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.

Picking up the bits

This blog and the media team have been put on hold for a couple of months because I have been laid up with a broken foot. Zoe, Lynne & Rob have done a fantastic job in keeping the media team training going but now we are ready to get down to some serious campaigning with the team.
We have decided that Heavy Load's Stay Up Late campaign is really important and so we are going to see what we can do at a local level to help. Tomorrow the team are going to watch the Heavy Load film and start to think about what is going on in Coventry and Warwickshire. I'm sure most of the team will have a story or 2 about their own experiences on not being able to stay up late. We are also interested in the new campaign by Leonard Cheshire called social care matters and will think about how we can help support this. Both campaigns fit together because the reason people can't stay up late is because they don't have access to good/flexible social care.
If you don't know about either of these national campaigns take a look at these 2 websites and watch the Heavy Load film on BBC IPlayer (it was originally shown on BBC3 Storyville 9th Feb.)
http://www.lcdisability.org/?lid=9069
http://www.mencap.org.uk/case.asp?id=8599
Our other big challenge is getting people to read and comment on our 2 blogsites so if you can help with promoting this please do.
www.chattervine.blogspot.com
Denise

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

Hi Zoë here.!
I have been running the Media Team and it has been fun. I have really enjoyed it. But Denise has not been there because she is off with a broken foot hopefully she will be back soon. The grapevine Christmas party was really good and it was nice to see everyone. We had a great time. We are on week 13 already it has been good as Rob has been supporting me to do them, we have made a TV lifestyle program with the media team, interviews also
Made our own news paper with them. We have quizzes everyone has a good time. It will be good when Denise get’s back as we have all miss her, it has been good experience for me I am very pleased with myself and rob should be really pleased with himself to.

That’s all for now
Zoë

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.

parents with learning disabilities

We are shortly about to go public with a campaign about parents with learning disabilities having their children taken away. The team have conducted some research and are working with a feature reporter for the Coventry Telegraph. One of our team is willing to be a case story and her personal story will be central to the feature. Once we are ready to go live with the story I will post the link here. If you know of any similar articles or cases please do contact us.