We all need hope and purpose
It’s almost a year since I launched my new website and posted my first blog, during the challenging months of what we now call Lockdown One. At the time I had every intention of regularly updating my content, just as I encourage my clients to do.
Perhaps my motto should be “Do as I say, not as I do!” because I’ve failed miserably in my goal of regularly sharing my news and views with you on this page.
However, far from languishing in a stupor since last spring, when the pandemic took away a sizable chunk of my client work almost overnight, I’m pleased to say that I’ve been encouragingly busy - with interesting new projects and (reassuringly) several new clients too, not just in Devon but in other parts of the West Country.
Today is a Sunday to celebrate and have high hopes for the future as I’ve just received my second dose of the Covid vaccine. It marks a watershed moment in the gradual advance towards what we once all, perhaps, took for granted as ‘normal life’.
Work, family and friends (not necessarily in that order!) have kept me going over the last year, even when communication has only been possible through virtual means. It’s been a revelation to discover how effectively I can work and produce results for my clients without being able to meet them for months on end… It’s been a real pleasure though, as lockdown restrictions have eased in recent weeks, to tentatively meet again at a safe distance and venture beyond Exeter and East Devon.
One of the recent highlights for me, professionally speaking, is the new PR campaign I’ve helped launch for Devon CPRE, the local branch of the countryside charity. As well as extensive media relations work, our ‘Save our fields from solar farms’ campaign involved scriptwriting for and filming with the star of TV’s Bergerac and Midsomer Murders, actor John Nettles, who lives in northwest Devon. In collaboration with Exeter-based filmmaker Wildhorse Films, we’ve produced two videos - a trailer and an 8-minute film - presented by John, explaining why massive commercial solar farms are not the low-carbon answer to our climate crisis prayers the developers would have us believe and why, in Devon and the South West, food production is a far better use of our farmland.
The films have already had thousands of views on Devon CPRE’s YouTube channel, complemented by extensive coverage in the regional and national media, including radio, TV, several newspaper front cover mentions, an article in the Daily Telegraph and a double-page spread in the Mail on Sunday (in print and online). This combined editorial coverage has kickstarted some long-overdue discussion about the development of massive solar arrays on greenfield sites to produce electricity for consumers and the industrializing effect of these installations on Devon’s countryside.
If you’d like to join the debate, you can watch the video on If Media’s YouTube channel by using this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fglF5HbjW5I
Here’s hoping this and other new projects in planning herald a sustained return to some kind of normal working life, with increased face-to-face engagement and collaborative working continuing for the remainder of 2021 and beyond…
TV’s John Nettles on his smallholding near Pyworthy, where there are plans for a massive solar installation on nearby farmland
Outside the Exeter Vaccination Centre earlier today after receiving my second jab