YMCA showing

Well the showing of the film at the YMCA was a great success! Only had about 6 youngsters there but what a responce! These guys were so responsive and full of ideas. Its been suggested that we have a follow up with the others. We had lots of feedback when we expected not much at all really. Well chuffed!

Pic of me and Nicci (Lib Dem councillor for my area, shes been wonderfull and was a crucial part of passing the motion at council!)



Pic of Me, Nicci and Christell (Organizer of the evening at the YMCA)

Bus and Train Station Advertising

This sort of advertising is very costly so we are now looking for sponsorship. To do the advertising we want, this includes the leaflets in the Big Issue we will need around £4,000. Crazy! Anyway, there are a few avenues im looking at so hopefully we will get there.

Email regarding Cornwall

Below is the email received regarding the use of the new material in Schools in Cornwall.

Dear Adam,

Many thanks for your e-mail. I am impressed with what has been put on the website and I’ll be recommending it to all our secondary schools. We’ll be having a heads of PSHE Conference in the summer where we could promote it again. What I’ll do is compose an e-mail to go out with the link and recommend that schools order the DVD resources for themselves and consider financially supporting the campaign as part of Citizenship Education. I think it would be useful in our PRUs and I’ll let the YOT know about it as they might find it useful too.

Council Motion

This evening a motion to fully support the campaign was passed unanimously by Taunton Deane Borough Council. I very pleased (an a little emotional!) and very excited about what this could mean for the campaign. Ive been told to expect further meetings to discuss the best way forward. They are currently discussing putting a link to the website on the official council website and promotion to youth groups. Im a little shocked and cant remember much of what was said. What i do remember though was that every single hand in that room went up to agree to the motion. What a moment!

Busy week

Well as i say, busy week. I had a meeting today with local A1 Ace Taxi's who have not only agreed to promote the campaign with car stickers but also sponsor the local trial poster campaign financially in return for putting their number on the poster. Seems like a fair exchange! I have about 4 local pubs that have agreed to have the posters and it should be possible to get the rest with several phone calls. The idea is to compile a list before producing the posters (which are already designed and can be seen in an earlier blog post. There is also a meeting this week to discuss bus advertising with First bus group.

The council motion to support the campaign will be passed tomorrow evening as well! Local radio, tv and papers will be picking up on this.

I will also be having a meeting with the local fire service who are doing a lot of projects with the community at present. Leading in to the final event of the week, the first presentation of the DVD to young people at the local YMCA. Im a little anxious as to how they will react but its usually positive. We shall see, it'll be a nice change from schools.

Oh and im attaching below an example of what the new car window stickers will hopefully look like.

Update

I have not had much response from my meeting on Tuesday with the school deputy heads. It is a shame but i half expected it as it is proving difficult to get good response from school teachers. However i have just posted a copy of the DVD to a teacher in Manchester. Hopefully they will use it well and promote it in their area.

The new website look is very good and due to the new software i can manipulate it and have greater control over the look and content.

We are still looking for sposorship from printing companies and have had an offer of support from a signage firm in Leeds who hopefully are going to print car window stickers for us. We can try and get these in public transport and taxis?!

Im looking forward to the council backing the campaign next week. Should be a real plus for us.

Campaign Growth

Over the last few weeks the campaign seems to be growing. This is good news however we are now running out of money!

We are trying to get the poster campaign off the ground and also print flyers to put in magazines to raise awareness. We currently have £100 in the bank but sadly this will be gone by the time we have traveled up to London on friday for our celebrity interview with Gina Yashere. Therefore i have to put my pride aside and have set up a way to make donations. We now have a paypal account. Anyone wishing to help out by donating as much as a pound please go to www.sav-ed.co.uk where there is a donation button at the bottom of the page. All help is very much appreciated and with some financial support there can be even more growth!

We will also consider sponsorship for the printing costs providing it is appropriate.

Welcome

Just an initial post to say thank you to Selina for setting up this blog page. Im a techno retard so couldnt have done it without you!

Quick update for people. Hopefully you have read the profile and know a little about our work but the main issue involves the anti violence educational material including the film. Trailer below.



The campaign is moving along nicely. In December a motion will be passed at the local council (Taunton Deane, Somerset) which will officially back the work of the SAV campaign.

Schools are gradually picking up on the anti violence educational material so watch this space.

I have a conference with the Behavioural and Attendance Consultant on Tuesday at the annual meeting. If i can promote the material there theres the possibility of them using it and spreading the word at more schools.

The campaign is being picked up in other counties thanks to the hard work and dedication from others. Selina is pushing it in Surrey and is doing a wonderful job.

Posters have been developed and we are looking in to having them in pubs and clubs, hopefully on a national scale. A few pubs have agreed to display them locally already!

Samples



The website is changing next week. Same address, better site. We have had difficulties getting flash video files to work with the website software (i dont really get it!). We are now switching to html and it will look great.

So lots going on and lots to come. Wish us luck!

Oh, if anyone would like to develop the campaign in their local area please get in touch. Also, any suggestions or thoughts to incorporate in to the campaign are welcome.