Piggy Bank Kids
16 May 2010 1 Comment
in Wider Media Tags: Campaign, Children, Support
I would like to draw your attention to this campaign, articulated by Sarah Brown – the former prime minister Gordon Brown’s wife.
The aim of the campaign is to change the lives of vulnerable babies and children. It’s such an important cause and the campaign runs lots of individual projects that raise awareness and money.
I believe this to be an important cause to support, also visit the ‘ This Little Piggy Shop’ for things you can buy to help support the cause.
Birmingham Recycled Stories
13 May 2010 Leave a Comment
in BirminghamRecycled Tags: Energy, Recycling, Technology, Transport
Afternoon,
I am currently doing my up most to chase this story found on the Green Cars website from the 9th May and give it a Brum angle by speaking to a local Birmingham dealership. I’ve contacted several that I know of but as of yet heard nothing back from any of them, many unable to speak when I’ve managed to get through to their offices.
If anyone knows of any contacts that would be good to speak to regarding this, that would help me make some progress with this story.
In other news, I am also chasing several other stories, one being the new carbon trading scheme to rank big UK brands on energy efficiency, and secondly, the new range of mini win
e bottles by marks and spencer which are plastic and recyclable. If anyone works at Marks and Sparks or knows of somebody I could speak to regarding this or the first scheme I would appreciate if you could let me know.
That’s all for now.
Wordle..
13 May 2010 Leave a Comment
This is one of many wordle’s I’ve played with, this one is specifically a visualisation that presents the words on my blog. It’s quite a mixed bag but I like that.
I can’t begin to explain how much trouble I had just simply getting this image to appear here. My laptop simply refuses to ctr+c/ copy and paste/ prt sc/ save to or do anything with it once it’s been made. I have no idea why. This image only appears here courtesy of my lovely friend Clare Evans who emailed it to me.
Any input as to why my computer won’t do this would be very much appreciated.
Social Media: A deadly addiction?
04 May 2010 2 Comments
in Social Media
I don’t know why I was so shocked by the outcomes of this study, however it is still alarming to see it in print. This study carried out by the University of Maryland in the USA found that when students were deprived of their mobile phones, Ipod, Television, Radio, and computer – the study also took away newspapers and magazines!- found that students felt lonely, nervous, anxious and upset.
This is the wordle that visualizes the words the students used to describe their experiences of going 24 hours without media. The word I would use to describe this is ‘Stress’, what I take from this is that they ‘need’ this technology to either complete their assignments or to engage in their social world with the free time they do have, either way all their time is taken up by the media in some way.
So is this really an addiction? Is it getting out of hand? Nobody that I know writes letters anymore, everything we do is via the social/ electronic world. Where would we be without our regular tweets and Facebook updates? I know from my own personal standpoint - I recently invested in an IPhone, after sending the 90′s throwback on its merry way to envirophone - I wouldn’t be without my Facebook and twitter app to keep up to date with whats going on in everyone’s world, who’s bookmarking like there’s no tomorrow and who’s uploaded and tagged more awful photos of me from saturday night?!
I’m as much to blame as the next person for being on Facebook/Twitter 24/7 but what implications is this having on our psychological and emotional wellbeing, if any? There’s research for almost everything nowadays but it does make you think, would you be lonely and anxious if i stopped you from accessing all of those things for 24 hours? If so, that’s slighty a worry don’t you think?
Thoughts would be appreciated, maybe see what the folks on twitter think?! …
I need your help.
13 Apr 2010 Leave a Comment
in University
I am currently proposing to create a music entertainment site, at this stage it is a University project but could become reality in to my third year and to the future.
As well as just reporting on news, for example – where are bands/artists playing next? profile about them – their background, how did the last gig go? Fan base – The site could also cover image and audio material and become a platform for different bands, maybe those that aren’t as well-known but cover a similar type of music that this audience may be interested in, this would be their platform to build an audience.
It is at very early stages but at this stage i am interested in knowing what kind of material the audience (you!) would be most interested in on the site.
Thanks in advance for your input.
Alice In Wonderland Garden {Birmingham Recycled}
07 Apr 2010 Leave a Comment
Solihull council are working in conjunction with students from several schools in the area to create a garden in keeping with the themes of biodiversity and sustainability. The garden will help to mark the International year of Biodiversity.
The garden is being designed ready to be unveiled at this year’s Gardeners World live show at the National Exhibition Centre from the 16th to 20th of June. Following this, the garden will become a permanent fixture in the Borough for everyone to enjoy.
The gardens design has been inspired by the new ‘Alice in Wonderland’ film that was released in the earlier part of last month. The students have taken inspiration from the film in order to create some inspiring designs.
Students from Park Hall Academy, Kingshurt Academy, Smiths Wood Sports College, Archbishop Grimshaw Catholic School, and Grace Academy are all schools involved with the project.
As well as the student’s contribution, the project is also being supported by local professionals and the council’s ‘environmental champions’ – a group set up to tackle environmental issues in the area, everything from graffiti to cutting back vegetation.
The beginning parts of the gardens design include seven mosaic stepping stones which are there to represent the seven steps to biodiversity. Helping to sculpt this part of the design is professional artist – Karen Wydler.
Councillor Mrs Kate Wild, Cabinet Member for Community Services, said:
“This garden is a wonderful project that will bring together lots of boroughs young people and give them some great experience of working with professionals to make their plans a reality. They will also hopefully have a lot of fun!”
Shortcomings & Scandal
22 Mar 2010 Leave a Comment
in Online Journalism Tags: Commercial, Greenpeace, Kit Kat, Nestle, News, Personal, Scandal
I haven’t blogged in what feels like forever, this is my plea at forgiveness, I am very sorry and I hope I can blog more regularly once I’ve got my head around all the other million and one things I have to do. I’m overwhelmed at the amount of work that I am faced with and to top it off I am ill and dealing with the body of an old woman after collapsing today and doing my back in.
Nevertheless, moan out the way, the issue that has caught my attention most this week is ‘The Kit Kat/Nestle Scandal’. Really you can’t escape it, I’ve seen groups on Facebook, ten million tweets regarding the issue, news – both online and on TV.
I presume it features heavily in the print news aswell, however I haven’t ventured far enough to purchase a paper this weekend, and the only headline I caught when I was at work was something regarding ‘Katie and Peter’s Love Affair’ so needless to say I didn’t read on. (The hash tag – #getting boring now – springs to mind here)
This article
sums up the issue quite succinctly at GreenMuze.com.
Basically Greenpeace are saying that Nestle – the company behind Kit Kat & the famous take a break slogan – use Palm Oil in their famous chocolate recipe, this oil comes from ‘precious’ rainforests in Indonesia and if using this source of palm oil continues it could destroy even more of the rainforests and orangutans than inhabit them.
You can still watch the video here, but the likeness of it staying there much longer - if Nestle have anything to do with it – is very slim, so be quick if you want to see it. Although I warn you, it’s not pleasant to watch and I was rather queasy after viewing. Nevertheless the point it makes is a serious one and one which I hope is resolved.
Nestle with already a rather tarnished reputation are going to have to do a lot to recover from this!
