I’ve been celebrating a few milestones lately.

The first is to have reached more than six months with Acrobat PR, which for a new venture is worth marking, especially as it looks like we’ll reach 12 months quite comfortably at this rate as well.

I’ve been able to keep busy between looking for new business and meeting the needs of  Weston Hospicecare who have had a lot going on this year, including their 20th anniversary campaign. As well as the launch of the anniversary appeal and generating publicity in the press, radio and television, I was also able to supply them with copy for a four-page special insert that the Weston Mercury ran as part of a media partnership. It was a busy couple of weeks getting that lot together but good fun too.

The second major achievement is scoring my first front page coverage, thanks to the Cheddar Valley Gazette.

Front page stories were my bread and butter as a journalist, but from the position of a PR trying to promote Weston Hospicecare, it’s even more satisfying to see the story on the front page.

The reason it was on the front page is because from a news angle it was a great story of triumph in the face of real adverstity. Jean Millard, from Cheddar, is a wonderful woman who has been living with a terminal lung disease for the past five years, but she was only given three years to live when they diagnosed it.

Her zeal and determination not to give in, with the support of Weston Hospicecare, is a heart-warming story from the sort of people I’m now privileged to work with.

In terms of media coverage it’s still true that nothing beats a good story as  journalists on papers like the Gazette are still (thankfully) judging each story on its own merits. I think that’s even more important to me now as a PR, because not only do I have to get the attention of whoever I call up, but really give them something genuinely worth running in the paper, otherwise why would they bother?

Thankfully that’s never been a problem with Weston Hospicecare, or Leukaemia Research who I worked with towards the end of the summer to help promote their first ever Forget Me Not walk. They too are a great group of people with many stories to tell which really puts a face on the business of raising money for charity.

It’s been eight months in total since I left the Evening Post to launch Acrobat PR and as well as working closely with clients such as Weston Hospicecare and Leukaemia Research, I have also been working on short-term projects and campaigns for some of the big PR agencies in Bristol and Bath.

Of course there is always a lot of uncertainty but I feel my experience in newspapers and the media generally from the past ten years has proved invaluable and has really helped to make a successful start to Acrobat PR.

simonp Uncategorized Acrobat, aqua, Bristol, clifton, leukaemia research, trunki, Weston Hospicecare

It’s certainly been a busy few months which has seen me moving offices (home) during the hottest weekend of the year, running the Bristol 10K and filming a bevy of beach babes staging a flash mob in Weston.

I had been worried that leaving journalism might mean leaving behind a varied life where you didn’t know what you would be doing from one day to the next, but working for yourself is just as varied and unpredictable. I’m not sure I ever had to fight my way through a pile of washing to get to my desk before, or be able to roll out of bed and be at my desk in less time than it takes a kettle to boil.

I am glad to report that Acrobat PR has had a good start to life. After just three months I have managed to secure a good amount of coverage for few different clients including Weston Hospicecare, Trunki and restaurant chain Aqua.

I have spent most of my time working with Weston Hospicecare which is a very busy charity with a lot going on. They do such fantastic work down there in Uphill, but obviously have to dedicate much of their time to fundraising. And they have some great ideas for different ways to do that.

Most recently the charity organised a flash mob-style event to launch the Midnight Beach Walk Appeal. About 50 women performed a conga along the beach at Weston which looked beautiful in the evening sunlight:

YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbcNvcI1AEA

As well as helping to get the guys at Weston Hospicecare the coverage they need, I have also been doing a bit of work with Rob Law, the creator of Trunki.

He is a bona fide Bristol talent to be proud of and defied the ‘experts’ on the BBC’s Dragons’ Den who told him three-years-ago that his suitcase on wheels was ‘worthless’.

He has just celebrated three years in business and the company is now worth more than £1million:

As I said life has been quite varied these past few months as I have been speaking to nurses who look after terminally ill patients about their work one minute, and the next I have been filming 400 leather-clad bikers riding into Weston.

In April the third annual Fred’s Hospice Run took place which saw hundreds of bikers heading out on the highway, sort of, on a short trip around North Somerset to raise money for Weston Hospicecare. The sun shone that day too:

YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxB9-k48PFI

One of the aims of Acrobat PR is to help promote Bristol businesses and good causes/charities as I am so passionate about the city I live in and the surrounding areas. So when I was asked by Richard Smithson, owner of Aqua to have a look at his new place on Whiteladies Road I realised there was a good economic news story to be told. He opened the new site in February, right in the middle of an economic storm, and the biggest snow storm for a generation, but it has been a real hit and gets busier all the time:

Working with Weston Hospicecare has given me an insight into a whole new world and I have heard many memorable stories of courage and compassion. But one in particular stuck with me, I guess because I could relate to it myself in the sense that I could imagine doing it myself.

Matthew and Jane Bradbury, originally from North Somerset, live and work in California and decided to run the LA Marathon this year, which took place a few weeks ago. Having never done anything like it before they trained hard and did the distance with a pretty decent time considering Matthew was carrying an injury. Matthew decided he wanted to raise £3,000 for Weston Hospicecare which had looked after his mother when she fell ill in 2007.

As I harbour my own marathon running ambitions I was pleased to see them succeed and to be able to promote their story:

So here’s to the next few months and hoping that they can be even more productive, and sunny.

Simon Peevers

simonp Uncategorized Acrobat PR, Bristol PR, Bristol UK, Weston Hospicecare