Just written to every single councillor in Greater Manchester telling them about the magazine. Encouraging response so far.
Meanwhile, How Do is showing a video of Media City so I thought I would show you where Manchester Matters is made…
I said it would be published on Monday…so it had to be published on Monday – even though I was running horribly late. But, after a 15 hour day, I decided to let it go without all the bells and whistles which will make it unique.
The reaction has been good but I am going back in to add the audio and video links.
Two outstanding issues: Still looking for a non-silly price to print hard copies and wondering whether to seek out an advertising salesman to work on commission only…
Because I am going to a Chamber of Commerce meeting tomorrow, I may miss my Thursday torture of circuit training. Therefore, I decided to swap my usual early morning swim today with a visit to the gym. Bad idea.
After a couple of kilometres on the treadmill, I had a sudden pain in my right calf. I pressed the emergency button to stop, carried on with a few weights..but now I can barely walk!
Its a strange time. On the one hand I want simply to get the magazine finished and on the other, there are a host of exciting things to do. And plodding away in the background is the need to continue with my freelance stuff to pay the bills.
Still celebrating making the shortlist for the CILT Transport Journalist of the Year award but, having won it twice before, I could be just there to make up the numbers.
And in the meantime, I’m getting more and more involved with the Chamber of Commerce. This morning, I went to my first meeting as a member of the Rochdale Chamber Local Council; on Thursday, there is a launch meeting for Chamber Plus at Old Trafford cricket ground; and I’m going to have send my apologies to the Chamber’s Transport Committee for Friday because it clashes with the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities executive – which I really must report on for the magazine.
Going to spend a week now getting the magazine together. …apart from tomorrow morning when I will be attending my first meeting as a member of the local council of Rochdale Chamber of Commerce.
I’ve got some cracking stories lined up and it’s a nervous time, worrying that someone else will pick them up before we launch. Don’t think so though – the news industry in Manchester is a bit lazy these days…
Back from a week’s holiday in the Lake District. Well, I say holiday…last Monday I left home for London to interview Louise Ellman and Stephen Hammond in the House of Commons and then caught a train back to Oxenholme to join my wife for our wedding anniversary the following day.
I have broadband up there so while dodging the rain, there was plenty of work to do.
Latest attempt to whip up support was to write to Lord Peter Smith, leader of Wigan Council and chairman of the Association of Greater Manchester Authoritites, Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council, Sir Howard Bernstein, chief executive of Manchester City Council and the Commission for the New Economy explaining what I’m trying to do.
Stll waiting flor replies….
I ought to ditch the whole idea of writing about cars but the fact is I enjoy it – and I reckon I am quite good at it. TransportMatters has always had a motoring page and since my work on moltoring for the Manchester Evening News, I have had car pieces in that paper, Yorkshire Post, Surveyor, and Business Traveller magazine.
So when I devised the idea of Manchester Matters – which, lets face it, will have a readership with a considerable car buying power – I couldn’t resist setting aside a couple of the 32 pages for motoring.
I wrote to the most senior media professional I could find at every manufacturer and invited them to send me news and cars to test.
Now I feel a bit stupid because only BMW bothered to reply…to say no!
I’m writing this on the train from London up to the Lake District after interviewing Louise Ellman, the re-elected chairman of the Commons Transport Select Committee and Stephen Hammond, the Wimbledon tory MP who was shadow rail minister but lost out after the election and is now co-chairman of the all-party rail group…with Tom Harris!
Anyway, back to the narrative:
Having got the publicity, I wrote to the media managers of all ten Greater Manchester authorities (try finding them on the council website!), Manchester Airport, and Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive explaining the nature of the project and begging for some killer exclusives for the launch.
So far two have replied – Trafford and the airport – but I have suddenly started getting press releases from Oldham.
As a member of Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, I did go to a breakfast meeting with the leader and chief executive of Rochdale Council and came away with a couple of crackers. Watch this space….
Tony was one of the original gang of four: Tony Donlan, Mark Woodhouse, Andrew Nott and me who came up with the original idea of a Manchester Matters magazine back in 2007. We had lots of meetings in pubs, Mark drew up a very impressive dummy using Quark and Tony got us an audience with Sir Howard Bernstein, the chief executive of Manchester City Council.
He was non-committal about the idea (vaguely, a “pro Manchester” glossy for visiting investors) until he took a look at the dummy – and was impressed. He suggested that Marketing Manchester might be interested…and there the idea has moldered ever since. Until now.
Tony reckons the name Manchester Matters was his idea. Nonsense, of course. I’ve had the domain registered for as long as TransportMatters.
But I digress….
So the first bit was quite easy. The journalism and PR sites need a constant feed so a quick press release brought splendid results…and I was the first. That was important. I was a bit cheeky and sent the same release to the MEN business desk and the businessdesk.com. Needless to say, they didn’t use it.
I had hoped for a) a flood of exclusives and b) a flood of requests for advertising rates. What I got was quite a lot of good wishes, quite a few enquiries from pr firms, and quite a lot of applications for jobs!
Then yesterday I got a call from my old friend Tony Donlan who had spotted a piece in the 
Times, no less. I certainly hadn’t sent them anything.
