Roundabout Publications

Community magazines for local advertising in Monkseaton, Tynemouth, and Whitley Bay

HEALTH: Cranio-Sacral Therapy

Imagine a pile of Jenga bricks, all piled neatly on top of one another and ready for a nail-biting game of trial and error. The tower is straight, tall and strong. Now imagine that you’re about five moves in to the game. The bricks have shifted, you’ve lost a few pieces and there’s been the odd wobble. Several tentative pokes have been tried by your opponent to test for areas of weakness and suddenly things don’t look or feel quite so strong anymore.

Now imagine that your body is that Jenga game. You may not have lost any pieces but I can bet you’ve taken the odd knock, felt the odd wobble and felt – at times – that it would be good to regain your strength so you can avoid the pokes that target your areas of weakness and just get, well, ‘straightened out’ again.

With two children, a heavy laptop to carry, a dodgy shoulder and a very odd way of sitting at my desk, I decided that my time for ‘straightening out’ had come. And so it was that I found myself lying on a couch in a treatment room in Gosforth and feeling, in the nicest way possible, surprised that I was about to roll straight off the couch and onto the floor. Just like a well-poked Jenga piece.

When I opened my eyes and found that I was in exactly the same position that I had started in I was stunned.

‘Is everything alright?’ the therapist, Eleanor, asked.

‘Ridiculously so, thank you.’

Eleanor had one hand under the back of my head and one hand under the base of my spine and was very gently rocking her hands back and forth. It was an extraordinarily relaxing feeling.

Cranio-sacral therapy or CST is a holistic therapy that works directly on the central and autonomic nervous systems. The therapist works on these systems through a series of gentle movements that affect the control systems for the entire body and the mind. It involves being touched on the feet, the legs, the tummy, neck and head. You remain fully clothed during the treatment.

CST has intrigued me for years, having first heard it suggested as a remedy for colic in babies. Eleanor used to be a midwife and health visitor and so she is well used to working with babies and children who struggle with sleep issues or colic but she has seen wonderful results with clients of all ages.

‘It’s not magic but it really is very effective’ she told me ‘and it’s good for everything from stress to migraines and painful scar tissue to physical and emotional pains’. On hearing this I showed her a scar I have on my ankle from a wound that involves waiting outside a boy’s house, a playground roundabout and a lovesick best friend when I was fourteen. Eleanor looked at the lines of scar tissue that sometimes ache and throb with pain, held her hands over my ankle and I can say here – in writing – the pain has completely gone.

CST works on the basis that the therapist is merely a facilitator for the body’s own healing and the body knows where the healing needs to happen. All I know is that my shoulder has stopped hurting, my ankle no longer throbs and I have slept like an un-colicky baby ever since!

by Katherine Wildman © 2012

Katherine Wildman is the Creative Director of Haydn Grey Ltd, a copywriting agency based in Cullercoats.

Discover how Haydn Grey can help you find the right words to promote your business at www.haydngrey.co.uk or call the office on 0191 289 3170.

TRAVEL: A girls’ weekend away – Leeds

The Queen’s Hotel is a beautiful introduction to the City of Leeds. With its impressively wide Art Deco façade and Grade II listed status it looks not unlike a northern Buckingham Palace. As we walked up the red-carpeted stairs I wondered whether Queen Elizabeth has got revolving doors to play in too? Our room overlooked City Square with its imposing statue of the Black Prince of Horseback. Gazing out across the city skyline it took us a while to realise that the Prince himself was not a funny shape, he was just covered in pigeons.

Leeds is a superb place to shop. With streets filled with a mixture of familiar chain stores and more eclectic options we wandered around getting a feel for the city while keeping a tight grip on our credit cards. The grip did not last for long. A pair of butter-soft leather boots, snapped up by my friend at a third of the original price in Harvey Nichols, felt like even more of a bargain when the sales assistant told us the customer before us had bought two pairs of Jimmy Choo stilettos for the bargain price of £800.

Tucked away behind Briggate is POP Boutique which houses two floors of rails groaning with bright prints and fabrics from the 1960s and 70s. A row of long-haired Troll toys from the 80s decorated the shelves behind the cash till and we spent a good hour flicking through Japanese film postcards – Jane Fonda as Barbarella anyone? – and trying on vintage cashmere cardigans, wondering just how much we could carry home on the train.

At the top of the town centre, along The Headrow, stands Leeds City Art Gallery. You can’t miss it, there’s an enormous naked woman lounging outside who has shuffled along from her creator’s home next door at The Henry Moore Institute. With works by Anthony Gormley, Jacob Kramer, Bridget Riley and a beautiful new exhibition by Fiona Rae that is filled with colours and light, Leeds City Art Gallery houses a wealth of national and international art treasures and admission is free.

Leeds is home to many famous eateries, from Nash’s Fish and Chip shop, which has been ‘serving Leeds since 1924’ (and was the venue for my big sister’s 21st birthday party) to Raymond Blanc’s Brasserie Blanc on the banks of the canal, so when it came to places to eat we were spoilt for choice. A quick question asked on Twitter threw up many, many more options, all of which sounded amazing but after a sushi filled lunch at Harvey Nichols we decided to plump for good old steak and chips at the Blackhouse Restaurant and Bar. A T-bone steak, cooked to perfection and served with chips that came in their own little deep fat frying cage, made no apologies for being as far away from a low- fat meal option as possible. And it was all the more delicious for that.

Leeds is a mere hour and a half from Newcastle on the train and is a real delight to explore with culture, shopping, food and nightlife all within easy reach of the station. Just don’t blame me if you bring back more than you can carry!

by Katherine Wildman © 2012

Katherine Wildman is the Creative Director of Haydn Grey Ltd, a copywriting agency based in Cullercoats.

Discover how Haydn Grey can help you find the right words to promote your business at www.haydngrey.co.uk or call the office on 0191 289 3170.

BUSINESS: Now, 5 Copywriting Secrets Every Small Business Owner Should Know

From websites and emails to leaflets and television adverts, we are bombarded with sales messages everyday. So, how can you make sure that your message stands out and is heard in the noise of the madding crowd?

As a small business owner there are 5 Copywriting Secrets you should know:

1. “You talkin’ to me?”

Ah, Robert de Niro. This famous line from the film Taxi Driver is a great one to keep in mind as you write. Using the word ‘you’ and addressing your prospect throughout your writing will engage your reader in what you’re saying.

2. “What’s in it for me?”

People are generally interested in one thing – themselves. Demonstrate how you can make your readers’ lives better by offering a benefit and not a feature of what you do and you’ll start winning hearts – and customers.

3. Why a good headline is vital

The job of a headline is to draw your customer in and get them to read the next line of your sales message. That’s it. A good headline contains one of three things:

  • Some kind of benefit – e.g. ‘Save money and valuable time today’.
  • An exciting snippet of news – e.g. ‘My Exclusive Interview with Apprentice Winner Ricky Martin’.
  • Something to arouse your reader’s curiosity –e.g. ‘How Twitter saved my life’.

Great headlines contain all three things like, well… the title of this article for example.

4. The space bar is your friend

People are busy. You only have a few minutes to make an impression with the written word, whether it’s your company website or your latest leaflet that’s doing the talking.

Break up your writing with headlines, crossheads (or subheadings) and lots of white space to allow your words to breathe. This will give you room to highlight the key benefits your company offers and ensure that, even if your reader only has a minute to spare, he’ll take away exactly the message you want to send.

5. “Do this now”

This may sound a bit bossy but you do have to let your prospects know what you want them to do after they have read your sales message. Do you want them to call your office? Email you for more details? Check out the latest offers on your website? Add a call to action within your sales messages to tell your prospect exactly what they need to do next to benefit from your offer.

For more helpful copywriting tips you can apply to your small business today sign up for the free newsletter at www.haydngrey.co.uk (and there’s my call to action!).

by Katherine Wildman © 2012

Katherine Wildman is the Creative Director of Haydn Grey Ltd, a copywriting agency based in Cullercoats.

Discover how Haydn Grey can help you find the right words to promote your business at www.haydngrey.co.uk or call the office on 0191 289 3170.

ART & CULTURE: Germaine Greer at the Sage

I have to hold my hands up and say before I start that I absolutely adore Germaine Greer and, when she told the audience at The Sage that she had a ‘nutters and stalkers’ pile in her office into which she sorts her post, I wondered if I had ever graced it. It was after she published her book The Whole Woman in 1999 that I realised the extent of my admiration. The book blew me so far away that I wrote Professor Greer a letter, a letter of abject adoration. This woman seriously rocks my world (and she wrote back *swoon*).

April’s lecture at The Sage dealt with the furore over Samantha (and yes Professor Greer, I will forever say that name with an Australian accent and think of your cat) Brick’s dressing down at the hands of the media (Hadley Freeman, Guardian journalist – another hero – excepted), the site of a gaggle of plucked pheasants (women in fascinators) at The Grand National and why it would be a great thing for women to stop despising each other quite so much (it saps our energy and gives yet more power to our oppressors).

She talked about David Beckham’s tattoos, about the beauty of Etonian students and about her dodgy knee (and about Pamela Stephenson’s perfect kneecaps)

And she made such sense. Such clear and perfect sense.

Education, motherhood, what to wear if you aren’t what the High Street deems to be a womanly shape (where woman means without hips, bust or – heaven forbid – stomach).

She was thought provoking, hilarious, passionate and warm.

Greer puts into words the feelings I get when things don’t quite seem fair, when my emotions cloud what I want to say – and she encourages saying what you want to say – a lot.

Where are the women’s voices in the pub? Where are the women’s voices on TV (as Kira Cochrane discovered recently they are pretty hard to find)?

Professor Greer has a voice. And it’s a very good one – and it was brilliant and hugely encouraging to hear it in real life.

by Katherine Wildman © 2012

Katherine Wildman is a copywriter who helps UK companies to get their message across in writing. From websites to sales letters, brochures to leaflets – if you want copy that makes your customers want to use you then get in touch with Katherine today at words@copywriternewcastle.co.uk, on Twitter @copywriterne or call her on 07816 763 393.

FOOD & DRINK: Tynemouth Food Festival

Love food? Love the seaside? Ready for something new? Get your taste buds ready – the first Tynemouth Food Festival will be taking place on May 12 and 13 in Tynemouth. Bring your shopping baskets and an appetite for the best food and drink that the North East has to offer.

In the run up to the festival weekend local high schools will be taking part in a Junior MasterChef style competition organized by The Grand Hotel, while the primary and junior schools will be trying their hands at icing and sprinkles in a cake decorating competition. The colourful – and possibly sticky – results will be displayed in shops around the village over the weekend, while the winning Junior MasterChef team will be demonstrating their dish at a state-of-the-art mobile demonstration kitchen at The King’s School.

A full line up of celebrity chefs from across the region will be sharing their skills in the demonstration kitchen over the weekend, with names like Graeme Cuthell from Irvin’s Brasserie and Adam Hegarty from Six at Baltic taking to the stage.

Former North East Chef of the Year, David Kennedy, is opening a three night pop-up Restaurant at Café K at The King’s School on 9,10 and 11 May, featuring Northumbrian tapas, a Spring Menu and a 5-course Tasting Menu.

If talk of all this food is making you thirsty The Cumberland Arms on Front Street will be holding a week long Real Ale Festival with a wide selection of seasonal and artisan beers on offer, some of which have never been seen before in the North East.

The Festival, which has been organized by the Tynemouth Business Forum, hopes to build on the success of last year’s VW Classic Volkswagen Rally and attract lots of people to the area.

Forty stallholders selling food and drink from across the region and beyond will fill the Queen Victoria park across the road from Front Street. Confirmed stall include Kitty’s Homemade Ginger Wine, The NZ Gourmet Pie Company, Doddington Dairy and Safari Event Catering – crocodile sosatie anyone?

Restaurants and cafes in the village will be hosting Food Festival themed events including wine and cheese tasting at The Deli Around the Corner, a celebration of British cakes at the Priory Café, beer and food tasting sessions at the Priory Pub, a cocktail master class at Lola Jeans, fajitas at Luis, a chocolate master class by Gareth James at the King’s School and special discount offers at many more places.

Tickets for David Kennedy’s pop-up restaurant are now on sale at The Cumberland Arms, Children of the Revolution and The Deli Around The Corner.

For more information, updates and news please look on the Festival website www.tynemouthfoodfestival.co.uk, Facebook page www.facebook.com/tynemouthfoodfestival and on Twitter @tynemthfoodfest.

Programmes will be available during the weekend with full event listings so you don’t miss out!

(Katherine is one of the Tynemouth Business Forum members helping to arrange the event.)

by Katherine Wildman © 2012

Katherine Wildman is a copywriter who helps UK companies to get their message across in writing. From websites to sales letters, brochures to leaflets – if you want copy that makes your customers want to use you then get in touch with Katherine today at words@copywriternewcastle.co.uk, on Twitter @copywriterne or call her on 07816 763 393.