Friday 23 December 2011

Christmas awareness campaign success

A huge thank you to our ambassadors for sending a press release to their local newspapers about the challenges they and their families face at Christmas.

We've had some fantastic results from the press release and the response was truly outstanding at such an early stage in the life of the Autism Action Network.
Here are some examples of what has been achieved so far, and we're hoping to see even more coverage in the coming weeks:

Mid Sussex Leader
Kicking-off the coverage, Victoria's press release got her quoted in the newspaper, along with Autism Helpline manager Emma Delaney.

Heart FM Cambridgeshire and BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
A great double whammy for Geraldine, who went on air on two of Cambridge's biggest radio stations two days in a row to talk about autism and Christmas time.

BBC Three Counties Radio and South Bucks Star
Sarah went to the studio for an hour-long live discussion about autism and Christmas. There was a phone-in and Sarah did a great job providing insight into autism. Not content with her hour-long stint in the studio, Sarah went on to achieve some fantastic coverage in the South

Bucks Star too. Fab After Fifty
Hitting a national audience, Machita shared her experience with a journalist from this website aimed at women over the age of fifty. This was a great audience to reach with Christmas messages and also resulted in a fantastic plug for our Christmas fundraising campaign, FestiviTea.

Plymouth Herald
Marco got his press release featured in the Plymouth Herald and even went down to the paper's offices to get his photo taken next to the office Christmas tree for the story.

Tonbridge Courier
Jacquelyn arranged an interview with the newspaper, who sent down a photographer to take some photos of Jacquelyn and her daughter. Jacquelyn got her daughter involved by getting her to write down what she finds tough at Christmas, so that Jacquelyn could use her daughter’s thoughts in the interview - great idea.

KMFM
As a result of her efforts, Nicola secured a slot to talk about autism and Christmas time on Kent's local KMFM radio station. Great to have yet more of the airwaves dedicated to the important topic.

Literally Speaking
Louise decided to use the Christmas press release as a starting point to write an entry for her 'Literally Speaking' blog all about autism and bringing up her son. We thought the blog entry was really moving and a fantastic way of doing something a bit different to raise awareness

The National Autistic Society website
Thanks finally to Karen, who agreed to let us use her story for a news story on our website about Christmas. Our website is a key resource for people affected by autism and we're thrilled to be able to share Karen's story and point people towards the advice they want.

These results are a testament to the sheer number of ambassadors who took part in this awareness raising about Christmas. Press coverage is never guaranteed, so we also want to say a massive thanks to all of you who sent out the release but didn't get any coverage on this occasion. Hopefully these stories will encourage you to get involved again in the future.

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