Wednesday 21st was the ITV fixers Big Fix event up at the London Studios! It was very exciting and a proper tv set. Its the same studios that they film some of the x-factor series and other shows like loose women and graham norton! Fab! It was a pretty great night too although the prison cell style accomodation for the night left something to be desired! Ha. I met a fantastic guy called Evans who also campaigns and works to prevent and raise awareness of violence. Fantastic guy. He went on set the same time as me so we had a lot in common and it was brilliant to meet someone on the same wave length! Our part in the live fixers event is embeded below along with some pics.
So after spending 2 days in London we then travelled up to Warrington, Merseyside to a secure unit for vunerable young offenders to give a talk and show the DVD. This was always going to be a tough challenge and a real test for the power of the DVD but it all went very well. There was a strong reaction from 2 out of the 4 groups and the other 2 were silent which is apparently a sign that it had a good effect. The staff were happy with the day and i felt that it all went very well. I going to contact the guy who arranged it in a months time to see if there has been any noticable long term effects. Fingers crossed!
I would like to make an observation in this post and see how many others feel as i do. I also want to comment on the falsness and unreliability of statistics.
Everytime the police release a statement about a serious crime or murder they state 'this is an isolated incident'. What does this mean to you?? To me this means that it is a rare occurance and doesnt happen regularly. I have found out the true meaning of the phrase following a talk with the Avon & Somerset Constabulary PR officer. What the police actually mean when they say this is that 'the crime was not linked to any other incident that happened that night'! Miss leading? PR play on words to reassure the public? Out right manipulative lying? I suppose the power of language is powerful, using the right phrase, the right words in a carfully crafted manner can give an impression and im sure the police are all to aware that the public will see this as having a different meaning.
I want to demonstrate this over use of the 'isolated incident' phrase and demonstrate that it does in fact mean 'not related to any other crime that night'. In Taunton since Lloyds murder there have now been another 2. There have been atleast 2 before this too. So from Lloyds news report onwards, here we go:
Sorry, i cant find a written news report from that far back but the video says it all approx half way through. There was also another murder involving a polish couple but there was very little reported on this. The most recent story is below (01/07/10).
POLICE say they have launched a murder investigation following the death of a 53-year-old man in Taunton on Wednesday.Three people were arrested after an alleged assault at a house. The victim was taken to Musgrove Park Hospital but later died.
A police spokesman said: “Officers would like to hear from anyone who may have information to help their investigations and would like to hear from anyone who was in the Severn Drive area between 8pm to 9.30pm. They have stressed that this was an isolated incident.
So thats a very small example. Next time there is a murder report on the news make sure you listen out to those famous words 'this is an isolated incident'. See how meaningless that saying becomes.
Talking about statistics, is it public knowledge that every year when police statistics on crime are published they change the definition of the classifications?? Assault can mean one thing one year and another the following year, this can give the impression of rises and falls in crime rates and on face value its true and accurate but underneath it all is clever manipulation to give the positive impression the authorities want. There have of course also been reports of false police statistics by the media and not to mention the fact that there is reported and unreported crime. There is a lot of crime that goes unreported and i would also like to point out that crimes are only taken into statistics when the perpertrator has been convicted. Now this bit was fairly obviouse however our slack and leanient legal system mean that alot of criminals do not get convicted. When i do school talks i rely more on the A&E statistics, it is always good to have statistics to back up what is being said and when people attend A&E it is recorded as to why they are attending. According to A&E stats assault has increased, but according to police there is no change and in some areas there is an improvement, this leads me to the conclusion that the stats are incorrect or more crime is going unreported to the police.
The Avon and Somerset Constabulary
Now, i have debated whether to share this with people for a long time. I used to be in full support of the police saying that they do the best job they can with the resources they have. However over the last few years my opinion of them has deminished.
During the filming process for our DVD we had to close a road, i was passed from person to person in the police to find the correct person i needed to speak to. I also had to deal with the coucil and the highways authority who were very helpful and supportive. The police on the other hand were very unfriendly and difficult and after wasting much of my time (approx 1 month!) promptly turned around and said i never needed to speak with them in the first place. So our first night of filming went ahead as planned. They initially offered us PCSO's for the night too which they then refused at the last minute.
On the second night we again submitted the road closure form and i, despite being told it was unnecesary thought it best to inform the police as this is the usual protocol. I was met with a frosty phone call and the chap said that he didnt know why i was telling him as he had already told me i didnt need to inform the police. So the second night of filming went ahead, we closed a road on a quiet industrial estate on a Saturday night. The first hour of filming went ok, then the police turned up, did they approach us, no! They drove up and down the road forcing us to stop filming and clear the road twice delaying our filming, we then moved on to a scene which required a crane which along with the ambulance meant the road was fully blocked. This time the police were unable to pass and so they stopped their car in the middle of the road directly in our camera shot and put their lights on full. After a short while we approached them, they opened their window and without any effort to elite the car they said 'we dont know anything about this, whats going on' and demanded to see our papers (which luckily we had). Now, on a busy Saturday night, what were the police doing on a quiet industrial estate, why did they not get out of the car to ask us what was happening the first time and why did they deliberatly get in the way. I complained the next day and had no reply.
When it came to doing ambulance and A&E interviews i asked them if they would like to be interviewed as well to give an all rounded approach to violence. Initially they did not reply but i soon got a call from a lady at HQ from the PR team. She seemed very pleasant and we met with her to show her the film, she initially seemed very impressed and keen to help. We arranged a meeting at my local police station under the impression i was going to meet the custody seargent to discuss interviewing. When i arrived alone i was taken into an office, next 5 police officers including senior police officers entered and they said they would like to see this film. I was unable to say much and felt very intimidated as they had blocked the door. They watched the film without a word. When it had finished i was bombarded with statements such as 'that will never be shown in schools on my patch', 'thats scare mongering', 'thats inaccurate', 'theres no violence in Taunton' and more. Whilst trying to stand my ground against 5 police officers i asked them 'if i was lying about crime levels in Taunton why had there been so many murders?' I then asked them if they knew how many there had been. They looked at each other at then said sheepishly they would have to check their records. I said there have been 5 that i know of in my lifetime, is that acceptable?! I was then accused of having a political agenda and the police said they would only be involved if i sensored the film, made it a 15 rated, put a password on the site, and remade the film to include a police interview (the launch was in 1 month!). After having a think i decided to compromise, i would add an interview if it was done within that month, i would put a 'suggestion' of 15 yrs and above with a warning on the website but that is all. This wasnt good enough for them, it was their way or not at all. So i said no. This film was designed to show and tell the truth and it should not be lightened or changed or sensored. I havent spoken with the police since.
Obviously this can be seen as a tall story so in due course i will be adding the filming footage showing the police in action on our filming set.
So for those of you wondering why there are no police interviews on the SAV site this is the reason.
SAV has recently received a grant for £3600 from the Somerset Community Foundation! The Awards for All lottery grant is still in the process of being paid too. The monies will be spent on promotion of our charity, further educational resources including more DVDs and development of our existing website. More importantly for our local community this means we will be putting on a Fireworks display in October! The idea is to do a little bit of fundraising whilst providing our first family/community event. I will mention more on that as things develop.
Me looking like a muppet accepting the cheque
We have a new exhibition display on order from a company in Leeds which we will accompany us to various events to help raise awareness of our work in society as well as increase our presence. An example is seen below. This is possible because of our grant from the lottery and the Somerset foundation. We will also be booking a place at the Education show in March 2011.
Our luck was in as we also received a Google grant to advertise free on the Google search engine. The Adwords advertising campaign is currently being set up.
We now have a new volunteer who will be helping with events, attending other events with our material and stand, and will also be doing PR and fundraising.
We have also received an O2 Think Big award which means 2 people from SAV (most likley myself) will attend a workshop in Cardiff and then be given a grant of £300 to carry out a project. If we are successfull and show benifit from the £300 we can then go on to apply for bigger grants from O2.
Now, conferences. SAV gets a lot of support from a teacher training organisation called GLEAN. They respresent and support us at many events they attend. They distributed lots of leaflets about our resources at a conference that took place at UWE in Bristol last week. Both myself and a member of GLEAN are attending a large educational/teaching conference in London next month to talk about the resource. This is a high profile conference and people have to apply to have a slot on the stage to present products and resources. Apparently only about 1 in 100 applications are approved but they were so impressed with our application they have given us 2 slots! The plan is to do a powerpoint presentation, show the film and a new film that demonstrates how to use the resource in the classroom.
Finally, Kirsty is back from her Kili climb soon!! We are now starting to collect in the money and so far Kirsty has raised a total of £1300! I will update on the final figure soon.
Our next event we will be attending is the Bridgwater Young Peoples Festival which will be next Saturday on the East Bridgwater community school playing fields.
Its been ages since the last post! So heres an update.
Anne Frank - SAV went to London to the Emirates Stadium to talk to young campaigners last month. It was an interesting day. The idea was to share our experience with young people who are starting out on their own campaigns. Im hoping it was valuable for them.
School talks - I attended 2 schools in Plymouth over 2 days to speak about what happened to Lloyd and show the SAV film. It had a brilliant effect as per usual. Im suprised at how much the DVD keeps its impact no matter where it is shown.
TrueTube - A website for films made by young people on topics important to them asked me to travel to London to interview a lady from the Department for Social Justice. They write policies and recommendations to Government based on crime. Their last policy was one on Gang Crime which was quite impressive. Providing the Governement listen it should be effective. They focus on short, medium and long term which is brilliant as most are short term solutions. They also base their policy on what the people of the UK think by doing polls and gathering opinion. Thats key to success in my opinion. They are currently working on youth justice at present to focus on youth violence and anti social behaviour. There may be opportunity to work with them which will be a great way to influence change on a Government scale. I will post the link when the interview has been edited.
Fireworks fundraiser - I am looking to team up with a local fireworks display to raise some money for SAV in November.
Summer Fete 2011 - Vivary park has been booked and we are starting the planning for this community event. Theres a lot of work involved but i have no doubt that we can pull it off!
Sponsored walk - Kirsty's Kilimanjaro walk is coming up next month and we are making good progress on sponsors. Thank you to everyone that has donated and to anyone that wishes to donate bear in mind that £1 from each of our facebook members will raise over £2000. So please sponsor this amazing challenge.
Kirsty's fundraiser - As well as the sponsored walk Kirsty is also organising a fundraising day in Taunton for the start of June. Its all ready just a case of encouraging people to attend.
Trustees - We have welcomed a new trustee to the SAV charity who will be our official treasurer. We are also going to be making Kirsty a Trustee to manage fundraising as she is doing a fantastic job and it would be great to have her continue.
Grants - We have received a conditional grant offer for £2500 from the Awards for All lottery grant program. This will enable us to attend an Education Show next March to promote SAV and our resource. We have 2 further grant applications pending.
ITV fixers - Im awaiting an edit day for the advert and hopefully it should be ready by the middle of next month! The task of finding places to show the advert then begins!
Website - Our website is being revamped which should be ready soon. We hope to have another page for feedback where i can post up some of the brilliant feedback we have received to demonstrate the positive impact our resource is having on young people.
I think thats it for the time being. Thank you for reading and i will post further updates soon. If anyone wishes to sponsor Kirsty please click the link: http://www.charitygiving.co.uk/kirstygough
If anyone wishes to join in on fundraising and promotion of SAV we are looking for volunteers. Please get in touch if you believe in our work.
Last day filming with ITV fixers today. We were at the Bristol medical simulation centre and everything went very well. We got some great shots in a great A&E setting. We even simulated a cardiac arrest, clever technology! We start editing next within the month, cant wait! This advert should be pretty impressive and hard hitting, well thats the plan. It will be up on facebook, youtube, the SAV website, crime stoppers affiliated website and hopefully it can be used by the NHS, Police, Cinemas and possibly TV. Its going to be a hard slog to encourage profit making organisations to take it up though. Hopefully we can do it.
Stand Against Violence is a campaign started in 2005 after the death of 17 year old Lloyd Fouracre. When returning home from a friends party he was brutally beaten to death by 3 teenage boys. Shortly after Lloyds brother Adam began a campaign in his brothers memory
The aim of the campaign is to reduce violence. Adam started working with local schools by giving talks and presentations to groups of pupils and also became involved with PSHE programs. As time went on Adam decided to produce a film re enacting his brother’s murder in an attempt to educate pupils. The aim for the film is for it to be used in citizenship programs and, if appropriate, PSHE.
