Taking blogging a bit further

As part of the press office work we offer other groups support and help in getting their voices heard by the media. We have been talking to different groups in the West Midlands about how we can help them. One thing people seem interested in is learning how to blog and so we have begun to visit people and give them chance to see just how easy it can be.

Today we visited a group based at Curriers Enterprise in Coventry and worked with 6 people. Some had used the internet before, others had never used a computer before. By the end of the session everyone had checked out our chattervine.blogspot.com site and four people felt OK about leaving comments.

Over the next few weeks we will help the group look for other blogs that interest them and also set up a blog for people based at Curriers to share all their exciting news.

Over the next few weeks we will be visiting other groups but if your group would like to hear how the media team can support you please get in touch.

accessing the internet

We are always interested to hear about projects that aim to make the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Recently we were told of a project that uses QR codes, but we hadn't a clue what they were. Here is a link to a short video that makes it a little clearer.
http://thebigtree.org/blog/?p=66

team progress

We have just recruited a new member to the team- Geraldine which evens the sides up a little as Christine was a bit lonely as the only other woman apart from the media team staff.
Alan is fast becoming the new team photography, and Peter is buddying him to learn how to use our cameras and how to look for exciting pictures. We will put some up next week.
Zoe has been leading the training and doing a great job, next week she is going to be observed leading the group.
We are going to get the new team to start blogging soon so keep a look out for lots of new faces & stories. This afternoon we are visiting Nick to talk to him about starting a blog about his new photography course.

training team 3

We are now into the 4th week of training with the latest recruits. There are 6 new members who are being buddied by Peter & Hobbow from team 1. We also have the help of a new volunteer called Steve. Everyone is really keen to learn about the media and are full of ideas and skills that we can use.

Michael has campaigning experience having been a member of HAVOC for 3 years and involved in many successful campaigns.

Alan is a very good photographer, he is currently exhibiting his work at the Herbert Art Gallery in Coventry and in the summer he had his own book called Alan's Coventry: a photographic record of Alan's favourite parts of the City.

Christine is chair of Birmingham People First and brings lots of experience of campaigning, she is an accomplished photographer and she has already recruited someone else to join next week.

Edward is really interested in the news and current affairs. He will always be ready to challenge and get more information so will make an excellent interviewer if we need one.

Scott is a keen fan of soaps and has just started a drama course, he is also very keen to do extra work outside of the training time.

Philip has wanted to be in the team since the project started so is full of enthusiasm as he has finally managed to fit us in. Philip has lots of confidence and is always happy.

The project staff are looking forward to working with the new team members and getting to know them.

Media Placements

As part of the Uncover Media Project we aim to put all the people involved on to a placement with something that is media based. We don't try to find placements that result in jobs, the idea is to give the team a chance to experience some aspect of the media that we can't offer.
Zoe had a 6 day placement with the communication team working for Coventry City Council. She learnt how they manage press cuttings, which has helped our team manage our cuttings. She also got involved in editing the Citivision newsletter, which goes out to all households in the city. Zoe was also featured in the issue she helped edit.
Peter is currently doing a placement with the photographer at Coventry University. He shadows the photography picking up tips to help improve his skills. He has taken photographs of the flight simulator and been involved in recapturing images that were taken of Coventry 40 years ago. Hopefully he will be doing some studio portraits so that he can then update the Grapevine staff photographs.
Lynne is looking forward to a 2 week placement with BBC Coventry and Warwickshire starting early in March. Rosie is hoping to repeat the placement that Zoe had.
For later this year some of the team will spend some time at the National Press Office for the charity Mencap and Suryabala would like to spend time with the Asian Network, so we have to talk to the BBC.
One final bit of good news is that Dee-anne is starting work next week, sadly though this means she is leaving the team.