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J&PR's July highlights!
29 Jul 2022

And just like that, we have come to the end of July! What has the team got up to and what have we been working on? Take a look…

Sophie had a hard time choosing one professional highlight, so we let her choose two!

In the office, Sophie enjoyed welcoming an old school friend, Arabella, to the office for work experience. Arry wants to go into journalism and is such a talented writer that Sophie said it was great to have her with us for a week... not to mention the fact they got their well-needed catch up!

We also started a number of new contracts this month which is really exciting. Sophie is looking forward to getting started with them over the next few months.


Sophie’s personal highlight was undoubtedly seeing her mum marry her long-term partner in Mauritius. They got engaged in February 2020 and the wedding was booked for that July... then July of 2021... and finally they've tied the knot! She couldn't be happier for them both and was grateful they brought her along to Mauritius to third-wheel the celebrations!

It's a double highlight for Kirsty this time too!

She's enjoyed seeing her youngest son finish his last year at primary school in style - with sports day, leavers' assembly and a prom, all of the things children of Year 6 have missed out on over the last two years. Both of Kirsty’s boys also had the honour of competing in the BMX World Championships in France! They waited three years for this opportunity - definitely a proud parent moment!


For her professional highlight Kirsty chose welcoming a number of work experience students - a Year 10 student and a University student. We know how students have missed out on these vital opportunities during the pandemic so it is great to show them how the PR world works! Kirsty even got to dust off her first portfolio of cuttings from her first job as a journalist too!


Rhea was also delighted to see all of the wonderful things her 11-year-old's primary school put on for Year 6 before they said a final goodbye before secondary. In the past couple of weeks they have had a special presentation, a party with all of their friends, an activity afternoon with inflatables, a disco and a burger van, a shirt-signing day and the most amazing leavers play that Rhea said was really funny and full of all of the history they have learnt over the years. 

 

For her professional highlight, Rhea enjoyed travelling to Stafford to meet the team at EPX Technical Services - they are based at the former site of Staffordshire University in a new business centre. She even got a tour after their marketing meeting and found it interesting to see how much there was on site!


Fun fun fun! Dani clearly had a good time when she went to the House of Lords for the 70th anniversary celebration for the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ). It was the day before Boris announced he would leave and it was great for her to be around Parliament and see all the press and protesters outside Downing Street. She also got to go to her kids' first school sports days (thanks Covid!) and celebrated her 14th wedding anniversary as well as attending a leaving party for her friend who is moving to New York!


When Dani’s not attending celebrations, she’s doing the voluntary PR for Friends of Telford Town Park as part of J&PR’s corporate social responsibility, so when they asked us to highlight the fact the park needed votes to be named in the UK's Favourite Parks awards (run by Fields in Trust) it was a pleasure! She said: “They are a fantastic group to work with and such lovely people.”

You can vote until noon on August 18th here.

Going on her first solo trip since Covid and travelling down to London to visit a friend, Freya M’s personal highlight was going to Community Festival 2022. Whilst she had fun at the event, it was a little too hot for Freya’s liking! She enjoyed lots of delicious food including a cute little Italian place in Fulham where the chef's dog took a liking to her table. After seeing pictures of the food we can’t say we blame them!

 

Professionally, Freya joined in with her first ever Two hour Takeover - she’d never contributed to one before, but she really enjoyed it.


The end of the school year brought some happiness to Tony, but not how you might expect! He was thrilled to learn all four of his grandchildren brought home excellent school reports! Proud grandad moment or what?

At work, Tony has enjoyed learning about how students from Ellesmere College have been getting hands-on conservation and wildlife experience on a very special trip to South Africa. Whilst Team J&PR is a little jealous of this trip, it’s truly wonderful seeing students receive such a fantastic education.


Sunny days…

Freya R thrived in the sunshine this month - she says it recharges her soul - so her personal highlight of July was undoubtedly the heatwave we experienced. She kept cool by jumping into the reservoir at Carding Mill Valley, paddling in the River Severn, swimming at the beach and attending a festival with her family - all in one week!

For her professional highlight Freya can’t help but laugh at the fact she and one of our work experience students managed to lock themselves out of the office. It’s a good job Kirsty was just a phone call away! On a side note, she’s delighted the office plants she brought in are really thriving in the good weather we’ve had! (Despite Si being in the vicinity!)

From a personal point of view, Si also really enjoyed the hot spell of weather as it changed his routine and forced everyone to slow down a bit! He said it was a nice change to come back from a meeting and sit in the paddling pool for 10 mins to cool down - although Si can’t deny he was quite glad when the weather cooled down again!

You may have seen him mention in previous blogs about a website copywriting project coming to a conclusion, and he’s delighted to share that the website has now gone live! He said: “It's been great to see the final result in the digital flesh.”


We’re sure it was just last week that we were writing the June highlights! We’d better get started on the August highlights right away!