Monika, Cliff and me at the MS Society Awards

Cliff was denied funding for access to functional electrical stimulation (FES) despite being assessed as someone who would benefit from, and who was eligible for, the treatment. It took Cliff three appeals before he was granted access to FES.

Cliff’s campaign inspired the MS Society’s How to campaign for FES guide which has won an unprecedented NICE endorsement. It empowers people with MS to get what they are entitled to from the NHS and helps people challenge local decision makers. Well done Cliff!

If you fancy doing something this week for MS Week, why not take in part in a
cake break - we will be today!

Tain Oliff

No better day we say so on February 25th we revisited On-Anon, the scene of last year’s Christmas party crime, for some drinks, some snacks and some love (oh, and some pretty fantastic dancing thanks to Richard O). We had red balloons and heart shaped chocolates but we decided nothing says love quite like a quiz. So we polled Whitewater employees for their favourite loves and then asked people to match the love with the lover. After a fair bit of consulting (read: cheating) Anna Palecka was crowned victorious and was finally rewarded her prize at last week’s staff meeting.

Here’s just a sampling of love...can you guess the Whitewater lover?

Fish and chips with champagne
Sample based hiphop
Harry Bosch
‘Smells like teen spirit’ by the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain
Umami

Elana KIng

I had the task of giving one of our main meeting rooms an up lift. Having studied Interior Design at uni, I jumped at the challenge. I felt that the mission was to turn the space into a fun, creative, “we are a funky, artistic company” shout out loud kind of room. Having a walk around the ‘hood of Old Street and seeing some really exciting murals – Graffiti to be exact – the idea couldn’t have been clearer.

And so I set out to find a graffiti artist, one that could duplicate the design I already had in mind for that wall, little did I know that right under our noses – a Mr Simon Lane, to be exact – was an expert with the can.

He was happy with my design and there is no need for me to tell you if it was a success, you just need to come see it for yourself!!! OK, we’ll put up a picture soon but in the meantime, drop by to have a look!

Who am I? Well you see me all the time, behind the reception desk. Did I not say in the beginning – Creativity strikes at the HEART of Whitewater. Aaaaaaah!

Maria Bavio

In comparison, ‘going on a course’ was a great thrill. ‘Courses’ were run by advertising gurus with exciting names like Drayton. Spiralbound notepad in hand, the aspiring young writers would sit in a darkened conference room, copying down pearls of wisdom as transparency after transparency landed wonkily onto the overhead projector. “Don’t use no double negatives”. “Avoid clichés like the plague”. Great stuff.

One pearl from those times has stood me in particularly good stead over the years: “Don’t write what the writer wants to write, but what the reader wants to read.”

Relevant propositions are clearly a good start - but perhaps the most obvious is to try and write using the same language as the reader. Or at least not to use words and phrases that seem only to appear in ‘charityland’; a weird world entirely populated by the love children of Freddie Fundraiser and Dorothy Donor.

Here are just three examples from a random grab from the charity samples file:

“In your community” - what about “near where you live?”

“Your gift can help …. Your kind donation can help …”. Why not “Your money can help …”? It sounds so much more tangible.

So, which ‘charity words’ stick out like a Direct Debit logo on a reply form to you?

Kay Norton
Acting Head of Copy

We’ve just launched a brand new website for Whitewater’s in memoriam and tribute giving platform, Our Lasting Tribute.

In case you didn’t know, Our Lasting Tribute (OLT) enables donors to set up tribute funds in memory of loved ones, to do something positive and inspirational in their name – raise money for their chosen charity. In fact, it can inspire people to raise quite large sums of money. Which might explain why the OLT platform is already the most successful of its kind, driving donations for many charities including the NSPCC, Breakthrough Breast Cancer, Asthma UK, Meningitis Trust, RNLI and St Dunstans.

With the new OLT site, we hope to showcase the ease with which charities can set up in memoriam funds and the benefits that can be delivered.

As an agency, we are convinced that if more charities knew about the truly extraordinary ROIs being achieved by many of our clients, then more charities would be strategically committed to this form of fundraising.

The new Our Lasting Tribute site also has all the ingredients needed to become an active community site for In Memoriam fundraisers, including video tutorials, a forum for discussing common issues as well as a blog by In memoriam expert and the spiritual father of OLT, Steve Andrews.

Take a look at the new website here and please let us know your thoughts.

Mark Roper

As the morning of Saturday 27th February dawned, many of us were greeted with the first news images of the devastating earthquake that had hit Chile overnight. Resulting in scenes of destruction and a rapidly rising deathtoll.

When an event of such destruction occurs, the most vulnerable are the children; often many are left injured, and potentially separated from parents and families.

It quickly became clear that there would be an urgent need to launch an emergency press appeal to help generate the much needed funds to support Save the Children's work in Chile managing the aftermath.

That weekend saw three of Whitewater's team working hard to ensure the ad went out on time for the next day's papers. We coordinated between the publications and the client throughout the day to create and distribute the ads into the daily broadsheets despite the difficulty in reaching publishers who close on weekends!

Persistence, teamwork, hard work and a willingness to sacrifice a weekend certainly paid off as Save the Children were the ONLY charity running emergency appeal adverts in the press the next day.

The client was delighted, and surprised the Whitewater team with a delivery of flowers and a thank you card, bought to the office in person.

Going the extra mile made all the difference .. and we're delighted to report that the cash came flooding in. Thanks to Jess W, Paula, Stewart and everyone else at Whitewater who gave up their weekend to make this happen.

Mark Roper

Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day, Fat Tuesday...whatever you want to call it, it's a time to absolve yourself of sins by the way of confession and eating pancakes. Or something…

So to mark this holy excuse for a breakfast feast, the Whitewater ents team (Maria, Richard O, Stewart, Elana and myself) turned our meeting room into a French-style creperie and made fresh pancakes for everyone. I’m glad to say it was a success (no pancakes stuck to the ceiling) and a nice surprise for people coming in from their wet commute to the office.

And now that the pancakes have gone down a treat, we need to observe other traditional part of Shrove Tuesday – confession time! Please add your confessions via the comments section below (Nick C – you may need to spread yours over a series of comments, I think there’s a word limit.) Bless you all.

Nayyar Mughal

In support of the RNLI's annual fundraising event – SOS day - Whitewater became Whytewaterz nightclub for one special evening with a Sing One Song night.

Needless to say, there was booze, disco lights, dancing and some retro singing. We sang our way merrily through the decades pausing only to consult the 'bible' karaoke book.

Thanks again to everyone that came. Good fun was had all round and donations (or should I say entry fees) in true DM style are still trickling through. For those of you that prefer pictures… feast your eyes…

Imogen Beilby

If you've been in one place for any length of time, you start to develop a reputation for certain things. Our esteemed colleagues past and present include Barry 'The Birdman' Evans, Steve 'Original Mr Nice Guy' Andrews and Steve 'My Specialist Subject Is Star Wars' Tse.

Unfortunately for Heather Collins, who's celebrating a glorious ten years at Whitewater this week, she developed a reputation for her ingenious if rather colourful language. She's probably added more words to the English language than Shakespeare did.

So to celebrate Heather, her ten years' hard service in the print department, and the invaluable contribution she’s made to life at Whitewater, we decided to surprise her at last Friday's agency meeting. While she popped to the ladies, we all whipped out masks of her face complete with speech bubbles of her most famous phrases, including my personal favourite, "Ass Burgers with Cheese." To say she was surprised is an understatement. But, being as it was Heather, we can't print the actual words she used when she walked back in and saw a room full of Heathers staring (and swearing) back at her. Happy 10th Anniversary Heather!

PS. Can you spot the real Heather in this picture? (Clue – she's the one without a speech bubble attached to her forehead.)