Raising smiles by riding miles

Over the past year we’ve been supporting and working with retired police chief superintendant Ian Dodd to help promote his D2D Cycle Challenge in aid of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Ian and fellow American cyclist Richard Slusarczyk took on the challenge to cycle across America, from Disneyland in California to Disneyworld in Florida in under 50 days. The aim was to raise £25k for the leading wish-granting charity for children and young people battling life threatening conditions.

This month he made it – and pretty chuffed we are for him too. It took an impressive 46 days to complete the challenge, throughout which they passed through 14 states and have been from 179 feet below sea level to 10,275 feet above sea level!

They’d made £21,000 when they started out - here’s a few of the highs and lows of the journey:

Week one - they cycled over 425 miles through California and into Arizona. Cycling mostly uphill and getting lost several times in the baking heat they suffered only minor injuries at this stage.

Week two - reaching for the skies they cycled over 600 miles uphill through Arizona into New Mexico and then into their fourth state Texas – where they were chased by a bunch of boarder dogs.

Week three – they were chased by US border patrol, first the helicopter, then the vehicles demanding passports, apparently they look Mexican. Over 1,400 miles and nearly half way through the challenge.

Week four - the first puncture! Not bad considering they cycled more than 1,846 miles.

Week five – it’s goodbye to Texas and hello Louisiana when after having not seen rain for weeks they entered really heavy storms.

Week six – welcomed by Mississippi and Alabama they were guests at the major USA Rotary meeting of the year where the club presented them with a cheque for $500! Turns out sometimes it pays off to talk to strangers after all.

Week seven - they finally arrive in Florida on 7 July and were greeted by family and friends with an impressive story to tell.

Just some of the odd objects spotted on the hard shoulder included:
- 22 spoons
- 15 forks
- 1 knife
- 9 odd flip flops
- 4 pairs of underpants
To name just a few.

Huge congratulations from all at TBG go to both Ian and Richard.

Working on the D2D Cycle Challenge project over the past year I personally have noticed how determined Ian has been to complete this challenge. His drive to raise the money to help Make-A-Wish grant memories for young has been inspirational.

He certainly deserves a medal, even if it is one for madness!

Now onto the final event gala which takes place on September 10 at Sutton Coldfield Town Hall which aims to push the amount raised over the £25k target. And we certainly hope it does.

Roni

Work experience at The Bridge Group

It was a shame that my Bridge Group experience was only a brief two days, however it is most certainly one that I gained an awful lot from.

Upon arrival I was warmly welcomed by Lucy (@tbglucy), and then Nikki (@tbgnikki), and then, of course, the rest of the team. My mum soon realised I was in just about the warmest, safest and professional hands possible, and promptly left before my levels of embarrassment reached an all time high.

I was handed a full plan, every minute accounted for, both days. It was then I realised I was certainly not a tea boy, as I feared after hearing stories of my friends work experience. In fact, I didn’t make a cup of tea the whole time I was there. Oops.

The first formal thing I did was have an in-depth chat with Nikki regarding PR in general, my plans for the future, and how she could make my time with them worthwhile and give me some ‘hands-on’ experience of writing articles.

I then met the team. From design to marketing to PR, someone from each area gave up their own time, despite having shed loads of work to be getting on with, to show a boy who they’ve barely even met what their job entails, and briefly how to do it. In most cases however it was in one ear and straight out the other. Sorry Scott, I did try. A big thank you to JB, Roni and Scott for letting me do that.

With that out of the way, I knew the writing side of PR was what I wanted to do, the other areas were far too complicated, and it was time for me to get down to some work. I was given three newsletter articles, ranging from older people using the internet, to writing the text for community fun days. I was slightly nervous: would my writing style be okay, would I actually be any good, and would I make the 140 word boundary!

After lunch I cracked on again, and by the end of the first day I’d finished my first three tasks. After a long, tiring day it was time to leave, and I awaited my de-brief with Nikki in the morning.

Nine am and I was back. I met rest of the team that had been away yesterday and I was introduced to Sarah, Anna, Ian and John. I printed off my work, and handed it to Nikki. It was like giving an essay to my teacher, except this teacher was nicer, made cups of tea and was far more smiley. At this point, I honestly was worried there would be endless pen marks, scribbles and annotations on my fairly useless first attempt. However, I was told I had a nice writing style perfect for a newsletter which was the publication that I was writing for, and yes there were a few changes here and there but nothing too drastic. Relief. Nikki gave me feedback and things to improve on but I felt good, and more importantly felt like I hadn’t let her, or Anna, down. Next task!

It then got a bit more serious, and rather than cutting down press releases into smaller articles I was given a brief for a press article about a community fun day in Daventry. This entailed making a phone call to one of the organisers, taking notes, and then writing it from scratch. I felt okay coming off the back of my last articles, but still nerves were jangling.

These two press releases took up the rest of the day, but were tasks that I really, really enjoyed receiving feedback on again. There were things to improve on but on the whole loved my two days and thought I performed well.

It was almost time to say goodbye, but not before another of Roni’s cups of tea, and giving Nikki and the team my thank you card and tin of Cadbury Roses.

Overall, The Bridge Group has undoubtedly opened my eyes to the world of PR, giving me skills and tips that I don’t think I’d have received anywhere else. The team are selfless: I was worried that I would be an inconvenience to them and get in the way but they treated me as an equal and made me feel very welcome. I will miss the bridge: the work, Scott and JB’s banter, Val’s singing and Monica’s sandwiches and would once again like to thank them for allowing me to work there, it was a great couple of days.


Ben Cooper
Work experience at The Bridge Group, July 2011.

R.I.P News Of The World

It was full of breasts, bad grace and bull. So why am I sad at NoW’s demise? Because the timing is terrible.

A healthy democracy needs a thriving, solvent, independent, diverse and good media industry. Yes, blogs and online media outlets are springing up all over the place, and I applaud this wholeheartedly. But where are our guarantees that the facts given in these places are true, and how do we know which bias filter we need to use, as readers/viewers/listeners, to make up our own minds about what each story is really about?

Yes, our professional media sometimes gets their facts wrong. I would like to think that deliberately falsifying information is rare and limited largely to the gutter press. And as for getting things wrong by mistake, UK journalists are highly educated, highly trained and have to be careful for their own careers to stick to a strict code of conduct which includes ensuring information is correct and using balance in their stories. This same level of integrity cannot be said for every country.

Yes the media outlets follow their own agendas, courtesy of their string masters, but we as their audience know, for example, that The Guardian will have a different take on a story to The Sun. And consider ourselves lucky. We know that Murdoch et al have their own bias, but compare how much more open his UK products are to wider views than, say, the rigidly right wing Fox Network in the US. And if/when the British Murdoch empire goes, if that space is filled at all, what’s to say that it won’t be filled by a similarly slanted owner?

Is this same rectitude and code of conduct employed by people writing their own views online? No. Citizen journalism is utterly legitimate and serves to improve democracy, but I believe that it must be balanced by information from professional and hopefully more independent news organisations.

So, did I like NoW? No, I hated it. And I detest the worst methods used for news tapping that are coming out now into the open, which no doubt were employed far wider than by people in just the Murdoch empire. And it is absolutely right that this information must come into the public sphere so that the industry can be cleansed.

I only wish that this scandal had occurred more than 15 years ago, when the financial backing for traditional media was more secure. Sadly, now this scandal must hasten the demise of the traditional media as we know it.

Surely advertisers will flee even faster from our tainted media. And our media organisations which are bravely and no doubt desperately trying out different business models by diversifying abroad, such as The Guardian and The Daily Mail will take a reputational nose dive by association, from which, who knows, they may not recover.

So rest in peace NoW. I mourn for the era of media which you may well have ripped apart.

@tbgnikki