Please note I have copied the introductory text from TJ @ Bras4mums as I don’t know how to explain what this is !!!

This is my first ever meme (Meme = spreading news/views from one person to another, see this post). I was ‘tagged’ last night, by TJ from Bras4mums, which means that the meme has now asked me to add my contribution and pass it on to others to add their views/comments. According to @ Caroljs you can get tagged more than once (by different bloggers), and it never stops! Interesting stuff! Here goes.

1. I can play the cello. Well ok, not very well. I took my grade one exam and failed it by 10 marks. This was a big deal when I was 10 years old.
2. I wanted to be a HGV driver when I grew up, but no one wanted to hear me say that, so it morphed into wanting to become a RE teacher. Does the latter still exist now?
3. I’m really nervous about meeting new people. So I do the King and I thing of putting a happy face on and crack on with it. And then completely over analyse it afterwards.
4. I have a younger brother, Stewart, who doesn’t have an ounce of flubber on his body, despite his eating take out all the time. I wish I had his physique and outlook on life sometimes. He’s not afraid to tell people how it is. If they don’t like it, that’s tough.
5. I used to work for the Financial Times Business and EMAP Communications and wear Karen Millen suits and very high heels. I earnt an awful lot of money and blew it as fast as it came in. It sickens me to think of how much money I spent…
6. I wish I saw my mum and dad more often than I do. 4 hours in the car isn’t that far, but with two tiddlers, it’s a hellish journey. Thank God they understand it and are starting to embrace facebook and skype.
7. Whilst working for the University of Hertfordshire in the Development and Alumni Team, I secured the biggest ever gift it’s received from one individual. Not a trust, business, or grant funder, but from one person. I’ll dine out on that until the day I shuffle off this mortal coil…

So that’s me. What do you think of what I’ve told you? Anything surprise you?

If your name is below, I want you to do the same and tell me and the rest of the world 7 things we didn’t know about you beforehand. Because I think I kind of know you but would like to really know you…

@MumstheBoss

@alisonrothwell

@helenlindop

@rachelyox

@jhowze

@lizfraser1

@Clairey_W

Liz Weston with the New Baby Guides in an NHS setting

As a rule, I don’t use my blog as a platform for blatant sales pitches, but we’ve had so many emails in asking for more information on the New Baby Guides, that I’ve written this as information for people whilst they are waiting for their samples and info packs to arrive.

This is the short version of our pitch to potential advertisers:

The New Baby Guides are published by Cambridge marketing and pr company, Weston Communications. One of our specialisms is in baby marketing, for both profit and not for profit organisations. We have a range of experience in the baby products market and marketing to families. We know our stuff. More than 104,000 New Baby Guides are printed annually, and go to pregnant women or new mothers at varying antenatal or postnatal stages, depending on each local NHS Maternity Unit. Marketing baby products is very sensitive area. Few businesses do it. Along with Bounty, we have the strictest guidelines we know of. All businesses have a local presence and are WHO and UNICEF baby friendly compliant. There are no major national brands. If editorial is accepted, it is generic rather than product/service led and has to be educational and for the benefit of the reader. Unlike other baby advertising, we have a strict policy on ratios for content to advert and every single advert is approved by each NHS Maternity Unit we work with.

Here’s some more detailed information, taking the Chelmsford edition of the New Baby Guide as an example.

The Official Chelmsford New Baby Guide 2010/11

1. What is it?

The Chelmsford New Baby Guide will be a free, comprehensive and official guide for parents of new babies to provide them with help in their first year as parents. It is fully supported by the midwifery teams at the Chelmsford Hospital and in the community. When asked for her views on the new guide and the opportunities for advertisers, Bernie Rigden, Acting Head of Midwifery said:

“The Chelmsford New Baby Guide provides a unique opportunity for local suppliers to support the Chelmsford parenting community. They also benefit from the unrivalled promotion of their goods and services to a very specific audience. In taking an advertisement, suppliers will facilitate the provision of vital early days information for all new parents and aid our fundraising efforts as a percentage of every advertisement will be donated to the Maternity Unit.”

Telephone contacts within the Hospital are available to verify this support, if required.

2. Who will it go to?

The A5 Guide will be published in January 2011, with copies being given free to expectant parents of all new babies in Chelmsford during the following 12 months. The Mid Essex NHS Trust expects 4,500 new babies to be born in that period, including babies being born at home with the support of community midwives.

3. How will it be distributed?

Copies of the Guide will be given to pregnant women at 36 weeks of pregnancy. This will include all women who are intending to use the Maternity Units at Chelmsford, Maldon or Braintree, or, to have a homebirth.

4. Why should I advertise here rather than somewhere else?

It is a pure readership audience ie: entirely and 100% new parents, so there is no wastage on exposure to any superfluous readers. Instead your advertisement will be read solely by nearly 4,500 new parents all within easy reach of you, and every one of them is a potential new client.

5. What will be in the Chelmsford New Baby Guide?

The Guide will include editorial on topics including: Taking your baby home from hospital Post-natal care Health advice for mother and baby Contraception

Child development Registering the birth Naming ceremonies Baby care and bringing up your child

6. What will it cost to advertise?

A limited number of pages are reserved for appropriate advertising and features and will be sold on a first come first served basis. Adverts start from £185 and go up to £1,200 for the back outside covers.

Testimonials from advertisers in the New Baby Guides after we won the Future 100 Award for social entrepreneurship:
“Brilliant news Liz you deserve this for all your hard work. Thank you for letting us be part of this success. Best wishes Tamsin from Water Babies”

“We are so thrilled for you and the team Liz. Well deserved. bras4mums are proud to be part of the New Baby Guides as we too are socially responsible in what we do.” T-J, Bras4mums

“Liz, that’s brilliant and much deserved! A very professional job well done. It’s great that mums and dads-to-be can have access to all this helpful and genuine information, and what is available to help support them and their babies throughout pregnancy and postnatal period – and in such a great booklet they can keep for future reference. I am really happy to be part of the New Baby Guide in my area, and wish you continuing success” Pippa from Karma Birth, Active Birth / Yoga

“Liz, I was waiting for you to call to ask me about rebooking for the advertising in the Chelmsford New Baby Guide. It has worked so well for Aiken Bodies that I’m only going to be advertising with you, in the Chelmsford New Baby Guide this year.” Karlee Aiken, Aiken Bodies.

With their glossy covers and professional design, it’s no wonder that we’ve got a waiting list of NHS Units wanting to work with us. If you are within the NHS and would like information on how we can work together, email liz@westoncommunications.org.uk
If you would like to be considered as a potential advertiser in the New Baby Guides, contact liz@westoncommunications.org.uk for more information and we’ll pop a sample in the post.
Find out about the national award which we won for the New Baby Guides recently.

I’m struggling to think of a title for this blog post, so I’m singing the track that had “on the radio” as the chorus.
What was it? I can’t remember any more of the lines from the song… <shows age>

The short version: Have been on radio with Matt Jamison @JamisonMatt to talk about my Future 100 Award.

http://tiny.cc/RadioLiz – click on this link to hear me on the radio. I’m at 1hr 38 mins in…

The longer version: (with no holds barred behind the scenes info…)

Saturday

8pm. Turn off Ugly Betty to do prep for radio show in the morning. Learn all about Roger Steare and ethics.

9pm: Take ethicability test. Contemplate pimms when disappointed with result.

11.00pm: Go to bed. Take Elliott (3yrs 10months old) out of William’s (2.5 yrs old) cot. For the second time that night. Didn’t even hear him get back in with William the second time #mummyfail

12 midnight: reading book on money and how it’s ok to earn lots of it. hear hear

Sunday

1:50am Richard home from work

2am: William up and shouting the house down, asking for milk. We refuse.

2:15am: William in our bed. Liz wondering if she should just get up now and give in to it all….

2.30am: Richard shouts full blast at William.

2.45am: Richard gets William a cup of milk

3am: Richard asleep, William laid on me, horizontally

5am: William wakes up, does a monumental fluff, goes back to sleep. Liz is awake

6.30am: Alarm. Out of bed. Whose idea was this?

7:10am: Out of house. Socks, pants and bra on, deodorant on, teeth cleaned. Not sure about much else?

7.30am: Arrive at BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.

7.35am: Told I can’t take my prepared notes on the radio with me. What ??? NOooooooo????? I’m NERVOUS! It’s EARLY!

7:40am: On radio with Matt Jamison (@JamisonMatt) for what felt like ages. Fluffed just one bit, talking about what a social entrepreneur is. Will do a proper blog on social entrepreneurship tomorrow – I’m not learning all that stuff to not do something with it!

7.50am: Done and finished. Congratulated and asked if I’d like to do it again at some point. Said yes.

8am: Catch up with loyal fans by power of hands free on drive home. aka, my mum and dad who listened via the t’internet.

8.30am: Home. “Crispies mummy??”

9am: Boys fighting. Richard ‘volunteers’ to go and do some ironing as he’d like to watch TV in peace in the other room…

9.15am: TV on for William whilst he does lego, Elliott joining all the felt tips together at the table whilst I write.

Rest of day:  Stapleford Xmas Craft Fair, where I will talk everyone in buying bingo tickets for next Friday (or buy them myself out of embarrassment) Plant daffodils in tubs in back garden with boys, Think about going to Christmas Parade before deciding not to, like we do every year, Eat dinner, Argue over whether boys should go to bed before or after Strictly Results….

I am very grateful for my life and my family. Over n out for now.

This is our first ever award. I’ve been awarded the title of “Future 100 Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2010″. It’s amazing. 100 of us, from thousands of applicants, have been awarded this title. And it’s extra special, because you have to demonstrate that you are socially responsible to win it.

I’m so proud of this, but it’s not just for me. It’s for Hannah, who works  so hard to keep me on schedule and manage all our admin, scheduling and processes, Husband Richard who quite literally keeps the home fires burning, looks after our boys and runs the house so I can do this, Tami who makes the New Baby Guides look so great, Steven who does the research and Fiona who helps us with sales.

We have donated£16,000 to NHS Maternity Units since we started nearly two years ago.

NHS Maternity Units love what we are doing for them.  Glynis Moore is Head of Midwifery at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital “We are delighted with the Norfolk and Norwich New Baby Guide and thank you for making this publication possible…. Our readers will benefit from all the information therein and we look forward to continuing to work with you in the future.”

I’m asked all the time as to what the New Baby Guides are. The most basic answer is that they replace the piles of leaflets NHS Maternity Units used to give to women in pregnancy and postnatally. So Maternity Units love them because they save them time (in getting the leaflets produced, printed  and onto wards), money (because we produce them at no cost to the Units we work with) and, we produce something much more professional than they would be able to with their limited resources. It’s also a good thing environmentally as we save on paper output from the Units, so it ticks all the boxes.

We work with 15 different Maternity Units across the UK. We have a waiting list of more Units who want to work with us, who will come on board in 2011. We give NHS Maternity Units complete control of their Guide. From the front cover, to the style on the inside, to colour schemes, images and of course, the content,  it’s all within their control.

Advertisers have a local presence and are approved by each Maternity Unit. All advertising is Babyfriendly and WHO compliant.

Is this a lot to juggle? YES! Wouldn’t it be easier if everyone did everything the same? YES!

But the reason why our Units love what we do, is because we give them complete control of their publication and can update it annually, and it’s all for FREE.

So how is it funded then? New Baby Guides are funded by advertising from local businesses. Businesses want to access local families so that they will buy their products or services. Being in an NHS publication is THE way to get themselves in front of pregnant and new parents, so they all want to be in the Guides. Whilst the NHS Maternity Units each have a disclaimer and do not promote or  endorse anyone in any way, this is the closest a business can get to being in the Unit itself.

We received a lovely email this morning  from Debi Hogston of Waterbabies, to use in our press release: “Waterbabies is delighted to hear that Liz and the New Baby Guides have won this award. Waterbabies features in all of the New Baby Guides because they are a smart way for us to support NHS Maternity Units and access the local parenting community. Liz’s decision to profit share with Maternity Units is admirable in the current climate and we applaud her strategy. We are pleased that their impact has been formally recognised and congratulate Liz and the New Baby Guides team on their success.”

So this is me, beaming, collecting my award in London, last night. Richard kindly came with me to take photos and be supportive. And he can verify that two of the judges – one  was the Head of Business Branch banking for Natwest (!!!!) told me that they’d remembered my application and commented on different aspects of it to me. I stood there, trying to think of something to say other than “Thank you” because I couldn’t believe that they’d remembered my writing. To hear them telling me  that they were impressed with what I was doing, and how they could see me scaling it up was, well, brilliant. I’m looking forward to having their input and support as I go to grow the New Baby Guides in the future. What mentors eh?

If you’ve not seen a copy of the Guides, or would like to be featured in them, just email  me at liz@westoncommunications.org.ukor call 01223 501520 / 07515 910231 and we’ll get samples in the post today, along with info on how you can become involved.

Do you have a presence in the New Baby Guides? If you do, please comment here on who you are and what you do, as we’ve got all sorts of media coverage coming up and I’d be delighted to ensure that you are mentioned as a supporter of them and local Maternity Units. We couldn’t produce the Guides without the support of our advertisers, so it would be great to get extra recognition for you as well.

If you’re in the media, this is the press release. I am available for press interviews and radio discussions on all  matters entrepreneurial, parenting, NHS and family related so please get in touch.

Here’s to a fantastic Friday everyone!

PS. Check out the rest of our site to see compliments on our work to date with the Guides, Baby Shows and PR and Marketing support we provide to businesses large and small….

and in with trying new things… (and not messing about trying to write the “perfect” blog post, anything is better than nothing!!)

On Monday 4 October, Rachel Yoxen, Hannah (the glue, or wd40 that keeps our wagon rolling) drove to Brighton. We were attending the Business Mums Conference the next day.  But I wanted to try something new, and Brighton provided a great opportunity to do it – running a speed networking session…

Attended by 15 of us, we got together a goodie bag with lovely things from Molton Brown, Weleda, Green & Blacks and Clarins for attendees and got stuck in. We set up some of  us sitting down,  and other  people moving around. We did one minute of talking, followed by a blow of the whistle from Hannah. Then the other person talked for a minute. And then we swapped around. This is our video of it. It’s very dark, but shows a bit of what we did…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-kPZwIm8C0

It was a good night. We  had fun and people made a range of new contacts which made the next  day, the day of the actual conference, not quite  so nerve wracking, when there’s friendly faces to meet up with…. And it’s always good to make new friends isn’t it?