Bloggers unite in festive theatre campaign to boost children's cancer charity

Photo by Ell Brown on Flickr

UK parent bloggers are joining forces to laugh their socks off while raising cash for a children’s cancer charity.

Bloggers are signing up for The Great Panto Review 2009 which will benefit NACCPO – The National Alliance of Childhood Cancer Parents’ Organisations.

Leading theatres in England, Scotland and Wales have agreed to give bloggers access so their reviews can spread ‘word of mouth’ throughout the blogospshere.

Cardiff’s New Theatre where John Barrowman is appearing as Robin Hood and the Birmingham Hippodrome where Ray Quinn and Joe Pasquale will star in Sleeping Beauty were among the first to pledge to welcome the bloggers and back the charity effort.

The Great Panto Review 2009 - Please support NACCPO and bloggers!

Photo by Sallycat101 on Flickr

HAVING been invited to sample what's on offer from the likes of Disney, Butlins and the Frankfurt Motor Show, we knew that marketeers are plugging into the  'word of mouth' buzz created by bloggers.

We wanted to harness that power to do something positive and today posted about a 'collaborative blogging project' which can hopefully have parent bloggers laughing their socks off, while also making a difference to children's charity, NACCPO.

Please read this to understand more.

If you'd like to support NACCPO, whether or not you'll be visiting a panto this year, please visit our Justgiving page. I have set a target for the time being which I hope is realistic. This may change, depending how we go.

Thank you!

Neil's 'Someone once told me': 'You are allowed to relax you know'

YOU'LL always find him in the kitchen at parties...

This is our new media director, Neil Aitchison, during our recent Someone once told me session.

And what an important message it is too!

Check out Carol's SOTM video here - dubbed one of creator Mario's favourites ever.

And then there was Linda, doing her best again to raise awareness about mental illness. She's not keen on the picture but the audio is powerful.

Various Passionate Media clients and contacts were also captured in pictures, video or sound. Watch this space for a fuller gallery as more are posted on the site.

Why blog? Women’s business conference set to show how social media can boost your bottom line

ASPIRING and established businesswomen will be shown how social media can boost their bottom line at a major conference to be held in Birmingham next week.

The event, to be held at The Pavilion in Moor Lane, Perry Barr, includes an interactive workshop, led by experts from the Connect Culture initiative, based at Coventry University, on social networking phenomenon Twitter, plus blogging for business.

Double the excitement as our twins blog is featured in The Times

By Linda Jones

I'VE been reading about how PRs are engaging with bloggers lately and some of the discussion has either been sparked by or led to mentions of a recent trip I shared with six other so-called UK 'mummybloggers' to Walt Disney World.

The trip was the subject of a feature in The Times by my fellow member of the so-called Disney Seven, Alice Castle.

You can also see this forward thinking post from travel journalist Jeremy Head and this interesting piece by Manchester's Sarah Hartley.

I'm included because of You've Got Your Hands Full, our blog for multiple birth parents, which has gained more than 11,000 returning readers since being launched in 2006.

Susanna, from A Modern Mother, recently shared guidance for PRs wanting to contact this group of bloggers and I have been meaning to add my thoughts on her excellent post for a while. The one point I disagreed on was that I write for other people, not for me.

The Greatest Freelance Writing Tips in the World: Book, blog and training

THE Greatest Freelance Writing Tips in the World, by Passionate Media director Linda Jones, was published in November 2007 and can be bought in bookshops and from Amazon here.

See a selection of reviews, plus feedback from readers, here.

Listen to a podcast about The Greatest Freelance Writing Tips in the World. A blog was set up to help publicise the book.

There's a round-up of around 20 posts with advice for writers here.

We also run training sessions for freelance journalists wanting to make more money. The following is feedback gained from a London session:

Great course. Up and at 'em now! Anne Marie Flanagan

How we use social media - some notes gathered for the Black Country Social Media Cafe

THE Black Country Social Media Cafe is described as a place for people interested in social media to gather, get acquainted, chat, plot, scheme, and share.

I attended the first meeting a few weeks back when guest speakers Pete Ashton and Chris Unitt outlined lessons learned on a visit to SXSW.

At the next meeting, to be held on Tuesday, May 12, at 2.30pm in the Alchemy Bar in Wolverhampton city centre, there'll be a chance for members to say a little about who they are and what they do, with a particular emphasis on how they have been able to use social media in their work.

It's unclear whether I am going to be able to make it to the next meeting, because of a work commitment. Nevertheless, I have been thinking about how our work has been transformed by social media, so am posting here about its impact on my professional life. As I think about tomorrow's JEE Camp, I also thought it would be useful to pull some of my experience together in this way.

Overall, I'd say that a growing knowledge of social media has allowed me to:

* Survive and diversify in my chosen career.

* Make and strengthen new contacts whom I never would have met previously.

* Improve ways of finding, researching and completing existing work

* Find new income streams - both directly and indirectly through blogging but also in offering my services to help others get to grips with the concept of social media and understand that it's not about technology for the sake of it 

* Better promote my work across various disciplines

British bloggers set for VIP Disney trip

A GROUP of British 'mummy bloggers' has been invited to sample the delights of Walt Disney World, Florida, and Passionate Media director Linda Jones is among them.

The trip, later this month, has been made possible by the Think Parents network, overseen by the award-winning Digital Outlook marketing agency.

Linda has been invited because of her work on the twins and multiple births blog, You've got your hands full. Most of Passionate Media's team have ventured to new (and sometimes faraway) places on press trips in days gone by, - with Helen already visiting Disney for a week with the Express & Star - so it'll be interesting to see how this one differs! Thank you to Kerry Power from Digital Outlook and Disney's PR team for making this opportunity possible.

'You've got your hands full' in The Telegraph

LINDA'S blog all about multiple birth children, You've got your hands full is featured in an in-depth piece in The Telegraph today, by Diane Shipley.

As she can bore for England on the subject of blogging, (that's Linda of course, not Diane) it's great to see some recognition. She was also interviewed about twins on Radio Stoke earlier this week, in the wake of the sisters on Big Brother.

It's a shame more depressing and predictable news has taken over where that show is concerned. Suddenly Samanda don't seem so bad. [Carol]

All a twitter over Twitter

WE'VE been delighted by the response to Linda's piece about Twitter in today's Guardian.

Thanks everyone for getting in touch with your kind words. Now she just has to think of some more stuff to write about!

Here's a further report about the micro-blogging tool and how it can help PR be more "quick and dirty" apparently. Nice. [Carol]