• Going for gold
• Becoming global citizens
• A digital drive for change
• The launch of our own virtual gaming festival

It’s been a full-on start to the year to say the least! Although physically separated, that hasn’t slowed us down and we have started the year with a bang. Take a read of the team’s personal highlights:

Sophie Baillie, PR & Marketing Director:

“Planning the opening of a school in the midst of a global pandemic is no mean feat, and we have been working with The Cavendish School on some exciting developments over the last three months. From the commencement of building work and the appointment of the Deputy Headteacher to recruiting two Governors to join its Governing Body, it has been all systems go for our programme of activity. I have been particularly proud of the long form opinion pieces that our team has secured with key publications this quarter and the exciting outreach undertaken to promote the Governor positions.”

Zoë Scorer, Director:

“We were thrilled to be told in February that we have been accredited the coveted Gold status by Investors in People, the UK’s leading accreditor for business improvement through people management in the UK, for a second three-year term. For a business of our size to be recognised in this way firmly cements what we set out to do: to do well by doing good. Each member of our team demonstrates our values in everything they do for Conscious Communications and that is the proof in the pudding. Our assessor agreed: ‘You’ve nurtured a highly engaged team who are fully committed to your ambition to do well by doing good.’ We couldn’t ask for more!”

Blessing Raimi, Junior Content Designer:

“I have been spending a lot of time these last few months creating dynamic and static social media graphics, which are great ways to engage with an audience and capture their attention with striking visuals. These display the information in a palatable way, which is easier to digest than simply posting text. It is also a nice way to show the client’s brand message through the elements used and establish this to the audience in a way they can recognise easily. I’ve loved exploring different creative concepts for these designs and being able to experiment with various colours and graphic elements.”

Alison Taylor, Managing Director:

“In November we launched an appeal to find laptops for the 100+ children from a local academy who didn’t have a device to work on at home. Following many generous donations and the tireless help of Cambs Youth Panel, in February, we just about had every student in the school catered for, with an array of laptops, PCs and tablets. However, after learning that between 8,000-9,400 children and young people across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough still do not have a laptop or PC and over 3,000 do not have access to the internet at home, we decided to try scaling it up and approached the council to join Cambridge 2030 and the Cambs Youth Panel in a campaign to find a further 8,000 devices. To date, over £567,000 has been raised, more than 1,000 new laptops and 460 routers have been purchased and over 400 used laptops have been donated for reconditioning and distribution through schools across the county.”

Ali White, PR and Marketing Director:

“With an exciting new development project set to join the iconic Mill Road area of Cambridge, Devonshire Gardens will be conscientious developer First Base’s first project in the city and plans are shaping up with some great additions to add vibrancy, community and wellbeing to the existing neighbourhood. We’ve spent the first part of the year supporting First Base with community engagement and profile raising for the new development and are looking forward to watching the development take shape over the coming year.”

Debra Fisher, PR and Marketing Manager:

“Following the success of our first virtual event for our client, ACS International Schools, in November – these were swiftly followed with two more in 2021 themed on ‘What the world needs’ and focused on preparing students for the world of tomorrow. Our speakers who we secured included Michael Sheldrick, Co-Founder and Chief Policy and Government Relations Officer at Global Citizen, Susie Hargreaves OBE, CEO Internet Watch Foundation, and Ryan Hartman, ACS Egham alumnus and Software Engineer at Microsoft US. Each speaker shared fantastic tips on how students can prepare to be tech-savvy learners and global citizens and divulged their unique career journeys from graduation to the positions they’re in now.”

George Pickford, Junior PR and Marketing Executive:

“One of my main highlights so far this year has definitely been the ongoing work for our own charity, FXP Festival! Working on this ongoing project, it’s wonderful to see how FXP Festival utilises a large passion for computer games established within many students, while also expanding and building upon their interest and knowledge of STEM subjects and digital skills along the way. I’ve loved working to promote the charity on our social channels, liaising with our in-house design team on interesting ideas and reaching out to local schools. As a huge gaming fan, this has been of particular interest for me to get stuck into, and it’s made even more exciting to be able to work alongside huge names within the industry such as Jagex. I can’t wait to see all of our hard work on this come together later this year!”

Al Beeson, Senior Designer:

“The only constant in life is change and technology is such a visible illustration of this. With this in mind, when updating a website the primary considerations are usually similar: content, usability, aesthetics. However, it’s the application of those considerations that develops as a company grows with success. Refine and streamline content with optimised navigation and functionality for the best user experience and excellent SEO. This is what I have been focusing on for our own website over the past few months – watch this space…”

Joanna Colley, PR and Marketing Manager:

“From media relations and organic social content, to email marketing and social media advertising, the team has executed a robust PR and marketing campaign over the first quarter of this year to launch the beautiful new water feature from Tills Innovations – the AquaVeil^®. We’ve loved growing our expertise across a range of industries and related publications; I particularly enjoyed getting stuck in with some of the garden design media!”