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Publicising Your Tidy Up

One of the most important ways to ensure your tidy up is a success is to attract the support and involvement of the local media. Events can be excellent community events and generate great local stories.

How to Target the Media

When letting your local newspaper, radio or television station know about your event it is important to contact the news desk at least one week before the tidy up so that they can put the date in their diary. It is also a good idea to contact them the day before to remind them of your event.

When planning your tidy up you need to think about dates and timings that will suit you and your volunteers. To ensure maximum publicity it is always a good idea to consider when would be a convenient time for the media. Photo calls in the morning are preferable so deadlines can be met for evening newspapers or broadcasts. These are key things that the media will want to know:

When your tidy up is taking place
Who is taking part
When you are tidying up
Why you chose that particular location
What is interesting, unusual or unique about your tidy up
How you are going to do your tidy up

If your event has an interesting angle it will be particularly appealing to the media. If something quirky or different will be happening at the tidy up, this will make it more newsworthy.

Don't be disheartened if the media do not cover your story. On the day, other news stories may take precedence over yours. Just make sure your volunteers have as much fun as possible, just think of the media as a bonus.

News Release

When contacting your local news desk it is important that you have drafted a news release with brief information about your event to let them know exactly what will be happening and when. Here is a sample news release to get you started. Try to keep your release to two pages or less and always allow extra spacing between the lines (this is a common layout of news release).

News Release

KEEP IT CLEAN - URGE (NAME OF AREA) GROUP

For immediate release

A group of residents from (name of area) have had enough of rubbish.

They are tired of the tide of litter that is bringing down the reputation of our town and are sick of paying through the nose to get other people's junk cleaned up.

And just to prove how much they loathe litter, the (name of group and where they are based) are going to go out into the streets next (date) and pick up junk. By their actions they are to show the rest of the community how big a problem litter is, and to encourage them to start disposing of it properly.

Figures released by the UK's biggest anti-litter campaign, Keep Britain Tidy, have revealed:

That council taxpayers in the UK fork out £780m a year to clean the streets.
Over 30m tonnes of litter are collected from our streets each year
That thanks to the growing presence of dropped food, the UK rat population now stands at approximately sixty million
People can be fined £80 for dropping litter. Last year 44,000 people were prosecuted

Like everywhere else in the UK, (the name of the area) has its fair share of litter problems. But thanks to the (name of group) they at least have people prepared to do something about it.

The (name of group) will begin to tackle rubbish at (location) on (time and date). They are hoping that as many volunteers as possible will come and join them and that the rest of the community gets the message that dropping litter is 'simply not on'

(Name of spokesperson from group) said: "This clean up will show others that we care about the future of our local environment and that we are not prepared to live, work and play in an area that is blighted by rubbish. What is good about working together like this, is it creates a sense of community and for some of our younger volunteers it is their first taste of active citizenship."

The (name of group) clean up takes place at:

Location:

Date:

Time:

You are invited to send a photographer/reporter to this event.

For further information please contact (name of spokesperson) on (phone number/mobile).

Publicising Your Tidy Up

How to Target the Media

News Release

Posters