AV News 174 - November 2008
Once the main framework and dates were established there lay ahead the
long and difficult task of contacting AV workers, web sites, schools and
colleges worldwide. It was all very time consuming and I was grateful for
those many people who sent helpful contact details and suggestions.
After I had spent several months working with Google, finding
establishments with photographic departments etc I had an e-mail which was
to prove to be the most valuable contact of all. Rosemary Wilman, Vice
President of The RPS, suggested I use some of the grant money to pay for
the services of the public relations company used by the RPS. Once I had
contacted MAX Public Relations and started to work with them I was amazed
how quickly word spread and details appeared in newspapers, magazines
and web sites worldwide. At one stage even one of the major television
channels was tentatively interested in running a feature about it.
All the publicity machinery was in place during 2007 and I spent many
sleepless nights wondering if the IRIS-25, as it became known, would ever
take place and be a success? I had hoped, to translate the web site pages
into French and German but so many other tasks filling my time, it was never
achieved.
I knew I wanted to receive original and open entries from the young
people, but how would we be able to encourage them to see traditional AVs
and want to improve their skills later if necessary? It was also decided to
make another change to add an extra AV day with useful talks and so the
initial simple competition turned into a two day Festival.
One of my earliest plans had been to make the competition web based, but
it was thought file sizes might be too large to handle and other problems
could occur. The dates were carefully planned, the entries would be received
on a date which would fall before any examination and revision times in the
school calendar, any last minute entries would never be finished if they had
to compete with school exams. A judging date should