From SeafarersUK: It has been great to see the week have such an impact this year and we really appreciate your help in making this the case. What has been particularly pleasing is to see how far awareness has been raised across all ages and many parts of the UK maritime sector and beyond. There have been many highlights and we wanted to share a few:
Press Coverage: We’ve seen the week gets lots of press coverage beyond the maritime media, including the Daily Mail Online, the Daily Telegraph, and many newspapers in the West Country, Sussex and other parts of the UK. We hope you were able to generate local media interest in your own participation in the week.
Broadcast Media: Our Director General Commodore Barry Bryant CVO RN was interviewed for the popular ‘Spotlight’ magazine programme on BBC One. BBC radio coverage across the UK included BBC Radio Scotland, BBC Radio Lancashire and BBC Radio Tees. A total of 13 pieces of radio coverage reached an audience of four million people!
Social Media Campaign: As many of you are aware a large part of our awareness-raising campaign has been conducted through social media. Since the end of last year’s campaign we have had more than 2,000 new connections/likes/follows across LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter - now with combined totals over 12,500! Our Twitter reach during June alone was over 2.5 million - and more than 1,200 people used #SeafarersWeek.
Schools Campaign: The very successful inaugural primary schools campaign that we launched with fruit importer Fyffes meant that thousands of children saw our ‘Journey of a Banana’ materials intended to encourage children (and teachers!) to think about how so many foods and products reach them thanks to merchant shipping and seafarers. On a container ship the character Freddy Fyffes meets the Captain, Chief Engineer and a Deckhand, introducing children to the men and women who work at sea. Our Fyffes-sponsored materials are still available for free download here - http://www.seafarersawarenessweek.org/seafarers-awareness-week-resources/downloads/ - should you know of any schools or parents who may like to print a copy. Congratulations to the Bishop Hooper C E Primary School in Shropshire that won our £500 top prize!
Events: We were delighted to see so many events take place - open days, cake sales, exhibitions, boat races, school visits and lots more. We are collating photos from events on our Flickr page - https://www.flickr.com/photos/130692950@N03/albums/72157669337260270 Please do email any you have to week@seafarers-uk.org - we would love to see them and we can add to them to the collection.
‘Opportunities to Work at Sea’ Films: You may recall last year we produced a series of short films to showcase ‘Opportunities to Work at Sea’? Those films now have combined views of nearly 10,000! For this year’s campaign we re-edited the films and added a fresh voiceover to highlight the huge shortfall in maritime officers – see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rughu8OuCJc It’s great to see our films being viewed by young people considering maritime employment opportunities. Please use this link to share the films - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_liw2NnOI1A&list=PLFoi0wydawthqslDDrPE9yT6e8ZcFhUKt
Q&As: Thanks to everyone who answered questions for our Q&As, that represent many areas of the maritime industry providing a useful guide for anyone considering work at sea or ashore. See www.seafarersawarenessweek.org/questions-and-answers/
Next Year: Dates have been announced - 24-30 June 2017 – and we have started work on developing a new theme that will ‘support our seafarers’. More information to follow later this year.