The latest mad idea is to swim 12 kilometers or 480 lengths (and that’s not of the baby pool!) in less than 6 hours (for the purposes of this article let’s call it a “swimathon” – we might even have a “wordathon” at some stage!).  Here you can see a short video of her experience and physical pain she went through over the 5 hours and 45 minutes duration.

TeeJay is raising funds for the 12 in 12 Hope HIV Charity where they plan to change the lives of a complete generation of young people in sub-Saharan Africa.

We certainly think TeeJay is doing a great job and hope she doesn’t literally fall apart before the year is out!

Good Luck TeeJay.

Let me explain.  I’ll try and be succinct!

The lovely village of Barkston Ash was once a windswept, overgrown, leaf-strewn outpost on the edge of North Yorkshire.  Then some lovely people came along and decided to spruce it up a bit and maybe even plant some flower beds.  The locals said “It’ll never work.  We’re too exposed and t’grounds not right!”. Not to be put off the good people of Barkston Ash Parish Council set up Barkston in Bloom and a whole new world was born.  Beds were marked out, dug and fertilized.  And then, plants were planted.

Funding was key and initially local businesses were courted and duly came up with the readies as there was very little cash surplus in the already stretched Barkston Ash Parish Council coffers.

So – the most recent sponsors are our good selves, Network Marketing. We’ve committed to a year but may be persuaded to continue with this prime outdoor advertising space on an ongoing basis depending on the ROI.

Here’s the bit you’ve been waiting for – the QR code.  Well, the location is on the route of many ramblers and there are many events in the village that attracts ‘outsiders’. We thought, let’s make it easy for people to engage with us, rather than having to type in the url so we’ve stuck a QR code on the Ad.  A good use of the technology?  Well we’ll see.  The QR code sends them a specific landing page and we’ll be tracking the responses on google analytics.

Ok – so it’s not going to change the world but will it generate click through that we wouldn’t previously have had (other than by our mates…)?

And on that subject – here’s a lovely picture of the ad being modelled by Martin O’Toole of McGrath O’Toole.

Barkston in Bloom Sponsorship by Network Marketing

I wonder if he clicked the Code…….

McGath O’Toole – put together this amazingly compelling video for them – I’ll let it speak for itself…

With all of this in mind we were offered a great slot on their site sponsoring the ‘searching for a job‘ section.  Se we coughed up and here we are!

If there’s a section on there that you feel your company should be sponsoring then get in touch with them – they’ll be more than happy to help!

Support this campaign and Back Le Bid!!

We’re looking forward to the announcement of the winners next week but in the meantime apparently Kate and Laura can be found somewhere in London relaxing in the sunshine with an unfeasibly large glass of wine…

Laura in London

Jeannette put herself up to learn the skills of a classic Italian chef and how to cook some of the signature fish dishes of the restaurant.  She was joined by a handful of other people with their biggest critics being people in the restaurant who could sample the food they had prepared so the pressure was on!

However, the pressure wasn’t quite as intense as usual Masterchef competitions as Franco was demonstrating the techniques of cooking and then letting the students join in but they produced some wonderful food.  We sampled 8 dishes among which were Seafood Risotto, Prawn and Clam Lingiuini, Pan fried Turbot, Chicken Cacciatori and finally Tiramisu.

As you’d expect from one of the best Italian chefs in Leeds, the results were amazing.  We all hope Jeannette will be hosting a dinner party soon where she can show off her skills.  Perhaps she’ll move out of marketing recruitment and get a new job in a leading restaurant!

So I started the training and the organisation of the event, managing to get Kirkstall leisure centre and Leeds City council on board by giving me free access to the court for the whole day on Saturday the 25th Feb. The training was tricky – you have to slowly get yourself used to being on the court for longer and longer periods, but squash is a high impact game, so you have to manage the damage you can do to your body and that can be a tricky balance to find.
I pulled in pretty much most of the people I knew locally, whether they had played squash before or not. The team at Network Marketing were completely in support of this crazy project with Jonathan, Jeanette, Louis, Julie, Roger, Charlie, Emma, Miles and Tom all turning up on the day to offer support and in most cases, taking a turn on the court. Here’s some real action!

With the support of some incredible friends and family, I managed to keep pretty upbeat and energetic throughout the day and even managed to keep a video diary through the day. On reflection, it was the biggest physical challenge I have ever faced and while I am not yet ready to say that I actually enjoyed it, I am left humbled by the way people rallied around me in support of the cause.

I did this as part of my 12in12 challenge – 12 big events in 12 months in 2012 to raise as much money as possible for Hope HIV, a charity that works with children in Africa who’s lives are affected by AIDS. We managed to raise over £500 on the day with money still coming in. We are getting ever closer to our first team target of the year. Have a look at what we are doing and get in touch if you’d like some more information about the project! www.the12in12.com
Here’s the video blog I kept during the day…You’d think that after all that I’d never want to play squash again, but actually my next match will be at the end of this week…sucker for punishment (my opponent not me of course!)

TeeJay (www.justgiving.com/teejays12in12)

His insight on life and business and marketing is phenomenal and the most recent blog post titled “What we’re short of” absolutely hits the mark.

I’ll leave it there and let you enjoy the words.

“What We’re Short Of”

Genius.

At First, it was Facebook and Linked In then came Twitter, not to mention FourSquare and Google+. Now – well now, a new player has arrived in the form of Pinterest which is growing in popularity faster than you’d imagine. I have to admit to being a total Pinterest junkie. It’s an online pin board where you can share things you are interested in by either pinning something to the board or sharing and commenting on something that is already up there.

It launched in 2009 but it was only really towards the end of 2011 that it started to show any strength, entering the top 10 Social Networks list in December. It’s reported to be the fastest site in history to break the 10 million unique visitor mark, having registered 11.7million in Jan 2012 according to a recent comScore report.

The thing I love about it is the potential for absolutely anything to be shared. Anything from a new cake recipe to a news story that got you going. The potential for it’s use as a marketing tool is remarkable as well. If you were launching a new brand onto the market and wanted a little feedback on the look and feel of the thing – just pin it to the board and see what comments come back. If you were promoting an upcoming event or looking to generate new customers you could just pin something to the board to create some commentary around it. Job hunters and Recruiters are already starting to see the potential for it all too.
Is it going to be the next big social media platform…so simple to use, so clever and so open. It has almost limitless potential. Or is it another SM phenomenon that gets swallowed up by another fad in a few months? Get involved, have a go, you can lose yourself in it for hours…

I saw this one on Pinterest this morning (loving this new social media platform by the way – totally addictive!) and it made me chuckle. If a CV is as creative as any of these landed on my desk I’d certainly remember it for a long time.

But it does beg the question – how ‘out there’ is a too ‘out there’ on a CV? With a market saturated by CV consultants and recruiters, you could ask 10 different people and get 10 different pieces of advice and working out what works best for you as a candidate can be difficult. I love the creative element of the CV’s that this Pinterest article found but it has to be appropriate for the industry. I like to think about it like this – present yourself and your skill-sets professionally with a healthy dose of YOU to balance it all out.

Our MD Jonathan Hirst, who is always full of good advice has a short video about writing a great CV. Have a look at it here.

And of course, if you need any more support on producing the best curriculum vitae for your next marketing job then just give me a call.

TeeJay Jones