TV News London

Roobarb & Custard support the PDSA

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Childrens cartoon favourites Roobarb & Custard are now supporting the PDSA, Britains leading veterinary charity, in a campaign to raise £1 million. The loveable green dog and pink cat from the cult TV series, narrated by actor Richard Briers, which started in the 1970s and was the first ever animated TV series on British TV, will be involved in a huge range of PDSA activities over the coming year. They will be featured on PDSA retail vans and be the faces of a text campaign as well as taking part in fundraising and online initiatives.

Part of the campaign is a specially commissioned new cartoon When Roobarb and Custard met the PDSA which sets out how the characters got involved in supporting the charitys work. Roobarb and Custard are pictured with PDSA supporters and pop stars Pepsi and Shirlie at the launch of their new partnership with the charity. The fun-filled event was held at the Design Council in Central London, complete with a screening of the new PDSA cartoon and clips from classic shows, including the first ever episode of Roobarb and Custard shown on TV. In addition, the activities PDSA has planned with the cartoon duo over the coming year were announced.

Roobarb and Custard have already appeared on a range of PDSA T-shirts, modelled and supported by singer and TV presenter Alesha Dixon. Now, Bulldog Licensing, the brand licensing agency for Roobarb & Custard, has pledged to a long-term link with PDSA.

TV News London works with the PDSA providing media training for its spokespeople and our Managing Director, Roz Morris is pictured at the Roobarb and Custard launch (left) with James Puxty, PDSA Head of Public Relations.

Since 1917 PDSA has provided free vet care for pets in need and promoted responsible pet ownership through education and awareness. Every year PDSA vets provide more than 2 million free treatments to more than 350,000 sick and injured pets in some of Britains most deprived towns and cities. The charity relies entirely on public support as their vet services receive no lottery or Government funding.

Text 'BUILD' to 70099 to donate £2 plus your normal standard text rate and get your exclusive, free Roobarb and Custard screensaver.

Click on the link below for more information about the PDSA Roobarb and Custard campaign:

http://www.pdsa.org.uk/how-you-can-help/roobarb-custard

www.roobarbandcustard.tv

Shoah Foundation Holocaust Interviews come to London

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

For the first time interviews with Holocaust survivors filmed for Steven Spielbergs Shoah Foundation Institute are available to be viewed in Britain. The video archive, which has more than 50,000 interviews, collected over the past 18 years, is now open to academics, students and, by appointment, members of the public, at the University of London's Holocaust Research Centre at Royal Holloway, as well as in the US at the Shoah Foundation Institute in the University of Southern California.

Spielberg started the USC Shoah Foundation Institute in 1994 to gather the testimonies after his experience of making the film Schindler's List about the true story of Oskar Schindler, a German businessman, who helped more than a thousand of his Jewish workers avoid the Nazi death camps. The opening of the archive in London was on Holocaust Memorial Day, Friday 27 January 2012.

The interviews are mainly with Jewish survivors, but also include other persecuted groups such as homosexuals and Jehovah's Witnesses, as well as liberators and war crimes participants. TV News London was one of the British production companies commissioned by the Shoah Foundation Institute to record interviews with Holocaust survivors in a project led by our late colleague, Su Newland, during the 1990s.

TV News Londons Managing Director, Roz Morris, says: "We are very proud to have played a small part in the compilation of the Shoah Foundation Institute archive. Im sure Su, who was a terrific broadcaster many people will remember her tremendously popular Secret London series on LBC Radio would be very pleased to know that the Shoah interviews are now available in London so that these terrible events can never be forgotten."

For more information click on the link below to the Evening Standard website: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-24030762-spielbergs-film-archive-on-the-holocaust-comes-to-a-london-college.do

Middlesex University Opens New Creative Industries Centre

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

The Grove, Middlesex Universitys new £80 million centre for the study of creative industries, has just been officially opened and Roz Morris, Managing Director of TV News London, was among more than a hundred guests who attended the opening ceremony at the universitys Hendon Campus in the London Borough of Barnet, North London. Creative industries are estimated to contribute £60 billion a year to the UK economy and Roz, who is also a Governor of nearby Barnet and Southgate College, joined guests including Councillor Richard Cornelius, Leader of Barnet Council, and the Mayor of Barnet, Councillor Lisa Rutter.

Im pleased to see that Middlesex University is providing high quality training facilities for students who want to work in TV and radio and also in fashion, graphic design, animation and other creative fields, Roz says. In addition the media facilities we have at Barnet and Southgate College mean that media students in North London have terrific opportunities for training to join the media industry.

As well as speeches from Middlesex Universitys Vice Chancellor, Professor Michael Driscoll, and Sir John Sorrell, Founder and Chairman of the London Design Festival and Co-Chair of the Sorrell Foundation, the event included music from a choir and a student rock band, plus a street dance performance choreographed by members of Flawless( Winners of ITVs Britains Got talent), and a fashion show with white paper outfits made and styled during the evening.

Sir John Sorrell, who together with his wife Frances, set up and ran Newell and Sorrell, one of Europes biggest and most successful design businesses, told the audience in the spacious atrium of The Grove building that his time at Hornsey School of Art, now part of Middlesex University, had set him up for his 40 year career in design. He estimated that he had created more than 15,000 jobs and paid more than £50 million in corporation tax, a reminder of how important design and creative arts are to the UK economy.

Britain is a world leader in creative arts and we must continually work to maintain that he said, adding that, in his role as a Business Ambassador for the British Government, he had recently visited China and Brazil where they governments are actively trying to catch up with the UK in terms of creative business. We must keep telling the Government always to keep our great art schools, because they are so valuable to Britains world leading role in the creative industries, he said.

The Grove is Middlesex Universitys most ambitious building project and, at 15,000 square metres, is also the largest, providing facilities for around 3,000 of the universitys 10,000 students. It has state of the art media facilities, including a TV Newsroom, two HD TV production studios, AVID edit suites, two digital radio studios, specialist studios for 3D animation photographic studios and one of the best equipped digital darkrooms in the UK. The building also contains specialist workshops for wood, metal, plastics, ceramics, glass, screenprint, etching, letterpress, sound interaction, electronics, laser cutting and digital print as well as facilities for students working on degrees in fashion, fine art, graphic design, illustration, interior architecture, interior design, jewellery and textiles. The building also has space to showcase student work. The Groves large atrium is designed as a venue for events, exhibitions and fashion shows.

The National Everywoman Conference 2011

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

TV News Londons Office Manager Lydia Nicolaides was one of the 300 businesswomen attending the 11th National Everywoman Conference at the Grand Connaught Rooms in London. The Everywoman network is now over 40,000 women in business from all around the UK and aims to provide advice and to challenge and change mindsets to increase the numbers and raise the status of women in the economic community.

This years conference theme was the art of business success and how to inject authenticity, integrity and your own spirit into your business. Maria Kempinska MBE, Founder of Jongleurs, the comedy club, gave this years keynote speech with her interesting story and insight into working in a male dominated business arena. She has built a successful brand and empire all by using her bicycle as collateral for a loan to finance her vision.

"Having attended the everywoman conference last year with Roz Lydia says, I knew what to expect this year and came more focused and prepared to network and connect with like-minded women. My goal this year was to try and find some women inventors and innovators at the conference to let them know about a special Women Inventors and Innovators Media Workshop we are running in conjunction with the British Female Inventors and Innovators Network on 12 January 2012. With this in mind, my first stop was to visit the British Library Business & IP Centre stand who were very helpful indeed and I took a bunch of flyers to put up in their centre and pass on.

I also very much enjoyed the panel session which was a delight to listen to, with each woman telling the audience their business experiences and advice on how to play to your strengths to stand out from the crowd. On the panel were Emma Elston, Director, UK Container Maintenance Limited, Trish Haplin, Editor-in-Chief, Marie Claire, Anita Lowe, Chief Executive, Venues Event Management and Vanita Parti, Founder, Blink Brow Bar.

Master classes at the conference this year were presented by Katy Howell, Managing Director, Immediate Future, Amanda Phillips, Managing Partner, An Abundance, Jack Milner, Trainer and Facilitator, Stand Up and Deliver, and Nina Grunfeld, Founder, Life Clubs.

Annie Ashdown, Founder of The Self Confidence Centre was the motivational speaker of the day and brought the conference to a close. She gave us an overwhelming feeling of solidarity and understanding in the room as open floor questions and responses to Annies questions were gaining emotional reactions and touching revelations from women in the audience Lydia says.

Lydia adds: Having been to two everywoman conferences now, I think the best thing I enjoy about it is the motivational aspect and sense of empowerment you leave the conference with. You can do anything you put your mind to, don't be afraid to take risks, aim for excellence and kick limited beliefs to the curb. As Annie Ashdown put it to one member of the audience be like the oak tree standing strong and tall ."

To find out more about everywoman visit www.everywoman.com

To find out more about TV News Londons Media Workshop for inventors and innovators click here

Women of the Year Lunch 2011

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

TV News Londons Managing Director, Roz Morris, was one of the 400 women attending this years 56th annual Women of the Year Lunch at the InterContinental Hotel in London. Roz, who is on the Nominating Council for the Lunch is seen below (left) with Naveeda Ikram, the first female Muslim Lord Mayor of Bradford.

Roz says: Its fantastic to see so many women of achievement, all of them making a positive difference to the world. The energy in the room was amazing and everyone attending is inspired by Women of the Year Lunch and the celebration of womens achievements in all walks of life.

Other guests included 18 year old Holly Watson, the youngest woman at the lunch who has campaigned against knife crime in Suffolk since her brother was stabbed to death 2 years ago. Plus a huge range of other women of achievement including Julia Donaldson, Childrens Laureate, Warrant Officer Esther Freeborn, Bandmaster, Household Cavalry, Norma Graham, Chief Constable of Fife, Vikki Heywood, Executive Director, The Royal Shakespeare Company, Alison Horner, Operations Director, Tesco, Jay Hunt, Chief Creative Officer, Channel 4, Nicola Mendelsohn, President of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, Mary Noble, Founder and CEO, Feminenza International, Frances OGrady, Deputy General Secretary of the TUC, Dawn Paine, Managing Director Nintendo UK, and Jenny Rowe, Chief Executive of the Supreme Court, Pam Warren, Founder Paddington Rail Crash Survivors Group, Councillor Mary Chapman of Royal Wootton Bassett Town Council and Anne Aslett, Executive Director of the Elton John Aids Foundation, Dr Kate Saunders, Chief Executive British Dyslexia Association and the CBIs first woman President, Dame Helen Alexander.

Well-known faces at the Lunch included the Home Secretary Theresa May MP, Lulu, ITVs Lorraine Kelly, Anna Ford, Esther Rantzen, Jo Wood, Ruby Wax, Camilla Batmanghelidjh, Bianca Jagger, Shami Chakrabarti, Stephanie Flanders, BBC Economics Editor, and Sandy Toksvig, who compered the event, plus actresses Juliet Stevenson, Barbara Knox From ITVs Coronation Street, and 92 year old June Spencer (Peggy Archer), Paddy Green (Jill Archer) and Angela Piper (Jennifer Aldridge) from BBC Radio Fours The Archers.

Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, President of the Women of the Year, said: The magic of this event is that it does what no other awards ceremony manages to do. It brings together the most fabulous women from the widest range of geographical, social, ethnic and political backgrounds from the very well-known to unsung heroines doing outstanding work in their community. Every woman who attends the lunch is a Woman of the Year in her own right.

Five Women of the Year Awards were presented to exceptional women and for the first time ever - a team of women - who have each proved an inspiration to others through their courage, selflessness and dedication. Their achievements, dedication and passion are an inspiration to women everywhere, encouraging us all to fulfil our ambitions, support others and stand up for what we believe in.

The 2011 Women of the Year Award Winners are:

Barclays Women of the Year Award - Debby Edwards, Victoria Mulleady, Sgt Lauren Odell , Kate Sherman, Surgeon Commander Sarah Stapley and Sarah Winters the medical team working mainly at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, and the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre at Headley Court treating soldiers wounded in Afghanistan

Good Housekeeping Women of the Year Outstanding Achievement Award - Dr Nawal El Saadawi 80 year old Egyptian feminist writer and campaigner

Sacla Women of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award Lulu - for her professional achievements and her campaigning in the UK and worldwide for charities including Marie Curie Cancer Care, the Elton John Aids Foundation, Hope for Children and the PRASAD Project

Sainsburys Women of the Year You Can Award - Katie Piper founder of the Katie Piper Foundation which she set up after her career as a model was cut short by an acid attack on her face

ITV1 Lorraine Inspirational Woman of the Year Award - Jackie Millerchip childminder from Hinckley in Leicestershire who looks after both severely disabled and able bodied children.

The winners are selected by a wide cross-section of women represented on the Women of the Year Lunch nominating council, including prominent figures from the arts, media, science, politics and a number of other major fields. Women on the council include Maureen Lipman CBE, Sue MacGregor CBE, Mary Nightingale, Dianne Thompson CBE, Nancy Lane OBE, Doreen Lawrence OBE and Virginia Wade OBE.

For the ITV1 Lorraine Inspirational Woman of the Year Award, viewers of Lorraine were invited to nominate and vote for the women they felt deserved to win the award. The three finalists attended the Women of the Year Lunch in London, where the winner was announced along with the winners of the four other special awards.

The Women of the Year Lunch was founded in 1955 by the late Lady Tony Lothian OBE, Odette Hallowes & Lady Georgina Coleridge to celebrate womens achievements in all walks of life. Every guest at the Lunch is a Woman of the Year and is celebrated for her own achievements and contribution to the community in the UK and worldwide. Since it began, Women of the Year Lunch has raised more than £1 million for a variety of charities both in the UK and overseas, and from 2001 has made its donations through the Women of the Year Foundation.

For more information see www.womenoftheyear.co.uk

Save the Childrens work in Liberia on worldwide TV Channels

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Reports about Save the Children's work in Liberia, have appeared on BBC World, Sky World News and Reuters World TV, thanks to TV News London's Director, Malcolm Douglas, who is currently working with the charity as a broadcast PR consultant. Malcolm visited Liberia for Save the Children, and interviewed health workers and people attending the charity's clinics, and also in remote villages six hours walk from the nearest medical help.

There are only 100 doctors in the whole of Liberia, a country where nearly half of the population lives in extreme poverty. In 2008 there were only just over 1,000 doctors, nurses and midwives in total a country of 3.5 million, which means only 2.8 health workers per 10,000 people.

Malcolm is pictured (above) at Kingsville Clinic, which is a two hour drive from the Liberian capital Monrovia and is only open five days a week between 8am and 4.30pm because there are so few health workers in Liberia.

He also visited Firestone, a remote village about three hours outside the capital. The village is a six hour walk to the nearest clinic and many young women have lost children to preventable diseases because of the lack of health care workers. "The visit and filming was to highlight the lack of health care workers worldwide and to ask world leaders to invest more money in training," said Malcolm.

"We met one woman who had lost five of her eight children from measles and other preventable diseases. There were no health workers visiting her village and she relied on country medicines...herbs...which often aggravate the condition and do more harm than good."

Children living in rural areas in Liberia are twice as likely not to have access to healthcare than those living in cities and currently 112 children die out of every 1,000. This is in fact an improvement since the days of civil war in Liberia when 247 children per 1,000 died. World Health Organisation figures show that despite the very high level of child mortality, less than 5% ($1.5 million) of the foreign aid received by Liberia for health goes towards supporting health workers.

In a major new report 'No Child out of Reach', Save the Children warns that at least 350 million children will never see a health worker in their lives. The report was released as world leaders gather at the UN General Assembly in New York to discuss funding to plug the global shortfall of 3.5 million health workers that is threatening the lives of millions of children across the world.

While children living in the UK will see a health worker at least 10 times in their first five years, millions of children in Africa and Asia will die every year from easily preventable diseases such as pneumonia and diarrhoea, simply because they have no way of being seen by a trained health worker if they fall sick.

According to Save the Children, a quarter of the world's cases of disease occur in Africa, but children there have access to just three per cent of the worlds health workers. This means they are five times more likely to die before their fifth birthday than children in countries with enough health workers.

"If you haven't visited Liberia. It's very difficult for you to imagine how poor people are," Malcolm Douglas says. "This was the first time Id been there and I was shocked by how little medical care people can get, and by the very poor conditions many of them live in, such as unhealthy huts with open fires in the centre, and no running water or electricity. Some of the children we filmed and photographed had never seen a picture of themselves and were amazed when I showed them their pictures on my phone."

Save the Children is working in Liberia in Montserrado, Bong and Margibi countries, managing 20 health centres and one hospital. The charity is also working to train health workers both to work in health centres and go out into the community and is running a 70-bed hospital in Margibi with only one doctor.

The charity also helps with vital immunization courses by providing and maintaining motorbikes to transport workers and the vaccines to hard-to-reach villages, training health workers in immunization and carrying out raising awareness campaigns.

for more info visit http://www.savethechildren.org.uk

Roz in Reykjavik with European Women Inventors

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

There has never been a better time for small and large businesses to use the media for promotions and building reputation. Thats the message TV News London's Managing Director, Roz Morris gave to more than two hundred women inventors and innovators gathered in Reykjavik for their bi-annual conference.

Roz is seen above and left giving her speech to the EUWIIN (European Women Inventors and Innovators network ) conference which took place in Iceland's newest conference venue the Harpa Centre in Reykjavik. The conference was opened by the President of Iceland (pictured below right), Olafur Ragnur Grimsson, and other speakers came from Finland, Sweden, Norway, Greenland, Estonia, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Iceland and the UK.

Topics covered included, finance, patents, EU policy towards women inventors and innovators, womens leadership skills, working opportunities for women over 50 and a debate on why so few women work in the computer games industry. In addition there were speeches by women inventors and former EUWIIN winners such as Eijia Pessinen, from Finland, a former midwife and inventor of Relaxbirth, a new chair and technique for more relaxing childbirth which is about to be sold across Europe and may soon be used in the UK.

The conference also heard from Gudrun Laukka from Sweden who explained how she invented Plasterplug, a new method for filling in holes in walls, and how she is marketing this in Europe. Both of these women had inspiring stories of persistence and hard work which will enable both of them to break through into the big time in Europe and elsewhere very soon.

Another speaker with an unusual story was Anne-Sofie Hardenberg who is a Culinary Ambassador and a TV celebrity chef in Greenland. The conference was organised by Elinora Sigurdadottir, Founder & Director of KVENN, the lcelandic Women Inventors and Innovators Network and Bola Olabisi the founder and Director of EUWIIN and of the Global Women Inventors and Innovators Network based in the UK.

More than 50 women from all over Europe submitted entries as inventors and innovators and the judging panel was chaired by Diane Morris, Immediate Past President of TIAW, The International Alliance of Women.

The 2011 winner of the European Woman Inventor of the Year Award is Asa Magnusson from Sweden with her patented lifesaving device, QSAVE PRO. This is an innovative life saving small, easy to swim with device suitable for assisting heavy victims from drowning. It can be brought from under the surface with relative ease than the other equipment that is used today, both on and under the surface.

At the EUWIIN awards dinner held at the Blue Lagoon hot springs resort near Keflavik, Roz Morris, Managing Director of TV News London, presented the award for the category of Exceptionally Creative Innovator to Thorjorg Valdemarsdottir of Rain Dear, her company which has created a unique new waterproof fashion fabric for rainwear, combining plastic, silk and wool.

For more information visit HERE

Feminenza on Kenyan Radio and TV

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Mary Noble, CEO of Feminenza, a non-profit international women's organisation, has passed on her media training skills to 20 Kenyan women in Eldoret, Kenya as part of the Field of Fears Forgiveness and Reconciliation training programme currently being run by Feminenza in Kenya.

The participants were all local women, involved in a wide variety of community programmes to try and help heal the divisions created by the post-election inter-tribal violence in Kenya in 2008 in which more than a thousand people died.

Feminenza's training programme, which has United Nations funding through UNIFEM, is a 3-year project aimed at promoting reconciliation and helping to heal the after-effects of the post-election violence. Mary, who has received media training from TV News London, in order to help her to promote Feminenza's work through the media, gave the Kenyan women media preparation advice, as they will be contacting their local radio stations to talk about their community projects. She was helped by two Kenyan journalists who subsequently interviewed Mary and some of her trainees for newspapers, radio and TV about Feminenza's work in Kenya.

Mary says : "The radio was a remote interview - quite odd, speaking into a mobile phone, but luckily I'd had the training from you. We also ended up with a 7 minute Kenyan TV broadcast, where I was interviewed, along with some of the other women in the training. It is partly in Swahili, mostly in English and the link is below if you would like to watch it!"

Click HERE to see a seven minute broadcast featuring Mary Noble and the Feminenza team and their work with the Field of Fears participants. There are interviews both in English and Swahili.

For more information about Feminenza's work in Kenya and elsewhere see www.feminenza.org

Roz Tells Chief Librarians To Go For Publicity

Wed, 25 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

The media is facing change on all fronts and libraries not only need to adapt their services, but also tell the media the good news about what they provide for the public, despite funding cuts. That's what Roz Morris, Managing Director of TV News London, told the annual conference of the Society of Chief Librarians. On the day when Amazon announced that it was for the first time selling more e-books than paper books, Roz (pictured above right with conference organiser Julie Spencer, Head of Library and Museum Services in Bolton) pointed out that public libraries have a great case to make for the way they have adapted to new media.

"Libraries, like many other local government services, are facing cutbacks and hard choices at present, but they also have opportunities to publicise their new media services", Roz told the SCL audience at Warwick University Conference Centre in Coventry. "This means collecting case histories/success stories so you can tell the public stories about how you can help people in the modern world. Working with your press office and letting them know what you're doing is essential."

There are more than four thousand public libraries in the UK and In the past six months alone, public libraries have helped more than a quarter of a million people go online for the first time. This is part of the Government's project RaceOnline 2012. Every public library provides access to the internet, which in most libraries is free of charge.

In 2009, book borrowing increased by 1.3%, the first increase in 20 years and more than 34 million people, 60 per cent of the UK population, have a library card and more than a third of the population visits public libraries at least once a month which means that more people visit public libraries in the UK than go to football matches, theatres or cinemas, put together.

For more info see www.goscl.com