Legion shortlisted for CIPR awards
11 April 2011
The Royal British Legion's Corporate Communications team has been nominated for the most prestigious awards in public relations for the fifth consecutive year.
Silence in the Square has been nominated as Best Event, whilst The Royal British Legion Learning Pack has been nominate as Best Publication, in the 2011 Excellence Awards sponsored by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.
"Just getting to the finals is a great result in this, PR's most demanding awards," said Director of Corporate Communications Stuart Gendall. "My congratulations to both the Communications Team and the Education and Remembrance Team on gaining such recognition."
Silence in the Square takes place in London's Trafalgar Square and Swansea's Castle Square. To bring its Remembrance message to a wider, more diverse audience it was also webcast for the first time in 2010, reaching some 45,000 schoolchildren as far away as Malaysia.
Compered by Ben Shephard, the line up of performers in London reached a younger audience with performances by The Saturdays and readings from 'Narnia' actor Ben Barnes and actress Keeley Hawes. The all-male group Blake and The London Community Gospel Choir provided uplifting chorals.
BBC News 24 and BBC 5 Live carried the event live, while coverage for both London and Swansea included BBC, ITV, Sky, Channel 4, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Evening Standard, The Independent, The Daily Express, The Daily Star, The Metro, BBC London 94.9FM, Capital FM, Real Radio, BBC Radio Wales and LBC 97.3.
At 11.00am, all the lights around the square stayed at red for 2 minutes. The complete traffic stop received acknowledgement in the majority of coverage, and led to a The Daily Telegraph headline: "Buses and taxis join a nation in pausing to Remember."
The Legion meanwhile produced 65,000 English Learning packs and 3,500 in the Welsh language for provision to school pupils aged 5-18, home educators, college students and teacher trainees.
The Royal British Legion is the charity whose learning resources are the most widely known in the UK, with 96% of teachers saying they would recommend its pack to others.
As well, over 8,000 postcards were completed by younger students with personal and heart-felt messages and poems, for distribution to wounded Service personnel and older veterans.
"The CIPR Excellence
Awards recognise and reward best practice in public relations
throughout the UK and acknowledge personal and team achievement at
the highest professional level," said Mr Gendall. "We keep our
fingers crossed for even more good news at the Awards evening on 1
June."
The Legion has previously won CIPR Awards in 2009 in the Broadcast category for the 2008 Poppy Appeal launch from Basra, in 2008 in the Public Affairs category for the Honour the Covenant campaign and in 2007 in the Not-for-profit category for the 2006 Poppy Appeal.
