Families’ Activity Breaks (FAB) provide bereavement support, adventure activities and peer support in the aftermath of a family’s loss.  The aim is to provide a safe and nurturing atmosphere for families to deal with their grief and meet other people who have been through a similar experience.  FAB is a partnership between the Armed Forces, YHA (Youth Hostels Association) and the Ministry of Defence.  sounddelivery has worked to support this project since pilot camps were run during the summer of 2009.  We were asked in the Spring of 2010 to provide support for the project by getting regional coverage for a 6 day charity bike ride from YHA Coverack in Cornwall to YHA Whitby in Yorkshire – a journey of almost 600 miles.  The cyclists included YHA staff and military personnel.

We managed to secure coverage on many regional BBC and Commercial radio stations including BBC Radio Cornwall, BBC Radio Derby, regional Heart stations, BBC Radio Gloucestershire and BFBS: the station broadcasting to British military personnel.  Many of these stations also broadcast pre-recorded audio clips that we had recorded previously to add a fresh element to their broadcasts.

Here you can listen to the interview YHA staffer Mick Horan did with BBC Radio Gloucestershire on day 3 of the mammoth cycle ride:

Many of the broadcasters took some of our broadcast clips to help illustrate their coverage, with Chelsey’s moving talk about how FAB gave her confidence back being particularly popular. You can listen to this piece below:

We also headed up the social media campaign during the cycle, ensuring that the public could interact with the campaign. This saw the number of Twitter followers to the Friends of FAB account more than double, the Facebook group jump in use and over 150 photos and videos added around the web!

The cycle raised more than £20,000 for FAB – a fantastic amount for a great project!  We’re really looking forward to seeing what else this amazing project can achieve.

sounddelivery has now worked with the Leicester Hospitals Charity on two projects to produce appeal videos for fundraising projects.  Our approach has always been to concentrate on the personal stories of the patients and families involved creating a strong emotional pull for the viewer.  Both videos have been used to full effect by the fundraising team at the charity: at stakeholder events and hosted online.

The charity is trying to raise £350,000 to make their new neonatal unit at Leicester Royal Infirmary a centre of excellence for the sickest and most vulnerable newborn babies.

They want to raise money for:

• Overnight accommodation rooms – as all parents ideally only want to be a “dressing gown” distance away from their poorly baby.
• Specialist Omni beds – high technology cots, giving the very seriously ill, the best possible chance.
• Parents facilities – where parents can make a cup of tea and support each other away from the intensity of the ward.
• Private rooms – in the very worst case scenario, mums and dads can say goodbye with dignity, in a room designed to help them cope with the impending loss.

To create the Appeal Video we worked with an in-house photographer and carried out interviews with hospital staff and parents.  Working alongside the fundraising team we spoke to parents before the recording day and explained with them why we wanted to interview them and how the content would be used.  Jude then spent a day at the hospital recording all the interviews and working with the photographer to ensure we had the right pictures to tell the story.

Our second project with the Charity was to create an Appeal Video for the Lord Mayor’s Forget-Me-Not Appeal.  Over the course of a day we interviewed a number of carers on the ward as well as ward staff, doctors and nurses.  As you can imagine this was a very emotional subject covering very personal issues and there were many instances where we had to stop the recording.  Working with a photographer we then put together this short film.

The Forget-Me-Not Appeal is raising funds to create a national centre of excellence for dementia care in Leicester Hospitals.

It will provide:

• A specially designed ward that caters for the particular needs of patients with dementia
• A secure and pleasant sensory garden to encourage patients to move freely outdoors whilst still being cared for and properly supervised
• Enhanced training and awareness of dementia for all staff in our hospitals
• Information for families, carers and care home managers to better support people living with dementia in Leicester

” Sounddelivery came to us at very short notice and put together a thoughtful and compelling slideshow to help launch the Lord Mayor’s Forget-me-not appeal 2010/11. Everyone attending the mayor-making ceremony at Leicester Town Hall watched the slideshow and it was clear that people were moved by it. The slideshow undoubtedly got the appeal off to an excellent start. All we have to do now is raise the money!”
Tim Diggle, Head of Fundraising, Leicester Hospitals Charity

If you want to support either of the Charity’s projects please follow the links to the appropriate justgiving pages:  justgiving.co.uk/forget-me-not-appeal and justgiving.com/newbornbabyappeal

sounddelivery has worked with several museums, including the Museum of London and National Portrait Gallery, to deliver digital media projects to engage new audiences.  We were commissioned by the Museum of Croydon to work with young people as part of a project called I Am Here to produce audio podcasts based on exhibits in the museum. The Identity themed project involved the group of teenagers thinking about their own lives and how exhibits within the galleries related to them.

The 5 sessions we ran form part of the Stories of the World project – a cornerstone of the Cultural Olympiad – allowing local people to become ‘curators’ of the collections and objects held in museums, libraries and archives. It was fascinating seeing how eager they were and how quickly they mastered the equipment from recording to editing. The content that they produced was extremely powerful.

Here Hanna compares a WWII dog tag to her school exam number:

Kadeem’s poem A Taste of Feeling describes the decline in the use of a typewriter:

The finished podcasts will be made available on the Museum of Croydon website, and will be integrated into the museum’s collection in the coming months.  The museum’s interactive content already stands out, but it has been great to work with them on developing it even further.

“We were impressed with the way sounddelivery worked with and enabled the project’s young people to create high quality, engaging podcasts.”
Gemma Sturtridge, Assistant Collections Officer, Croydon Museum Service

We’ve been working with the YHA since 2007 creating videos for their AGM which traditionally takes place in September. We’ve visited action-adventure summer camps (normally in the rain) and interviewed teachers and pupils about the benefits of going on school trips and staying in youth hostels.

This year we took a slightly different approach and trained young people (aged between 10 and 19) to do some of the work for us! Daubeney Primary School in Hackney volunteered to let us follow their Year 6 school trip to North Yorkshire. We trained the children to use audio recorders and digital cameras and they went away armed with microphones and made lots of recordings for us, and kept written diaries which we then able to record.  The finished piece used loads of the pictures the kids took – and some of their recordings too!

We also trained teenagers to use small cameras so they could record video diaries while away at a YHA Do It 4 Real summer camp.  We then spent a day filming at the camp (another rainy day!) and then put together the audio diaries and our footage in the edit.  We got personal views of camp – and when reviewing the footage found lots of things we wouldn’t have been able to film ourselves.  It gave the teenagers the chance to add their creativity too – I really like Katie’s spelling out Do It 4 Real on her condensated window!

We also had exclusive access to the first Families’ Activity Breaks run by the Ministry of Defence in partnership with the YHA. This pilot project was aimed at families who have suffered the loss of a serving parent (including step parent or other legal guardian). The camp involved loads of fun and exciting activities including coasteering, abseiling and raft building. sounddelivery Associate Lucy Frears spent a day at the camp in Coverack in Cornwall and interviewed mothers and children about their holiday and how they felt about spending a week with other families going through the bereavement process.

We were delighted that the audio we collected  featured on Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio Four on Monday 17th August.

The presentation we put together, which you can see below, was played to a Government minister who was visiting the second week of the camp – which took place in Whitby.  Discussions have taken place and we’re delighted that after this initial pilot 3 FAB camps are now taking place next summer.

YHA is in a competitive market and is constantly trying to keep its profile high so anyone choosing hostel accomodation will come to them.  Young independent travellers have a host of options when it comes to cheap and affordable places to stay.  We were asked to make a short film to appeal to young people to try and encourage them to choose YHA.

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“sounddelivery breathe life into ideas. YHA has worked on several projects with the company and has never been disappointed. They are a one-stop-shop for all of our multi-media requirements.” Sam Littlechilds, National Policy Officer, Marketing & Corporate Affairs Department, YHA

“Families Activity Breaks (FAB) is a tri Service initiative to provide bereaved Service families will an activity based holiday in partnership with the Youth Hostel Association and the Candle Project. sounddelivery produced a slideshow based on a day spent with the FAB mums, children and volunteers undertaking various adventure training activities including zip wires and rock climbing. The slide show captured the effect of the project and the emotions of the families in a way that was understated yet utterly powerful. I have been unable to adequately articulate the benefits and effect FAB has had on the families, I have put the slide show on and its done the job for me. We are now in a position to growing and expanding the project and I shall use the slide show to further support FAB.” Major Belinda Forsythe MBE

The Twentieth Century Society exists to safeguard the heritage of architecture and design in Britain from 1914 onwards. Caseworkers are assigned specific buildings which are under threat from demolition or change. One of the society’s key campaigns has centred on Robin Hood Gardens – a council housing complex in Poplar, east London, designed in the late 1960s by architects Alison and Peter Smithson. Sounddelivery was asked to help promote the campaign to a wider audience and specifically help to create an audio slideshow to profile the buildings’ merits and argument for protection.

We worked with Jo Moore and Catherine Croft at the society to create the slideshow and visited Robin Hood Gardens on two occasions – first to record an interview with architect, Ken Baker, and then we returned to interview local residents. We worked with a professional photographer to capture pictures and sourced archive images where needed.

There is a certain level of controversy around Robin Hood Gardens. There are as many people desperate to save the buildings as they are who want it torn down. After making the slideshow we alerted the team at societyguardian.co.uk who were very interested in running some editorial. After seeing the slideshow we produced they invited the Twentieth Century Society to write a Joe Public Blog comment piece and commissioned their own video.  All these elements, the slideshow, online article and video were put on the web and cross promoted in the main supplement. And on the day it all went live the visitors to this website went through the roof!

sounddelivery was invited to an away-day at Kew Gardens to deliver a half day training session for the Top Management Group (TMG) at the Department for International Development. The workshop focussed on internal communications and ways of bringing stories to life. The department (of more than 40 staff) faces tough working schedules, supporting ministers at home and abroad. They were keen to look at different approaches of communicating their activities and challenges to the rest of the department.

sounddelivery’s session covered the basics of internal communications (the theoretical bit); the art of storytelling and how to spot a good story; effective communication channels and which to use; and how to ensure you have a coherent approach. We then divided the department into teams and got them to have a play with some audio and video equipment. The setting of Kew Gardens couldn’t have been better as the teams ran around ducking in and out of the flora and fauna. We ended the day playing back the quickly edited films and audio features – to show how it really is possible to turn these stories round fast!

“The practical session with the flip cameras was a real highlight for lots of the team. People really enjoyed it and found it much easier than they thought it would be and lots of fun. Even those who were initially reluctant really took to it – which was great and definitely an endorsement of the session. People came away enthused, inspired and having had a lot of fun. Everyone is now really keen to put their training into practice!”
Sally Waples, Head of Ministerial Support Team | Department for International Development

It’s not always easy deciding what you want to do with your life. In fact, for many of us its something we can struggle with for years!  Well there’s now a fantastic new resource for 16-25 years to help them answer some of the big questions life throws up every now and again.  Lifetracks is an ambitious new programme which supports young people to make informed choices about learning, training and work.

The website – www.lifetracks.com – has been put together by YouthNet, and adds to their existing websites: www.do-it.org.uk and www.thesite.org. YouthNet commissioned sounddelivery to produce audio content to support their editorial. We interviewed young people on the following subjects:

• student loans
• Education Maintenance Allowances (EMAs)
• job interviews
  
• the impact of the recession
• how to put together a CV
• dealing with difficult colleagues
• copying with poor A level results
  

You can check out the audio features at www.lifetracks.com or click below to hear advice about what makes a good CV:

The Lifetracks Consortium consists of YouthNet, Rathbone, Skill and The Foyer Federation – four charities who are working together to engage, inspire and support young people across the UK.

To mark the 40th anniversary of the Parkinson’s Disease Society sounddelivery was commissioned to produce a series of audio features with leading researchers. The series aims to look back on research that has pioneered vital advances in treatment and care of people living with Parkinson’s disease.

Our reporter interviewed five consultant neurologists on topics ranging from “the causes of the disease” to “hopes for a cure” and recorded opening introductions to help put the interviews in context. We also produced ‘stand-alone’ features without a voice-over.

Dr Roger Barker of the Brain Research Centre in Cambridge explains how research is bringing us closer to a cure:

Parkinson’s Disease Nurse Specialist, Kathy Magee, explains her role and the benefits to patients:

The Family Holiday Association provides access to holidays to disadvantaged families and raises awareness about the value of holidays – and first hand accounts of their work is a vital part of their communications strategy. We’ve undertaken a number of projects for the charity and continue to work closely with them on an ongoing basis.

Project: audio case studies

We document the work that the charity does through the production of short audio case studies recorded with families on holiday. These features give the listener a real insight into the work of the organisation. The content is added to the Family Holiday Association website but has many other uses too – the audio stories have been sent to marathon runners to use part of their fundraising efforts, they’ve been played to trustees and donors at events, and have also been featured in the media, including Guardian Unlimited and the BBC.

We all take holidays for granted. Listen to Maria and her family describing their break in Skegness:

See the audio slideshow on SocietyGuardian.

Project: audio training for staff and beneficiaries

We’ve trained several families who have received funding from the charity to record their holiday experiences. We’ve also trained the chief executive and other members of staff to record stories. The recorded material has been turned into audio diaries and case studies which showcase the charity’s work and support their fundraising efforts. The content has been used in funding bids, played at the AGM and featured in the charity’s annual review.

Listen to the audio diary recorded by Iris on a break with her son to Kench Hill in Kent:

Project: annual review

We produced an audio CD to accompany the Family Holiday Association’s 2007 annual review. We worked with existing audio features that we’d built up over the previous two years, recorded new material and re-cut some existing interviews. The CD provided a valuable supporting resource for the annual review and gave people the opportunity to engage with the charity in a different medium.

Liam is 7 years old and here he tells us what a beach holiday is really like

Project: audio slideshow tribute

When the charity’s founder Patrick Laurance died in 2008, we were commissioned to produce an audio slideshow that paid tribute to his life and work. We combined material from an interview that we’d previously recorded with Patrick with fresh interviews with friends, family and charity supporters including Libby Purvis.

The audio slideshow tribute provides a lasting legacy to the role Patrick played in providing breaks to disadvantaged families. It was played at a special memorial service and at the charity’s annual general meeting.

What the Family Holiday Association says

“The Family Holiday Association has been working with sounddelivery on several audio projects and we are delighted with the results.  It is important that families are put at ease in order to create compelling content and impact and sounddelivery has done just that. They are great to work with; they are professional; they provide ideas and they deliver.”  John McDonald, Director, Family Holiday Association

sounddelivery has built a strong relationship with the Blue Cross after being commissioned to work on a number of multimedia projects. We’ve created podcasts, films and audio content that engages existing and potential supporters, journalists and volunteers.

Project: revamping podcasts

The Blue Cross had developed a series of audio ‘petcasts’, but felt that the material they were producing wasn’t fulfilling the full potential of the podcast format. We worked closely with the website team to identify news ways of engaging the listener and then recorded and edited new material based on interviews with staff, volunteers and service users.

The revamped Blue Cross petcasts are produced bi-monthly and are distributed via the charity’s website and their Pawprint e-newsletter which has 90,000 subscribers.

In this petcast you can hear about Take Your Dog to Work Day run by the Blue Cross:

“We started working with Sounddelivery for a fresh approach to making our podcasts and are impressed with the results. Our podcasts are now informative and entertaining, while keeping the message of our charity work at the fore.”
Gemma Thompson, Blue Cross

Project: Pets for Life films and electronic press kit

The Blue Cross ‘Pets for Life’ campaign aimed to raise awareness of negative attitudes towards pets within nursing homes, sheltered housing and other care facilities.

We worked with the Blue Cross to produce two short films and an electronic press kit for the campaign – all created on a quick turnaround of just one week. The materials featured real people who were affected by this issue, to bring the research to life and strengthen the argument for action. Material from our press kit was used by a wide range of broadcast media, including BBC Breakfast, GMTV and BBC South news.

“Our ‘Pets for Life’ campaign aimed to raise awareness of the problem that many residential care homes do not allow pets. I knew that one of the strongest elements of the campaign would be case studies of elderly people who have had to give up pets to go into care. In order to limit the demands on the elderly people involved, we decided to film video case studies for the broadcast media and for our website. sounddelivery turned this around very quickly – filming, editing and producing the films all in the space of a week. They did a fantastic job of capturing the stories that we needed to get our message across, in a format that they knew the broadcasters would use. We got some great coverage with the films being used in packages on BBC Breakfast, BBC News Channel and regional TV. I would definitely recommend using sounddelivery for this sort of project – their knowledge and dedication to the project was invaluable.”
Laura Dobson, senior press officer at The Blue Cross pet charity

Project: creating a training CD

We produced an audio training CD for the Blue Cross Pet Bereavement Support Service (PBSS) telephone helpline. The content was aimed at volunteers, veterinarians and other professionals seeking training in pet loss support. As most PBSS volunteer training is delivered through correspondence, the CD format provided an effective way of supporting different styles of learning and developing practical skills. The 10 track CD incorporates straightforward interviews as well as role plays of call scenarios featuring helpline volunteers.

“Blue Cross staff and new volunteers on the PBSS starter training have commented on the exceptionally high quality of this audio learning resource and its usefulness and relevance within the training programme.”
Dr Sue Dawson, Training Manager at the Pet Bereavement Support Service