by Josephine Graham

Are you looking forward to CommscampNorth? I know, it’s going to be great isn’t it. All that chat, and cake, and whatnot, it’s going to be brilliant.

But it’s not just all about learning, sharing ideas and reigniting our creativity with like-minded comms folk.

CommscampNorth is provided free of charge to the public sector comms community thanks to the generosity of our lovely sponsors.

Therefore, at every Commscamp event we ask our wonderful attendees and community to pay it forward, if you can afford to, by supporting our nominated charity.

Cost of living

This year the cost of living crisis is biting hard on families up and down the county. Foodbanks are facing huge demand, with reports of a 250% increase in online searches for “food banks near me” since March 2020. Meanwhile more than half of low-paid workers in the UK have had to use food banks in the last 12 months, according to research from the Living Wage Foundation.

Like all cities, Bradford has many local people living in crisis that need our help. We’re asking you, as a visitor to Bradford for CommscampNorth 2022, to support our chosen charity: Bradford Central Foodbank. The foodbank is part of the Trussell Trust, so you will be supporting part of a nationwide network of food banks that provide emergency food and support to people locked in poverty.

How you can help

You can help in three ways.

1. Bring a food/household goods donation

It feels nice to bring an actual thing along doesn’t it? We will have a donations table at CommscampNorth and will welcome all contributions of non-perishable food and household products, whether large or small. Popular items include tinned puddings, UHT milk, jam, tinned tomatoes, pulses, tea, coffee, loo paper and more.

You can see a longer list with more ideas here: Donate food | Bradford Central Foodbank

2. Buy a piece of cake or a raffle ticket at CommscampNorth

You know about the cake table right? And the tat raffle? OK, we don’t have space to explain those things here, but every time you buy a piece of cake or a raffle ticket at CommscampNorth your money will go to help the our chosen charity.

3. Support the charity online

Whether coming along CommscampNorth, or simply following the hashtag, you can support Bradford Central Foodbank with an online donation here: Donate money | Bradford Central Foodbank. Payments are made through a Just Giving page. If you add a message (you’ll need to click on ‘Add a message of support’ before confirming your payment) we can track how much we’ve helped raise online. This is optional as some people prefer to donate privately and that’s fine. If you would like your donation to be counted towards our total, please make sure your message mentions CommscampNorth, e.g. “CommscampNorth event attendee (personal donation)”.

Also, if you’d prefer to support your local foodbank, we get that. If we’ve inspired you to help them, then we’ll be happy with that.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give and looking forward to seeing you very soon.

Josephine Graham is marketing and communications officer – internal communications at Bradford City Council.

CommscampNorth is an unconference for public sector comms people and takes place in Bradford on October 13.