Passionate Blog

A passionate presence at the Chase Business Start-up and Growth Show

CAROL and Neil enjoyed an afternoon at Hednesford Town Football Club - but they weren't shouting from the terraces.

Instead, they attended the first Chase Business Start-up and Growth Show which was expertly organised by Linda Whitehouse from Acorn Events and opened by Fred Pritchard from Pritchard Holdings.

A packed schedule of talks included Carol offering advice to local businesses on how to kick start their media relations activities.

She said: "At a time when all we hear in regards to local business is doom and gloom it was good to see an event which set out to help people so well-received. We look forward to more events and would like to thank the team behind it for the opportunity to take part."

Innovative medical treatment helps Glenys eat again

 

ONE of the most frustrating things for journalists when it comes to PR people, can be the over-use of a word like 'innovative' or 'pioneering'.

That's why it's good to report on a genuine first, especially when it means really making a difference to someone's life.

We're currently working with speech and language therapist Sumathi Sinnappan to publicise the way she has been able to help Glenys Watkins, a retired teacher.

Sumathi says that work could be the start of a medical advance in the UK, capable of helping millions of people and saving the NHS millions of pounds.

She's promoting a new treatment, called Vital Stim therapy, which helps people who have lost the ability to swallow to eat again.

Big idea for small talkers

A STAFFORDSHIRE mum is setting up language groups aimed at finding fun ways to develop speech and communication skills in pre-school youngsters.

Small Talk Language Groups are the brainchild of Libby Hill, a Uttoxeter-based speech and language therapist who was concerned that there is nothing of its kind available to local parents at a time when studies have shown our childrens’ communication skills are falling*.

The groups use things like pretend play, story-telling, puppets and magic carpets to Language Land** to help three and four-year-olds build and improve skills essential to starting school.

Ticket to ride for bus-mad Kieron

WE were delighted to be in on the act when big-hearted bus company, The Green Bus, surprised a Staffordshire schoolboy who is just bonkers about buses.

The Birmingham firm offered their services for free after being contacted by Kieron's dad, Darren, who explained his son had seen one of the green buses at a rally, and been really taken by it.

Kieron has collected so much memorabilia on his beloved buses, he has even been given his own garden shed to store it all.

More Passionate Media training sessions in London and Birmingham

FOLLOWING the success of our recent one-day course in London, for freelance writers wanting to find out more about making more money from so-called 'commercial' projects, we have now booked venues for future events.

You can read feedback from our last event here. With attendees telling us it was the "best training they had ever been on" and that "we should add life coaching to our list of skills," it's fair to say we were blown away by the reaction.

We are keen to make sure that the sessions are excellent value and that journalists can find them genuinely worthwhile. We've deliberately kept the price realistic in the hope that people whose circumstances have changed can join us. And we're offering a discounted price for journalists who have recently been made redundant. Places are limited to ensure feedback is specific enough to attendees' particular questions.

Restaurant at top table in awards

MASSIVE congratulations are due to our client Suki’s Bar and Indian Restaurant who have been named as one of the top three dining venues in the Black Country in a regional awards scheme.

The eatery took third place in the Best Restaurant category in the Black Country Hotel and Tourism awards. Brother and sister team at Suki's Bharat and Hema Patel are pictured right.

It’s a great achievement for the restaurant as they have only been open for two years, although the venue is built upon the family success in running the well-known The Vine pub in West Bromwich, which has been going for more than 30 years.

Owner Bharat Patel, who runs Suki’s with his sister, Hema, said he was blown away to be chosen as one of the top three restaurants in the region.

“We’re still pretty new to the industry, having opened less than two years ago, so we were just delighted to reach the last three,” he said.

Please buy our fantastic new collection of comedy writing - all for Comic Relief

Dave Spikey and Nat Coombs back Twitter-led charitable comedy collaboration

You can buy it here.

TwitterTitters, a new collection of comedy writing created through social networking site Twitter is set to tickle the nation’s funny bone in support of Red Nose Day with the publication of the TwitterTitters book, featuring comics Dave Spikey and Nat Coombs.

All proceeds from the book, which costs £4.99 to download or £9 in print, are to be donated to Red Nose Day by the creators of the project.

The TwitterTitters project, which was founded by Linda Jones and Louise Bolotin, set out to drive social change via Twitter, inviting comic writers to submit their work by using the social networking site to raise money for Comic Relief.

The finished book boasts exclusive new writing from Phoenix Nights co-creator Dave and a foreword from Nat whose comedy Chelsey: OMG! is an online phenomenon.

Dave has submitted a previously unseen story “The Best Medicine” for the collection which is an excerpt from his own upcoming book: “I gave him my kidney, then he stole my heart”.

New course puts city planners on the map thanks to Lifelong Learning

THE fact that regeneration is such an important part in life in most of our towns and cities made doing our first job with the Lifelong Learning Network all the more interesting and inspiring.

The network has helped to put together an innovative new course designed to improve regeneration planning by encouraging a more co-ordinated approach between the sometimes vast array of different strands involved in these redevelopments.

As the previous entry on this site explains, the Lifelong Learning Network for Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent, Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin encourage people who have been out of education to return to vocational learning in higher eduction.

The Learning Labs initiative, which the LLN organised along with several other providers, was launched at Stoke City's Britannia Stadium with its first intake of 32 students. New student Joanne Mayne is pictured with Tim Crossfield from the Lifelong Learning Network

Reporting on an upbeat local success story brings airtime for Mincher Lockett

IT'S great when a good news story stirs a lot of interest from the media.

That certainly happened for our client Mincher-Lockett Opticians in Stafford for the re-opening of their newly refurbished practice in Stafford Street. The Mayor of Stafford is pictured right doing the honours with optician Jan Goodwin.

The re-opening came on the same day a survey came out about town centres in the country being blighted by closed shops so BBC Radio Stoke came along to interview the shop owners, the Express & Star also  came to take photographs.

This was all in the midst of us getting our own pictures to send to the media who weren't able to come and getting pics for the Mincher-Lockett Opticians website.

Quite a response. Getting positive in the face of the economic gloom does work.