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Senior Freelance Opportunity at sounddelivery Job Spec Final 2010

Yes, Its back! We’re bringing back the Social Media Exchange – and this time its Express!  What does that mean?  Well its a different approach to your average conference or training event.  Over the course of a day you’ll have the chance to learn from dozens of different subjects in 1 hour chunks.  You could be starting the day learning how to boost your Twitter productivity, then move on to a video-editing session before getting inspired by Facebook Campaigning.  And that’s all before lunch!

Trainers include:

Rob Dyson, PR Manager – Whizz Kids

Jacqui O’Beirne, Digital Marketing Manager - Dogs Trust

Kat Arney, Science Communicator and presenter/producer of the Cancer Research UK podcast

Simon Berry, the founder of ColaLife, a campaign that’s trying to get Coca-Cola to use its distribution channels to help save lives in developing countries.

Places are strictly limited – to make a booking please email your details to:

socialmediaexchange@sounddelivery.org.uk

The Ministry of Defence, in partnership with YHA (Youth Hostel Association), is organising short holidays to support families who have lost a loved one in military service. Families’ Activity Breaks – also known as FAB camps are activity holidays which features activities like building rafts, abseiling, rock climbing and flying down zip wires.

The aim of the camps is to provide a safe, and nurturing atmosphere for families to deal with their grief and meet with other families who have been through a similar experience.

This summer camps are taking place in Coverack in Cornwall, Whitby in North Yorkshire, Conwy in North Wales and Cairngorm in Scotland.  The camps run from the 24^th July until the 26^th August 2010.

The pilot FAB camp took place at the YHA Youth Hostel in Coverack, Cornwall in August 2009 and sounddelivery was invited by YHA and the MOD to speak to the families taking part in the holiday. This short video captures the holiday atmosphere and highlights the real value of the FAB camp.

To find out more about FAB please go to www.fabcamps.org.uk

Public Sector cuts seem to be the news story of the moment right now – so it seemed fitting as the subject for our latest charity effectiveness podcast for the Guardian (and sponsored by knowhownonprofit.org).  We also wanted to know how the current economic situation was affecting the charity sector’s umbrella groups: NCVO, NAVCA and the many CVS organisations around the country.  So we gathered together a small panel of esteemed guests to thrash it all out!  We also consider coalition working and how charities can make the most out of strong partnerships with some wise words from Lesley-Anne Alexander, the chief executive of RNIB.  This time the host is Jane Dudman, the editor of Public – the Guardian’s Public Management website.  We hope you find it an enjoyable and informative listen – do let us know what you think!

Programme guests

Kevin Curley, chief executive of NAVCA

Peter Lewis, chief executive of the London Voluntary Service Council

Vandna Gohil, director of Voice 4 Change England

Alan Lewis, the chief executive of Liverpool Charity and Voluntary Services

Lesley-Anne Alexander, chief executive of RNIB

Patrick Butler, the Guardian’s head of society, health and education

Programme links

Capacity Builders Survey of local third sector support providers: http://capacitybuilders.org.uk/node/460

London Voluntary Service Council’s Big Squeeze Report: http://www.lvsc.org.uk/Templates/information.asp?NodeId=100050

Liverpool Charity and Voluntary Services: http://www.lcvs.org.uk

Voice 4 Change England: http://www.voice4change-england.co.uk/

Guardian Cutswatch: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/series/cutswatch

ACEVO’s cutswatch microsite: http://www.cutswatch.org.uk

NCVO’s guide to “coping with the cuts”: http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/copingwithcuts

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

Digital postcards, wedding dress designs and virtual tours.

These are just some of the exciting activities and exhibitions taking place within museums in the East Midlands as part of MuBu.  Museum Buddies (as it’s officially known) is about creating, and I quote: “projects generating new audiences through social-networking online. They can also be about learning and community projects that involve a digital element that we want to celebrate online, such as filmmaking, audio, digital art or music.  MuBu projects will enable our audiences to interact with collections and re-interpret them for the 21^st century.”

To support staff undertaking these projects sounddelivery was commissioned to run a series of training sessions to get people up to speed with digital media and ways of telling their stories.  Mark went up to Leicester for the launch of MuBu and ran an Introduction to Social Media session at lightning speed.  Then throughout May and June Mark and Eric delivered three training workshops in Newark covering digital storytelling (audio slideshows), audio podcasts, and video.

It was great to work with a group who we could see develop over the weeks and be able to build on their understanding and creativity week on week.  From the opening session where there was a certain amount of trepidation to the final week where everyone was bounding off on their own with no fears of using the equipment, it was satisfying watching the trainees grow in confidence and capability.  What also worked very well was that the group were all given access to a Wiki which helped them stay in contact and up to date with changes to the workshops and attendees.

As part of our video training workshop (which was the second session of the three) the group got to grips with video cameras and all made their own short film – doing all the editing themselves!  This short piece with Colin Hyde who runs the East Midlands Oral History Archive explaining how his MuBu project will work.

What’s also great about the MuBu project is that we have been commissioned by 2 museums to deliver training and outreach workshops to help them create new content and capture memories and stories of local people.  You can find out more about this work with the Mansfield Museum and the National Tramway Museum here.

If you want to find out more about sounddelivery training and the bespoke courses we offer please do get in touch – info@sounddelivery.org.uk

For the third of our charity effectiveness podcasts series we’ve been commissioned to produce for the Guardian (and sponsored by knowhownonprofit.org) we decided to tackle the topic of the Big Society.  Commentators across the Charity and Social Enterprise spectrum have been working themselves up into a frenzy trying to work out what it will mean for them and the way they work.  We took a considered approach inviting comment from the Chief Exec of Urban Forum, Toby Blume, ACEVO’s chief executive, Stephen Bubb, and the Policy and Communications Director at the School for Social Entrepreneurs, Nick Temple.  As usual the Guardian’s Public Services Editor, David Brindle, was there to chair the debate and keep the guests in order.  We also spent a day at Parliament where we spent time with two new MPs who bring with them considerable voluntary sector experience.  And we couldn’t resist another look at Name Changes as we waved goodbye to the Third Sector and welcomed in the shiny new Civil Society! Enjoy!

Programme guests

Stephen Bubb, Chief Executive of ACEVO

Nick Temple, Policy and Communications Director at SSE – the School for Social Entrepreneurs

Toby Blume, Chief Executive of Urban Forum

Stuart Andrew, MP for Pudsey

Lisa Nandy, MP for Wigan

Programme links

ACEVO’s guide to the Big Society: http://www.acevo.org.uk/Document.Doc?id=682

School for Social Entrepreneurs: http://www.sse.org.uk/

Urban Forum: http://www.urbanforum.org.uk/

Stuart Andrew MP: http://www.stuartandrew.com/

Lisa Nandy MP: http://lisanandy.blogspot.com/

Earlier this year YHA commissioned a report to highlight the benefits of their Do It 4 Real Summer Camps.  The aim of the research was to provide evidence of the benefits and impacts of going on a Di4R summer camp.  Surveys were conducted before during and after camp with the young people and their parents/guardians.  We were asked to help give the report some publicity and arrange some press interviews.

We managed to secure coverage on many local BBC radio stations including BBC Radio Cornwall, BBC Radio Derby, BBC Radio Manchester and BBC Radio Leicester.  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 mother and son Tracy and Joe did with BBC Radio Leicester:

Many of the broadcasters took some of our broadcast clips to help illustrate their coverage, including this short testimony from Sarah who’s been on a number of Di4R camps.  You can listen to her story below:

We also headed up the social media campaign during the ccampaign, ensuring the public could interact with what was going on.  This saw the number of Twitter followers to the Do It 4 Real account more triple, and a sustantial increase to the Facebook group.