Campaign Unit-Overall Strengths and Weaknesses

One of the main aims of our campaign was to raise awareness a particular charity shop and the need for better quality donations. We tried to publicise our charities by making posters, adverts and performing assemblies and workshops to children at Browick Road Infant School. Overall I think we did a lot of hard work; the rehearsing and planning took a long time, as well as documenting everything on our blogs, visiting our charity shops and attempting to collect donations. I think one of the weaknesses was that the posters up around Wymondham High didn't attract enough attention as we wanted; students and teachers are generally too busy to stop and look at the posters very much. Also, organising a fundraiser event near Christmas is always difficult as people have too much other stuff on their minds around that time and lots of other charities are trying to raise money as well.
To conclude, I think we did everything we could to make it work but sometimes it is difficult to get others interested and raise enough awareness. Big charities use the media to get people involved but we weren't able to do that. Although we did put a lot of work into it, so I hope we don't fail!

Success of campaign so far: donations, raising awareness and profile

So far, for our campaign we have looked at various campaigns and their techniques used to raise awareness, chosen a charity shop and considered how to improve donations, made posters, radio and TV ad storyboards and performed to an infant school trying to educate them about charity. Despite all our hard work our donations are virtually non-existent; our posters haven't really been noticed and I don't think we have raised enough awareness. We are trying to rectify this situation by targeting staff rather than pupils for donations and hopefully our cardboard monster will be better noticed in the staff room.
Our performance also didn't produce plentiful donations but we have succeeded perhaps in a better way-we have hopefully convinced children to donate! Little children are easily influenced and I think if we keep spreading the message we will get them to donate.
The important thing though, is to raise the profile of charity shops. Even if we don't directly receive donations ourselves, we can always take our old toys and clothes, or persuade others to take them themselves. We won't fail our unit if we don't get donations but it's good for the charity shops to get publicity and let people know they need good quality donations. So far we haven't managed to do this so much but on the 14th December we are holding a stall trying to sell donations and we may be able to inform more people about how donations of better quality are needed.

Reflection on Theatre in Education Performance

The performance on Sunday went quite well; obviously without several key people it was more difficult and in our workshop there was just 4 of us with a class of 30 Year 2's. I am slightly disappointed because it could have been much better and our assemblies could have been a lot more entertaining and interesting but it didn't make as much sense as some people had to play more than one role and at one point they blanked completely.
The workshop was trickier than I had expected.Our updated plan was with Chloe (who wasn't there) so we were basically doing it all from memory. We played some games which the children seemed to enjoy and a couple of activities on sharing but I was concerned that we weren't actually doing so much about campaigns and charity and to the Year 2's it was just a bit of fun. However, our questionnaire at the end (again this had to be improvised) appeared successful-we asked them questions about charity and charity shops, what they do and what makes charity shops different from normal shops and we got some positive feedback. They were able to name some charity shops and famous charities like the RSPCA, Children in Need and Comic Relief.
Unfortunately it was partly unsuccessful due to lack of donations. The children didn't bring in any toys so we have nothing to take back to our charity shop, but the only way we could think of raising awareness was to send out letters to the parents. Parents get so many letters from primary schools asking for money or doantions, especially towards Christmas, and sadly I think our letter was ignored.

Questionnaire for Browick Road

1. Did you enjoy today?
2. Did you understand about sharing and donating?
3. Do you think you'll donate more to charity?
4. Do you understand what happens when you give to charity?
5. Do you know where your local charity shops are?
6. Do you know what a charity is?
7. Anything else to add?

This is the questionnaire my group will hand out to the Year 2's at the end of our workshop. We need to make sure they have understood the day so we can judge whether our campaign was successful. If not, we need to understand what went wrong and how to improve it.

The Year 2' seemed very knowledgeable about some well-known charities as they do a lot of fundraisng events at school-such as non-uniform days for Children in Need and Comic Relief. Unfortunately we were unable to give them this actual questionnaire but they all seemed to understand and some even said they were going to start donating their old toys to charity.

Campaign Weekly Plan

Week 1: 7th Sep-told about our Campaign Unit and what we are expected to have achieved by Christmas.
Week 2: 14th Sep-researched campaigns and brainstormed ideas for fundraising. Set up our blogs.
Week 3: 21st Sep-Put into groups and chose our charities; asked ourselves what we wanted to do for them and brainstormed ideas for fundraising. Looked at charity shops and how they needed better donations, and how we were going to raise awareness of the need for higher quality donations.
Week 4: 28th Sep- watched a theatre in education performance and told how to write a live review-writing a review set for homework.
Week 5: 5th Oct-I missed the lesson but planning of storyboards, posters and adverts.
Week 6: 12th Oct-Creative Industries event.
Week 7: 19th Oct-finished posters and began working on our assembly at Browick Rd Infant School.
Week 8: 2nd Nov-worked on our assemblies and started planning our workshops. Speaker came in and talked to us about making video journals and for homework we planned our own.
Week 9: 9th Nov-finished homework from before half-term and worked on our blogs. Rehearsed assmeblies and workshops.
Week 10: 16th Nov-no lesson due to trip to Florida Shoes. We were going to do a donation stall at lunch for people to bring donations in, but this idea didn't work.
Week 11: 23rd Nov-preparation for trip to Browick Rd; rehearse and have costume sorted out.
Week 12: 30th Nov-performance and workshops at Browick Rd.
Week 13: 7th Dec-I was ill.
Week 14: 14th Dec-'Sale Day' for sale of donations-all the money goes to the charity shop. This idea failed as we had no donations. Finish blog work.

Campaign-Self-Assessment

My campaign group are helping out The Children's Society charity shop in Wymondham and I think the idea of the Campaign unit is really good as I think giving to charity is important and I like to think that we could make a big impact. I'm really trying to contribute to my groups ideas but it is slightly harder for me as I am the only one from my school and most other people have lots of friends in the Diploma. I am also shy so talking to adults that I don't know and maybe giving a primary school assembly sounds quite daunting but I am determimed to do well.

Learning Outcomes for Campaign Unit

Campaign:
1. Understanding the nature and purpose of campaigns.
2. Be able to prepare a campaign.
3. Be able to conduct a campaign.
4. Be able to monitor the preparation and conduct of a campaign.