street aware

Who is bothered if people with learning disabilities are victims of crime?
Do you feel coventry is a safe place to be? Are you bothered? Got anything to say? Then grapevine's media team want to hear from you.
We are starting a blog called street aware to find out what people really think.
People will have the chance to put their views and stories on it using words, pictures,video and sound.
People with learning disabilities are invited to come along to the launch street aware on Wednesday, October 21st, at 11-2pm, at the BBC Coventry & Warwickshire's Open Centre, Priory Place.
Zoe

My Holiday in Greece

My Holiday in Greece

Hi my name is Zoë I have a learning disability and I went on holiday to Greece. My boyfriend came with me he also has a learning disability his name is Dale, We booked the whole of the holiday ourselves which include hotel flight, travel insurance etc. We had a brilliant time with no problems the weather was great and the people were friendly and helpful. It was also my birthday, so it just goes to show people with learning disability can go on holiday on their own

Zoë

now we are the news

our bed push is now on central vision's news channel click here to watch the 2 minute clip http://tinyurl.com/l2vdcv
please tell us what you think.

solving problems

We wanted to post our radio interview on this website so you could all listen to it, but couldn't find out how to do it easily. We asked Stuart from www.wesharestuff.org if he could help. He gave us some ideas and explained that the reason it was difficult was to stop people adding music tracks they weren't supposed to use. Stuart suggested joining a hosting site and then making a link from this site. Then we had an idea...
We had the radio clip and we had some great photographs from the bed push, so why not put them together in moviemaker and then upload it as we do with other videos.
It worked a dream, please have a look at the posting below. What do you think?
Now Stuart suggested we link it back to our twitter site, ok Stu so how do we do that...
visit www.twitter.com/grapevinemedia

Learning Disability Week Bed Push Went really well

We met up outside the BBC Radio Station in Coventry to do our bed push in aid of people with learning disabilities having the rights to stay up/out late. We all wore Stay Up Late T-shirts which were sent to us by Heavy Load who started the campaign for Stay Up Late. The media coverage was Central vision, The BBC, Telegraph and Michelle Tennison who is a freelance photographer. We pushed the bed up through the City Centre and along the way we were getting people to sign our petition and giving out leaflets and badges we stopped by Lady Godiva statue and went round speaking to the public to get their support. We then made our way to the Coventry City Council House to meet up with councillors to hand in the report and the petitions we also gave them T-shirts. The report had 10 case studies of people with learning disabilities not being able stay up/out late. Dave Musson has put a story about heavy Load & us on the daily dust. http://bit.ly/WlU1N
Below is a link to our radio interview with Annie Othan BBC Coventry & Warwickshire

learning disability media success stories

We had a great day yesterday, lots of support from the public; 2 live radio interviews, photographers & reporters following us, and Centralvision camera man following us. Give us the weekend to sort the pictures and they will be posted next week.

Our 3rd rights video is now available click here:http://tinyurl.com/mvhxlb this is our stay up late video please be careful if you have seizures there is a lot of flickering, we have asked for it to be toned down. Still it is a great video. THANKS TO HEAVY LOAD for letting us use their music and good luck at Glastonbury guys.

We have been working with a reporter who has done 4 learning disability stories for learning disability week you can see them at: http://bit.ly/lKmln
http://bit.ly/WlU1N http://bit.ly/gwZZq and http://bit.ly/10gUYu The daily dust website gets 35,000 reader each day and 1.5million a month so lits of people will hear about us- THANKS to DAVE MUSSON.

We played the football match this morning and again we need a few days to sort out photographs and video clips.

Positive images campaign

I'm starting this blog with an apology, sorry we haven't updated for a while. We were very busy with learning disability week, then I was on annual leave and now I have my arm in a sling as I have cracked my elbow. There enough excuses let's tell you how learning disability week went:
Paul got his dream of hosting his own radio show on Hillz FM. During June and early July HillzFM had an FM licence to broadcast live alongside their Internet broadcasts, Paul was given a weekly one hour show, so well done DJ HObbow. Lisa and Rosie were invited onto Hillz FM as guests (June 16th) to talk about learning disability week. They took along Denise for support and Adam a young man on work experience came along too.
As we said in an early posting we had expression walls around the city & in Nuneaton. On Tuesday 17th June the team were invited to launch the wall live on the Annie Otham show (BBC Coventry & Warwickshire.) Annie also interviewed 2 parents about their experiences. Mel & Donald gave fantastic interviews, talking about how it felt to find out your much wanted baby has Down Syndrome. They spoke about the highs and lows that their families have experienced since, and they spoke of their dreams for the future.(We are hoping to get a snap of this posted on this site and Grapevine's website).
Later the same day Paul, Alex, Denise & Adam went back to the BBC to do a live interview about the photography competition. " days after that we had some of the young people from the WATS project live on the breakfast show talking about their lives. We were very pleased to get so many radio interviews in one week.
During learning Disability week we were also featured twice in the Coventry telegraph and on the city council's news page. Couple of the stories were about the photography competition but the most exciting story was written by Louise O'Farrell about her life as a young person with Down's Syndrome (see the separate blog to read her story).

My Day At The BBC- Alex

I Had A Wonderful Day At The BBC I Met Rosie From BBC She Told Us About What Goes On At The BBC Which Was Fantastic To know. What I Enjoyed The Most About Going On The Computers Learning About The Coventry And Warwickshire Website And Doing The Radio Show With Andrew And Rosie.

Our day at the BBC

We had a talk on what they do at the bbc . Rosie said anyone can come in off the street to have a look round and use the computers
Then we went on the computers with Hannah.
Then we had a talk from the editor, Tim, Who told us that he gets about 500 e-mails a day. He said he went through all the e- mails and picked out the ones that caught his attention.
Then we went into the studio to do a mock internview with Andrew.
Paul and Alex asked the questions and Rose and Lisa answered them.

Rosie & Lisa

photography competition

Sorry we haven't put anything here for a while but things are very busy in the media office. We are preparing for our 1st big campaign to run during learning disability week starting on 16th June.
Denise, Lynne, Zoe & Peter have held a photography competition for people with learning disabilities living in Coventry or Warwickshire. The competition closed last Friday and we had 91 entries!!!
Peter was joined by James, Rob and Ellen to judge the entries on Monday and after a couple of hours they managed to pick the winners, but it was very hard - the photos were very very good.
We have put all the pictures on a website so please do have a look, and tells us what you think: www.flickr.com/photos/grapevinecomp2008 and see the winners.
We are going to have a show of the pictures at the Council House in Coventry from 16th -30th June and the Lord Mayor is presenting the trophies on the 17thJune.
But that's not all we have got happening over the next few weeks, so why not visit us again to find out more...

Lynne at the BEEB

I was working at the BBC Coventry and Warwickshire Radio Station for 10 days which was my work placement, I really enjoyed it. On the first week I was working on the CSV action desk which was a busy week, I did things like answering answering and making telephone calls photocopying and stapling important papers together also I went to visit a project. The second week I was working with the local radio presenter who is called Bob Brolly and his producer Sarah that was entertaining and he came up with a nickname for me, through the week I got to meet a few celebrities including Blake who are a operatic group. I will tell you a bit more later on.