com/venthelpukPayPal: paypal.me/freddiec1994?country.x=GB&locale.x=en_GBMerchandise: www.redbubble.com/people/VentUK/shopMusic: @patawawa - Strange: www.youtube.com/watch?v=d70wfeJSEvk Support Us:PatreonPayPalMerchandise