The London 2012 Olympics depends on thousands of volunteers of all ages to help it to run smoothly and for the past four years TV News London has provided media awareness and media interview training for more than 80 teenagers from the London Borough of Waltham Forest who are Youth Ambassadors for the event.
The Youth Ambassadors are a 
selection of talented young people from schools and colleges within the Borough responsible for making sure the younger voices of the local community were heard and they were given the chance to have an input into developments of the London 2012 and Paralympics Games.
This year has been very exciting for them. Some of the teenagers selected to be Waltham Forest Youth Ambassadors have carried the Olympic Torch on its way to the Stadium and most of them were at the spectacular ‘Isles of Wonder’ Olympic opening ceremony on Friday July 27 in the stadium in the Olympic Park. A few took part in the ceremony. One of these is Haider Ilyas who was playing his drums as a Ceremonies Volunteer Performer. 
He says: “I feel so happy and fortunate and thank God for allowing this once in a lifetime opportunity to perform at the greatest show on earth, the Olympic Games. We don’t know whether the Olympics will ever return to London again, so I truly feel privileged to be given this opportunity.
“Drumming is a hobby that I really enjoy, whether I’m playing Spanish drums, Pakistani drums or African drums. In my spare time I practice playing drums with my friends, who are known as the ‘Bongo Brothers’, they have been very supportive of me practising for the Olympics. I really appreciate their help. I feel I am not only an ambassador for my college, my family, my borough and my city, but the whole United Kingdom.“
Waltham Forest Youth Ambassador, Ryan Richefond, did very well in his media training course and he’s good at sport too, including football, golf and karate. He told us when he did the course that he had hopes of becoming a sports journalist. He is now working as a ball boy at Wimbledon for the Olympic tennis championships and has just been signed to play for Crawley Town FC, so maybe the sports journalists will be writing about him soon.
Tasmia Syeda Tahia did media training with TV News London last year. She says :”I have had many exciting opportunities as an Olympic Ambassador, from touring the Olympic Park to attending the Love Your Borough Awards and meeting Olympians Jonathan Edwards and Kriss Akabusi.
“More recently, I helped launch the audio tour of the Olympic Park. Most of all, this opportunity has taught me to never stop believing in myself and to strive for success. “ Tasmia is 17 and is writing her first novel called ‘Silent Voices’.
Steven Cheung, a Waltham Forest Youth Ambassador and Olympic Torchbearer, has for the past eight years been a role model for the local community of Waltham Forest and Chinese communities across Britain, inspiring over 1,000 young people to become actively engaged within their community through the Young Advisor Charity.
Steven has been able to work with various organisations, including the Department for Communities and Local Government, The Ministry of Justice, The Princes Trust, Waltham Forest Council 2012 Team, The Mayor of London, The Metropolitan Police, British Council, British Youth Council, UK Youth Parliament, and the office of The Speaker, UK Parliament, to be a representative and voice the concern of the youth and BME community. He has also had meeti
ngs with the chair of London 2012 Lord Sebastian Coe, athletes such as Paralympians Ade Adepitan and Tanni Grey-Thompson and Olympians Kelly Holmes and Jonathan Edwards.
Steven also sits on the board of the British Chinese Project to encourage and elevate the presence of UK Chinese in Britain through volunteering, becoming a school governor, or taking part in political participation.
As a member of the Legacy Now Youth Panel, Steven has worked with The London Development Agency (LDA) EDAW, Allies and Morrison, KCAP and Fundamental Architectural Inclusion in overseeing the Legacy Masterplan Framework (LMF) - spatial plan for homes, parkland, schools, workspace, health and sporting facilities to be developed on the Olympic site after the 2012 Games, and as part of ongoing community engagement and consultation
He says :”The Panel has provided budding planners and designers the opportunity to gain valuable industry experience, while offering the next generation's vision on the regeneration opportunity. These are a few examples of the things I have done:
- Meet planners, architects and decision makers
- Visit the Olympic Park site and other regeneration developments
- Take part in Olympic site model making with masterplanners
- Review designs and plans
- Undertake work experience placements
- Present and consult with wider groups of young people
- Communicate developments via website, blogs and e-bulletins
- Make creative projects including a film about the process
- Plan for a large scale youth event in summer 2009.
In the Olympic closing ceremony on Sunday 12 August, Haider Ilyas will again be drumming . Plus Claudia Sermbezis, one of our TV News London trainers who ran some of the media training courses for the Waltham Forest Youth Ambassadors, will also be performing in the Olympic Stadium. Claudia will be dancing during the first 20 minutes of the closing ceremony. She says she’ll be wearing a lime green costume, but can’t tell us more!
TV News London’s Managing Director Roz Morris says: “ We’re delighted to have helped the Youth Ambassadors to prepare for their roles in the 2012 Olympics and we’ll be looking out for Haider and Claudia on August 12.”
Published
08 August 2012
Reports about Save the Children's work helping children and families who cannot afford basic food in Mozambique have appeared on ITV’s Breakfast programmes, ‘Daybreak’ and ‘Lorraine’, for two days running, thanks to TV News London's Director, Malcolm Douglas, who is currently working with the charity as a broadcast PR consultant.
Malcolm visited northern Mozambique as a TV producer for Save the Children, together with newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky who interviewed families and health workers, and reported for ITV on the hidden hunger crisis in the country.
Natasha is pictured in Ampivine where she talked to mothers whose children have died or who have stunted growth because of the lack of good food. Joaquim (pictured left and below) is aged two and a half but he weighs only 14 ˝ lbs (6.6 kilos) which is half the weight he should be. After he had been weighed Save the Children ensured he received treatment at the local hospital. Without this help he could have died within days.
Natasha also met Ali who is four years old but at 3 feet tall he is at least 6 inches (14 cm) shorter than he should be because his growth has been stunted through malnutrition. His mother, Haiwa, has five other children whose growth is also stunted because they have never had a proper nutritious diet.
Malcolm Douglas, pictured centre below with Natasha, and the Save the Children team who produced the reports for ITV says: “ When you first arrive in Mozambique you think it looks like a fertile country and that people should be eating well, but their diet is mostly boiled cassava roots and very poor in nutrients. They can hardly ever afford to eat proteins like eggs, milk and meat. We filmed Save the Children’s classes for mothers showing them how to add vitamins and minerals but it’s tough for the families because they can’t afford this on a regular basis."
Malcolm’s work in Mozambique was part of Save the Children’s ‘No Child Born to Die‘ campaign which aims to expose the reality of hunger and malnutrition experienced by millions of children across the world. Malnutrition is the underlying cause of 300 child deaths every hour but it is rarely cited on death certificates, because children's weakened systems succumb to other common killers like pneumonia or diarrhoea.
Save the Children says that a package of basic measures including breastfeeding and fortifying basic foods with essential minerals or vitamins, would save the lives of two million children a year and prevent over 60 million young lives from being blighted by malnutrition.
Save the Children’s Chief Executive Justin Forsyth said: "The world has made dramatic progress in reducing child deaths, down from 12 to 7.6 million, but this momentum will stall if we fail to tackle malnutrition. After a year of record food prices, millions of parents with little money have cut back on food for their families.
“Every hour of every day, three hundred children die from malnutrition. This is often simply because they don’t have access to the basic, nutritious foods that we take for granted in wealthier countries. By acting to stop the hunger and malnutrition crisis in its tracks, world leaders have the chance to change this for millions of children across the world.
“Last year Britain showed powerful leadership on helping the world’s poorest children, galvanising global action and funds to secure vaccinations for millions of children, potentially saving four million lives. Save the Children is now asking British Prime Minister David Cameron to do the same to stop children dying because of malnutrition. We are asking him to help lead the biggest push in history to reduce hunger, and hold a World Hunger Summit to agree and fund concrete action to tackle this crisis.”
Save the Children works in more than 120 countries worldwide.
Save the Children, 1 St. John's Lane, London, EC1M 4AR
Telephone +44 (0)20 7012 6400 Fax +44 (0)20 7012 6963
www.savethechildren.org.uk
Published
22 February 2012
TV News London's Essential Starter and Advanced Media Training courses have yet another success story following the attendance of Sarah Whitehead, an international lecturer and pet behaviour counsellor, who runs the Clever Dog Company chain of puppy and dog training classes across the South of England.
Sarah is the author of more than twenty behavioural and training books, booklets and videos including 'Puppy Training for Children' and 'The Puppy Survival Guide' and a regular contributor to the specialist press, is a feature writer for Dogs Today, and is frequently quoted in the nationals.
Before coming to TV News London, Sarah had a few short TV appearances on C4 'Pet Rescue', BBC 'Barking Mad', ITV 'Give a Pet A Home', and C4 Open House with Gloria Hunniford, but she had never done any media training. However since her media training with TV News London, taking both starter and advanced media training, she has developed and gained more confidence with her interview techniques and strategies and has already begun to raise her profile in the media. Sarah told us recently:
"All your training has been so useful in the last few weeks. Already in 2011 I've had the opportunity to do two hour-long sessions of live TV on Ideal World shopping channel promoting my new DVDs. I certainly wouldn't have been nearly so confident without your courses - especially since I had to talk and train two dogs at the same time!
I also did an interview on BBC Radio Four, 'Woman's Hour' - a light-hearted debate about dogs. Should you share your bed with your pet? I really enjoyed it and put my training with you into practice. Of course, there are always things that I could perfect, but your strategies helped enormously and must have paid off as that segment of the show was repeated again on Saturday's 'Weekend Woman's Hour' with the pick of the week's interviews.
"Thanks again for your expertise - I just thought I'd let you know how useful it is proving!"
For more information or to book on our starter and advanced media courses please call us on 0208 275 8854 to discuss your needs.
For more information on Clever Dog Company visit www.cleverdogcompany.com
Published
23 February 2011
For the third year running TV News London has run a successful media training workshop for the Waltham Forest Youth Ambassadors. Always a pleasure to work with, fourteen lively and excited teenage ambassadors took part in a TV training session where they learnt how to speak to the camera and interviewer, firstly face to face with the interviewer and then down the line talking into the camera.
The Waltham Forest Youth Ambassadors are young people from schools and colleges in the borough, selected to be youth representatives. They are charged with making sure the younger voices of the local community are heard during the organisation and run up to the 2012 Olympics.
Our trainer, Claudia Sermbezis, who ran the workshop really got the youth ambassadors to think about why they wanted to be an ambassador for their borough and what they hoped to achieve from it, and she also encouraged them to tell their stories and experiences in a way that would grab a viewers attention and get their messages across effectively and show their passion and true personality.
Claudia also did breathing exercises with them and gave them techniques on how to relax and focus and prepare for interviews as seen in the pictures left.
The 2012 Project Manager said on the day..
“I think Claudia really spotted the individual characters of the Ambassadors and gave them tips on 
how to make use of it on camera. Overall it was a very good session and your team were a pleasure to work with.”
With the 2012 Olympics getting closer and closer, there will be many media opportunities for the Youth Ambassadors and we at TV News London are sure the training we have given them will be put to good use. We look forward to seeing them on television talking about the Olympics in 2012.
For more info on Waltham Forest Youth Ambassadors go here
Published
23 March 2010
TV News London Open Advanced Media Training course recently included Jillian Miller, Executive Director of The Gorilla Organisation. The Gorilla Organization works internationally to save the world's last remaining gorillas in the wild, by funding small grass-roots projects, run by local African partners, that tackle the real threats to the gorillas' long term survival.
After the training Jillian said:
“I was delighted to receive a report and certificate after completing the advanced media training course. Other than finding the training thoroughly enjoyable and informative, I also found the whole process empowering and a great confidence booster. I loved learning with the other participants. The tips and techniques you passed on will stay with me in the future, whatever I go on to do.”
For more information on The Gorilla Organisation visit www.gorillas.org
For more information on advanced media training click here
or call us now on 0208 275 8854
Published
25 November 2009
TV News London's Starter Media Training course has another success story following the attendance of Emma Supple, Managing Director of Supplefeet, the high quality, innovative podiatry and footcare clinic based in Enfield, North London.
Emma is often called upon to represent her profession on television, radio as well as national press and her reputation as a foot expert was growing fast with appearances on GMTV and several other broadcasters. However she had never had any media training and she came to TV News London to take her up to the next level and fine tune her skills. Since she took our media training course she has raised her profile even more.
Emma’s comment after attending her course at the time was “Excellent, invaluable and will be very useful.. Thanks to Roz and the team for really setting me on a path and as she said up until my training day I had been, “flying by the seat of my pants!”
With the training I was really able to absorb the concept of conversational but not conversation and the machinery behind the magazine type content.
I regularly advise people the value of professional training from your company specifically but am surprised and somewhat disappointed at how many dismiss the concept.” .
She later told us the following:
“Thought you would like to know that since the training day I have been on:
Channel 5 Doctor Doctor;
Radio 2 Drivetime with Chris Evans (he had my segment on smelly feet in his podcast of the week!);
BBC News 24; A huge piece started by a PR missive from Age Concern that made BBC 1pm News and was repeated hourly on BBC News 24; the film crew came to Supplefeet and then I was the talking head on BBC news 24. We had the surreal moment of me on the screen simultaneously!
Radio 4 Case notes.
Really pleased as I more or less wrote the entire script! I engineered two of the three “outside” broadcasts and we came in on 27 mins and 42 when we were asked for 27 mins 45sc. Delighted.
BBC Radio Solent with 15 minutes notice."
Emma has recently been featured on BBC Newsround, a programme specifically for kids so they had wonky camera angles and fun "worse feet" stories. With her daughter's assistance she demonstrated flat feet in kids and various insoles to be used to help. The main message was that bad shoes equals bad feet!.”
You can view the programme here: Children's Feet for BBC Newsround-
Published
19 November 2009
Roz Morris and a Camera Technician ran a one to one TV Media Training session for Sonia Abrams, MD of Sparkle and WOW at her offices in Cockfosters in North London, in preparation for her appearance on Wedding Breakfast on Wedding TV.
Here's what Sonia told us after her course:
“I had always imagined what it would be like to be on TV but when the appointment was confirmed for me to appear on Wedding TV I was full of panic. Luckily a few weeks prior I had met Roz from TV News London at a networking meeting in London, so it was a no brainer –give her a call.
Roz came to my office and had already prepared some questions that the presenter was likely to ask me. We did a run through and watched it back and did a number of run throughs. The advice and knowledge shared by Roz was amazing. From how to sit, style of clothing to wear and colour choice were all covered.
The interviewer actually asked most of the questions Roz had practised with me during training. Roz even contacted me after to give feedback. The feedback and training was invaluable and even gave me the confidence to do an unplanned TV interview which was part of a one hour feature for our wedding event staged at Alexandra Palace.”
Check out the Sparkle & Wow wedding event at Alexandra Palace video here
Published
10 October 2009
In 2004, Powertraveller Ltd was formed with a mission to develop, design and manufacture a range of portable chargers for circumstances where mains electricity is not available. The company’s range of portable power solutions for everything from mobiles, iPods, and PDAs through to handheld games consoles and laptops includes the iconic powermonkey.
In April of this year Powertraveller were nominated for the Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation 2009. Jane Harsham, PR Manager, contacted TV News London to help prepare for the valuable publicity they would receive through the nomination alone and especially if they won. Powertraveller’s Chief Executive, Jerry Ranger, needed media training to maximise the impact of the publicity opportunities created. In discussion with Jane we decided the best option for Jerry was to attend our next Open Media Training Course, with three other professional spokespeople from different organisations. This was a rigorous training day, which was very successful.
Jerry told us after the course:
"I certainly gained a much better understanding of how to engage with the media in an interesting and effective manner; to relate the information in a more conversational and as you say anecdotal manner. I am sure Jane will ensure I do not revert back to type and prepare a shopping list of answers! The course was of great value and I found it very interesting to see how other members of the course came out of themselves and in the end had genuine self belief in being able to represent their organizations. It has been a long time since I did any formal training and clearly I should do a lot more. Thank you and for all your efforts and patience."
We also organised a one hour Broadcast PR telephone consultation for Jane Harsham with Roz Morris, TV News London’s Managing Director and broadcasting expert, to help her get the right pitch for targeting radio and TV as her main expertise was in print.
Powertraveller subsequently won the Queen’s Award and ran a very successful promotion from that. Jerry gave interviews to CNBC’s Strictly Money, several radio stations and The Daily Telegraph.
Jane has since contacted us to say Jerry has been invited back to CNBC for a second interview. This reinforces something we always stress at TV News London - if you give a good interview you will be asked back. And media interviews are one of the most economical and far reaching forms of advertising and promotion.
Published
03 July 2009
British Eventing is the British governing body for the sport of eventing, horse riding’s most challenging event, which combines dressage, show jumping and cross-country. With roots in the military, eventing is steeped in history and is one of Britain's most successful sports in terms of medals won at major Championships.
TV News London recently ran two media training courses for British Eventing at their headquarters in Stoneleigh Park, in Warwickshire. Senior executives from British Eventing were put through their paces by two of our TV News London trainers and one of our professional cameramen. In an intensive and challenging day they practiced preparing and delivering interesting and positive print, radio and TV interviews about British Eventing and its work.
Liza Randall, British Eventing’s PR and Communications Manager said:
“I am delighted with how well the TV News London trainers researched the briefs and our organisation before they came along. This brought the whole experience to life and gave our spokespeople the right context in which to develop their interview skills.”
The course delegates told us that the training had been extremely useful. Here are some of their comments:
“…. a really useful course which was hugely helpful from a first timer’s point of view ….. lots of lessons learnt … extremely useful… An informative and educational day well worth it …I feel I developed my media skills vastly from the start of the day to the end …. delivered at the right pace….. great examples of what not to do. ….the best media training I have been involved with”
For further information about British Eventing visit their website at www.britisheventing.com
Published
17 June 2009
For the second year running TV News London has run a media training day for the Waltham Forest Youth Ambassadors. Eighteen enthusiastic Youth Ambassadors took part in the TV training session where they learnt how to hone their messages and practice their TV interview skills, firstly face to face with the interviewer and then down the line talking into the camera.
All the interviews were viewed and reviewed, highlighting strengths and also points to watch. The Council’s 2012 Stakeholder Engagement and Communications Officer, who organised the event sent us these comments:
“Just to let you know we had a catch up meeting with the Ambassadors last night … they were all really positive about [the training], and even though it had been quite challenging in parts they were all pleased to have done it. Many of them were keen to volunteer for any media opportunities we get!”
Published
22 April 2009