We were treated to a delightful and very informative talk at our AGM by Christina Burns - Editor of the BBC Radio 4 programme "You and Yours", which is required listening for anyone interested in consumer affairs. During this talk she mentioned her new boss Helen Boaden, the Controller of Radio 4, who may be familiar to those readers who are also members of `The Voice of the Listener and Viewer'. Helen gave a talk to them when she had been in post just a short time.
Helen has now been in charge of Radio 4 for over eight months. Have you noticed any difference? She was Greg Dyke's first editorial appointment after he took over as Director General and we are told that she has been a lifelong Radio 4 listener, and involved in prize winning programmes such as `File on Four'. So far she has introduced a Sunday afternoon showcase of the best programmes that people away at work are unable to hear during the week. She has moved a `Rambling' programme from a Sunday afternoon slot when any rambler worth his or her salt would be out rambling, and she has made Jenni Murray presenter of the Radio 4 media programme `The Message' which may persuade more people to listen to it.
There is obviously more to come but it may be hard to identify as her style was described by `The Times' on November 17th (from whence came the above information) as `evolution' not `revolution'.
Matthew Bannister, outgoing BBC Director of Marketing and Communications (he left on December 15th) caused a real shake up of his department before going. One result is that Sally Osman is now the holder of the top dedicated Public Relations job at the BBC. Her old job was Head of Publicity. This has now gone to another lady, Vanda Rumney, who leads the team that publicises the BBC output across all media. There is a man in there somewhere. He is Donald Steel who becomes Head of Press. He was Chief Press Officer and he now has the task of putting together a central BBC press team to deal with reactive and news management issues. Both report to Ms Osman, as does the fourth member of the team, Andrew Whyte, head of Corporate and Public Relations.
This information was gleaned from the exotic publication `PR Week', also on November 17th. It is an interesting publication which is not afraid to tell about PR campaigns that went wrong.
Lord Borrie took over as Chairman of the Advertising Standards Authority on January 1st. As Gordon Borrie QC he was Director General of Fair Trading from 1976 to 1992, but more importantly, he was one of the Founder Members of the Birmingham Consumer Group and has been their Vice Chairman for a number of years. He was also a member of the Council of Consumers' Association and, more recently the President of the Institute of Trading Standards Administration from 1992 to 1996. He is, of course, a Vice President of NfCG.
I wonder if he recalls that NfCG Annual Conference in Plymouth where he was guest of honour? There, staying in student accommodation at the University, he and his wife were subjected to a deluge of water through the ceiling from the room above where a pipe, under mains pressure, came apart from the sink tap.
NfCG Vice Presidents Gerry Lanchin and Maurice Healy were awarded OBEs; for services to consumers, both much deserved. Congratulations indeed.
People with whom you have dealings, and rather like, sometimes disappear, and you wonder what they are up to now. One such is Jan Walsh who, until a couple of years ago, was NfCG's main contact at BT, and a very helpful one.
She then became the head of BT's Corporate Reputation and Social Policy Unit where she established BT's highly reputable social policy strategy. She has now emerged as the founder of Crescent Consultants, a PR company specialising in corporate reputations and social responsibility. How do I know? Well, I spotted her name as one of the judges of the PR Week Public Relations Awards 2000.
These awards covered a wide range of activities so I turned at once to the Best Consumer Campaign award. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that it was for a campaign to promote Jersey Royal potatoes, arranged by Hammond Communications. They discovered that potato rustling was rife in Jersey a few years ago and that farmers regularly experience potato poaching even now. They built a story round this with John Nettles, in his role as Jersey detective Jim Bergerac and some 50 potato farmers which received wide television and newspaper publicity. I even vaguely remember either seeing it or reading about it, so it must have been good.
I wonder what David Tench and Janet Upward are doing these days?
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