A 4-page article about cycling in Alderney has been published in the magazine Cycle Active (article attached), the same journalist has also written a piece for the Yorkshire Post which was appeared in the newspaper on Monday, 30th January 2012.
Please click on the following link to view the article:
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/lifestyle/outdoors/travel/channel_change_1_4188911
Freelance journalist Paul Kirkwood visited Alderney in August 2011, courtesy of Visit Alderney. Not only did Mr Kirkwood write the two articles but he also created the cycle route that is now featured on the centre page map of the Alderney brochure and will soon feature on the Alderney Map.
Leading British artist, Andy Goldsworthy, who produces site specific sculpture and land art situated within the natural environment, has chosen Alderney as the location for latest project - Alderney Stones.
Over the last two years, Andy Goldsworthy and his assistants have visited the island to construct eleven 5ft diameter stones. The stones were left to cure for one year until Goldsworthy returned to the island last week to position these 3-tonne boulders in various locations around the island. The last of which, had to be made in situ in an old German bunker.
Now, finally in place, the stones have been wrapped in a protective coating which will be removed on the morning of Thursday 21st April 2011 when the stones will officially enter the next phase of the project - which will be the weathering and natural erosion of the stones over time. To mark this occasion a guided walk has been planned with Andy Goldsworthy which will cover ten miles of Alderney’s coast, whilst taking in the eleven stones.
Goldsworthy said "I chose Alderney because it has a strong sense of layered past and a wide variety of locations in a small area. I hope the Alderney stones project will touch upon the social, geological, historical, climatic and agricultural nature of Alderney."
He continued “Each stone contains materials and objects from around Alderney. We have incorporated berries, seeds, old tools and discarded gloves; all these materials will then be revealed as the elements and the years wear the stones down… It is a project which reveals itself over time, through the natural process of erosion, which I think is very relevant to a small island."
The Alderney Stones Project is part of the pan-island Bailiwick art initiative organised by the Art and Islands Foundation in partnership with the HSBC Private Bank, Hiscox, the Guernsey Arts Commission and supported by a number of local private benefactors.
Earlier this week we re-launched the VisitAlderney website. The new site has been designed so that it is fully integrated with VisitAlderney’s various Social Media forums such as Trip Advisor, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and flickr. It is now possible to Facebook - like or tweet the pages of the website and comment on them. A blog feature has also been added so that when news is published on the website, the public can comment, and there is also a huge emphasis on photographs, which illustrates Alderney in a fantastic light.
Joanna Parmentier, VisitAlderney Marketing Manager said “The website has now been streamlined. Research has shown that people do not have so much time on their hands these days and don’t want to spend hours sifting through reams of information; they want information easily available at their fingertips. For this reason, we have streamlined the information, each page contains a small amount of text about the related subject, but there are now pdfs that can be easily downloaded and which contain all relevant information.”
She continued “Websites age very quickly and like everything else in the modern world, design and technological trends and fashions evolve at a rapid speed. If you do not continue to redesign and innovate then it is easy to be left behind. An example of how fast the technological and marketing worlds moves can he demonstrated with Social Media, a term that before Facebook was created simply didn’t exist, yet within the space of a few years we have witnessed a huge boom in this type of media platform and now it is one of the main components responsible for how we market ourselves to the consumers.”
Neil Inder, Director of Submarine Limited said “Having served Alderney well since the initial build, changes in how people interact on the web, technology advances, along with the new branding, meant that it was time to rethink the website.”
He continued “The new iteration embraces the concepts of Web 2.0 of interoperability and information sharing and includes links back to their Social Media outposts. There are more interactive features and a new version of the Submarine Content Management System; which reduces Alderney’s reliance on us maintaining their website and importantly reduces their maintenance costs.”
We look forward to hearing your thoughts and reviews.
Who could ask for a better start to the year, we are only in February and so far we have received some fantastic media coverage.
Front Cover of Travel magazine
Alderney featured on the front cover of The Good Travel Guide, a magazine which is distributed to a readership of 150,000 and is distributed for free at The Times Destinations Holiday & Travel Shows in London and Birmingham, which are two of the biggest travel shows in the UK exhibition diary. The Good Travel Guide, a quarterly travel magazine, displayed the Front Cover Image of the Alderney Brochure on the front cover of their January, February and March issue, the magazine also featured a double page spread on Alderney. The image for the front cover was taken by Helene Matthews who won the Visit Alderney – Alderney Brochure Front Cover Photograph Competition for 2011.
Duncan Goodhew article
Featured in the January 2011 edition of ‘Country Living’ Magazine an article, written by Duncan Goodhew talked about his holidays on Alderney. Every month a different celebrity writes for the back page of Country Living and that month Duncan offered an abundance of praise for the island, which he regularly visits.
Newspaper coverage
An article appeared in the Daily Mail entitled – ‘Mystery of why the idyllic Channel Isle of Alderney is in desperate need of newcomers.’ Written by Ross Clark, this article appeared in the Daily Mail on 24th January 2011 and talked about Alderney looking for more people to come and live here.
The Times featured a short piece by Matthew Parris in his column ‘My Week’ entitled – ‘Did the MoD ever take a holiday in Alderney?’ which appeared in the paper on Thursday 10th February.
A journalist from The Sunday Mirror will be visiting Alderney in early March to write an article on Alderney for the paper.
Television Coverage
Countryfile
At the beginning of the year Alderney was featured on BBC Countryfile. The programme was broadcast at 19.00 on Sunday 16th January 2011 and presented by James Wong who visited the Island to find out what makes Alderney such a magnet for Wildlife. Originally the programme was going to predominately feature Guernsey and it’s grow-your-own culture with Alderney being featured for only 3 to 4 minutes, however, once on the island the film crew found the it to be so interesting and the footage so good that they decided to extend it to 10 minutes.
The footage of Alderney was spectacular and showed the island at its best, with beautiful blue skies, a glistening sea, stunning scenery, abundance of wildlife, and knowledgeable guides. Needless to say the feedback that we received was very positive with a noticeable increase in brochure requests. In terms of the value to Alderney tourism, the airing of this programme by the BBC at 7pm on a Sunday is prime time TV viewing, exposure will have been huge and, in financial terms, reaching this kind of audience is something that we could never afford with our budget.
Possibility of appearing on the One Show.
Miranda Krestovnikoff, a regular presenter for the One Show and visitor to Alderney, who complimented the programme, said that she has forwarded it on to The One Show to see if they will do something similar.
Eggheads
After a great deal of rescheduling of the filming date, the Alderney Eggheads team, aptly named “The Alderney Rockhoppers”, made it to Glasgow on the weekend of Friday 14th January. The team members were Bridget Postlethwaite as team leader, Bernice Miller, Bill Walden, Julie Turner and Tim Butler. Unfortunately, the sixth member of the team, Caroline Ely, was unable to attend. All went well and although the team is unable to comment on the whether or not they beat the Eggheads, we will keep you updated as to when the programme will be aired.
