over 33,000!

Hello Homies! I'm sorry it's been such a long time since my last blog update. Chronic illness has meant I've not been able to keep up as well as i'd like to and I also was lucky enough to have a relaxing 2 weeks in heavenly Cornwall. 

I'm so grateful to those of you who have worked hard to keep the campaign going and to see the petition numbers continue to rise. 

I'm sure many of you know that our wonderful Jess Taylor had her letter printed as Star Letter in What's on TV magazine. From that day the petition numbers made a huge jump and within just 3 days we'd had over 1000 new signatures. That was amazing as we were averaging around 20 signatures a day. 

  

It just goes to show how one little things can have a huge impact, so please continue to write to magazines and newspapers etc... to try to keep the campaign in the public eye.

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Press releases: Jess Taylor has been working hard behind the scenes on the press release, which she's been sending out to as many people as she can think of. Press release can be seen on our website here:

Press release

Do any of your keep a blog? Do you have family or friends who blog? If so can you do a post about the campaign or ask others to do one? Blogging is a very popular thing on social media now and it could really help get us some more publicity.
Thank you to you bloggers who have already shared a campaign post! It's very appreciated. xxx

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Twitterstorms: We have been brainstorming with someone in marketing about the Twitterstorms, when to hold them, times that have the biggest audience, ways of trending etc...
We still desperately need more of you to help us with the Twitterstorms, so if you would like to help us, please do shout and we'll give you as much advice and help that you need.
Jess Taylor has shared posts on both Facebook groups about how to use Twitter and has included plenty of photos to show you what it all means!
We really would be over the moon to have more of you join in, as it'll mean we trend higher, which means more people will get to see the campaign.

We have a few "rules" for the posts, which makes the posts more likely to count towards the trends, so please have a little look: 

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Women in film and television awards: Thank you to Jess for letting us know about this. We now only have until midnight on the 17th Sept to get our votes in, so can as many of you as possible vote for one of our Home Fires actresses? If we could get one of them winning, it would be a lovely way to give them thanks but also great publicity for the campaign!
Vote here:

WFAT awards

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Amazon: Thank you to Patrick Erwin for tweeting me this article:

Amazon article

This really is something we could focus on as they are soon to be employing a commissioning executive in the UK and to invest in UK shows, so we need as many of you as possible to write to them by letter or email or even on their contact us form here:

Amazon contact us form

The address if you want to send snail mail is:

Amazon Studios, 60 Holborn Viaduct, Central London, EC1A 2FD

If we can get enough people contacting them, they MAY decide to look into considering Home Fires. We need to show them just how huge an audience the show has!

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The second series will soon be aired in Australia and the US, so we are hoping that brings even more fans into the campaign, when they watch that awful cliffhanger and realise there is no more. I still can't believe we were left with this: 

How do they think that is ok??!!! Polly Hill and Kevin Lygo certainly have a lot to answer for! They made a huge mistake and i've been told that many in the business agree with us.

Let's keep the pressure on and continue to show just how much the show means to us!! 

 

We need to keep going!!

help us to keep going! 

Hello everyone. I'm sorry things have been a bit quiet on the campaign front. I am chronically ill and am having an extra poorly patch.
I'm still doing what I can and really need as many of you as possible to keep the Home Fires burning for me, whilst i'm unable to do as much as I previously have.

I'm very happy to see so many new members of our two Facebook groups and  I welcome you all to the campaign.

The campaign is still trundling along slowly but to stop it coming to a halt we really need as many of you as possible to get involved and help us to get the word out there and get the petition going again.

Sadly, we only had 4 people sign it yesterday (21st July 2016) and our daily average is around 20-30 people, so we'd love to see that increase again.
We know the show was watched by a 6 million consolidated audience, so there are millions of people who will still be unaware that the show has been axed.
The only way we will ever convince a channel to recommission the show is to have a popular, active and noisy campaign.

Many of you will wonder how you can help, so here is a list of things you can do:

*keep sharing the petition online, tweet about the show, share anything campaign related.

*Print out some posters and put them up locally in your area. Put them up in cafes, antique shops, village halls, newsagent windows, in your car window and even at car boot sales.
Download the poster/flyers here:

posters and flyers

We have a competition prize to win, for anyone who displays a poster. Just send us a pic on our Facebook Groups or on Twitter of your poster displayed and we'll add your name to the draw.

See more details on the link above.

*Going to an event? Having a car boot sale? Then can you print off some petition sheets and collect offline signatures? Some people don't have an email address so we collect signatures from people who can't sign online.

Petition download

The petition sheets can be found at the above link.

*Join us with the Twitterstorms on a Sunday evening between 9-10pm (at the time the show was aired)

This is a huge opportunity for us fans to really make a noise but sadly we still don't have as many people joining in as we need to trend.
The only way to trend is if we have a wide variety of people tweeting at the same time. We use a different hashtag each week, to try to increase the chance of trending.
We'll release this week's hashtag as soon as we can.

If you aren't on Twitter, would you please consider signing up to help us? It's so easy to use and we have newbies telling us how much they enjoyed it and what a great community spirit feeling it gives them.

We have tutorials on both of the Facebook groups about how to use twitter and how to get involved. If you want to join in, just give us a shout on the Facebook groups and there will always be someone willing to offer advice.

The most important thing is to use the hashtag given, ONLY AT THE TWITTERSTORM and ON EVERY TWEET AND RETWEET YOU MAKE! Share pictures when you can, as a visual always helps to get attention.
Use #savehomefires at any other time you tweet and just put the same hashtag into the search engine to see everyone's tweets.

I hope we can kick start this campaign going again and have as many of you as possible supporting us.
Thank you to you all for all help you've given us so far! xxxx

Role call

Hello Homies!

I want to start by saying a huge 

THANK YOU

to all who have donated towards our campaign costs. We are so so touched and grateful for such brilliant support! It really is a lovely community we are building here xxxx

Total costs so far (as in previous post) was £132.07 and we've received £120 in donations so far, so we only need £12.07 covered now.

As explained before we are working on a few things that may need a little extra donated, but we are keeping costs to a minimum.

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I also want to say a big thank you to all who are sharing news of the campaign and the petition! We had another successful day on the petition yesterday with 101 new signatures, so it's heartwarming to see that we are getting new supporters on a daily basis.
We really are showing these tv companies that they must not under estimate their viewers! 

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Ok, now on to the role call.

Please can you let me know (either on the comments below, on my twitter (@monkeykezza) or on the save home fires official campaign Facebook group) who has put up our posters and how many.

I also need to know who has sent a letter to the drama channel (Letterstorm 2) (when you have sent them), so we can keep a tally of how many people are joining in, as if we don't get enough, then it won't be something we can continue with, as 10 letters won't have the same impact as 100 letters would.

Please, if you can, do try to join in with the Letterstorms and Twitterstorms. There really is power in numbers and for this campaign to succeed we need as many of you as possible helping us!
If we could get even 100 of you from the 30,000 people who have signed the petition, on Twitter on a Sunday night, then we'd get #savehomefires trending much higher, which then means more people see it when they click on the hashtag to see what it's all about!
So if you haven't yet joined in with the Twitterstorm, will you consider coming and helping us on Sunday? Pretty please with cherries on top?? ;-) If you have any questions about how it all works, just give us a shout on the official Facebook group and we'll be more than happy to help you. 

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Poster competition

Don't forget that we have this limited edition 1940's style print up for grabs! This was designed with this campaign in mind by jkhoughtondesign on Etsy.
We've extended the deadline so that more of you can get some posters up in your local areas.
To win, all you need to do is put up a poster/posters in local shops, cafes, antique shops, churches, village halls, local age concern centres, your car windows or even car boot sales!
You'll then have your name entered and we'll pick a winner from all who have joined in. 

Posters and flyers can be downloaded here:

Posters and flyers

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TWITTERSTORM

Again, this coming Sunday evening, us Homies will be meeting up on Twitter, between 9-10pm (to coincide with the time Home Fires was broadcast) to tweet as many tweets as possible about why we love the show, why we want it saved and sharing the petition and website link. We share many photos and sometimes have a few cast members joining us.

Each week, we now use a different hastag (as this increases the chance of us trending) and we ask that you use the given hashtag ONLY AT THE TWITTERSTORM and in every tweet you make. 

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I'm going to leave you all with a piece from Jambusters, on which Home Fires was based on, by Julie Summers.

The WI played a big part in getting the government to agree to free milk for children:

Lady Denman made a good point here! "It was always possible for one letter to be overlooked, whereas fifty were bound to receive attention".

This so apt for our campaign and I know if Lady Denman was around now, she'd be a part of this and she'd be urging as many of you as possible to send letters for our Letterstorms. Power in numbers!! 

30 thousand and letterstorm 2.

(I've only just seen I can add a title to these posts!! lol I'm really not computer savvy!! lol)

Well, we've finally gone over 30,000 signatures!! Thank you so much to all who have shared the petition.

I can't thank you all enough for all the posts you make. There are still so many people that are unaware that the show has been cancelled so we still need to work hard to get the word out there.

We had a spike in signatures on the 28th too and got more in one day than we were getting weekly! 

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Donations

Thank you to the couple of you who have sent donations to help with the campaign costs. We've received £20 so far)
If any of you can even just spare £2 it would be so appreciated, as like Tesco say, every little helps!! lol

Details of what costs we've incurred so far and where to send donations is on the previous post. xx

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Letterstorm 2.

Thank you to all of you who sent letters to the BBC. I hope she has looked into the campaign because of it.

The BBC now have a new drama commissioner, but he's not in the post until the Autumn, so we'll bombard him with letters then! 

We are focusing this letterstorm on the Drama channel on UKTV, so please send a letter to: 

Adrian Wills

UKTV
10 Hammersmith Grove
London W6 7AP

IF you are able to send a jar of jam along with the letter, then please do, as that was something the press picked up on and will get noticed more! If not, a letter alone will be amazing. 

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So thank you again to you all for your support and we appreciate anything you can do to get the word out there to people and more signatures on the petition!

Keep calm and save Home Fires! 

DONATIONS NEEDED

Hello everyone!
Thank you for all the positive messages i've received since my last post. I was having a bit of an emotional day and my feelings got the better of me.
I'm absolutely 100% determined to carry on anyway and we really want as many of you as possible to keep going with us.

This is why we would like to ask if anyone would be willing to help us with the small amount of costs we have accumulated since the start of the campaign.
There is by no means any pressure and I understand that some won't want to  and some won't be in a position to, so only offer to help us if you really are able to!

As sites like go fund me have fees and justgiving is just for charities (i think), the easiest way to collect cash is through my paypal account, sent as a gift, so no fees are paid.
( It’s free to use PayPal to send or receive money between friends and family in the UK, as long as the payment is funded by a bank account, debit card or PayPal balance, and no currency conversion is involved.

If you fund the payment using a credit card, send money in a different currency or make an international transfer, we charge you, the sender, a small fee. A currency conversion fee may also apply.) 

I will give details of everything on this blog, so everyone is aware what the money has been used for and what donations we have had. If anyone wants to remain anonymous that's fine, just let me know.

So far the costs are :

*£30 Diesel used to drive the petition to London and back again. (nearly 100 miles) 

*£11.50 congestion charge.

I had free parking with my disabled badge.
I have covered the paper cost myself.
I was sent ink cartridges by the production team, so none of this needs covering.

We also have website costs which include the domain name (1 year, can be extended if need be) and the website hosting costs:

*£77.57

We also bought the limited edition WW2 style print as a competition prize for the poster campaign:

*£13

So the total so far is: £132.07.

Edited to add my email address for paypal which might help!! lol

KezzaGroves@aol.com

There are other costs to come with things we have planned so we will need a bit more help than what i've already listed. We are doing all we can to keep costs down but if we can have some help from you guys it would be so appreciated.
Any donation, no matter how small, will really help us. xxx

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I wanted to also say hello and thank you to all new readers! After I added an update to the petition, we had a spike in people signing the petition and had nearly 1000 views in one day on the website, so thank you!
We really need as many people as possible spreading the word of the campaign, so please keep sharing!

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Sunday's twitterstorm will be going ahead as always! Again, we will be using a new hashtag, to increase the chance of it trending, so PLEASE DON'T USE THE NEW HASHTAG UNTIL SUNDAY NIGHT! 

 

For any new visitors who would like to take part but are not yet on Twitter, please consider joining up and helping us! It's very easy to use and any of us homies will help you anyway we can!

Let's all keep doing all we can to keep this campaign firing on all cylinders. xx

CARRY ON OR GIVE UP? 

I feel upset having to write that title. I don't want to write it but I have to ask that question of you all.
Over the past few months i've read so many posts from people angry and upset that their favourite show has been cancelled. I've seen so many of you as passionate about the show as I am and wanting to do what they can to save the show. Sadly we're not seeing that same levels of support with the specific campaign events/projects.

As I started the petition, I have organically become the "leader" of this campaign. I've made some very good friends though this and have got a team of supporters and friends who have worked their butts off trying to do all they can to get the campaign progressing and spreading the word to all those millions of viewers who still don't know it's been axed.
I see regular names of those who post on Facebook and Twitter and I can't thank you all enough for the support you've given me and the campaign.

The reason I feel so disheartened today is the number of people who've posted that they love the show is far far higher than those who have posted that they've put posters up, have got signatures on printable sheets, have sent letters, have taken part in the twitterstorm etc....
I really do understand that people have very busy lives and that some will have many reasons for not being able to join in as much as others.
I just really hoped that we would have a bigger response to the campaign ideas that we share on a regular basis.

THE ONLY WAY we will convince another channel to save Home Fires is to all work together, as a team and make enough of a noise that they can't help but notice us. Right now we are barely making a whisper.

I truly understand that this past week has been one of such sadness around the world and in this country. Too many awful, shocking, devastating, cruel and evil things have gone on. It's sometimes hard to find enthusiasm for what many will view as a mundane issue. In the grand scheme of things a tv show is near the bottom of a list of what's really important in life, but it's also not pointless.
The reason I feel so strongly about this campaign though, is that we need more good in the world. We need more happiness. We need to have an emotional break away from too much sadness as it can overtake us all. The campaign may not have importance in relation to so many other things, but it's something that we could have some control over. It's something that if enough people got involved we could make a difference.

So, here I am again, on bended knee, asking you to help us.

If you did love the show and feel angry about how ITV has just dismissed it like it was nothing important, then please help us.
There were only 46 signatures on the petition yesterday. If this continues to fizzle out as it has done over the past few days then all the effort we've put in so far will be for nothing.

Before I add all the links to the ways in which you can help us, please watch this wonderful video and remind yourself of what we are fighting for: 

Every time I watch that video it not only upsets me but it makes me more determined to keep going. If it makes you feel the same then please help us in the following ways:

*We need more signatures on the petition! Please keep sharing on all social media platforms!
Petition

*Keep sharing the website. A lot of time and effort went into making it!
Website

*print out posters and flyers and get them displayed in your local area 

Posters and Flyers

*print out petition sheets to get offline signatures

Offline petition

*join in with the Letterstorm. I'll be giving a new "target" name and address each week on this blog for people to write to, to convince them to buy Home Fires.

*Twitterstorms. These have proven to be successful each week, with us making the trending lists. This then gets more people finding the campaign when they click on the hashtags to see what they mean. We now have a new hashtag to use each week and we'll let you know  with a few days to go each time of what the upcoming one is. This is so that we have more chance of trending so please don't use the new hashtag until the evening of the twitterstorm.

Twitterstorm

Keep sharing the petition and website links. We have to get more people aware of the campaign.


I really hope enough of you feel passionately enough to want to help. We really don't have any chance of saving this show if we don't have enough of you joining Team Home Fires!

I'll leave you with this brilliant campaign song, written by the wonderful Geraldine Pointing from Spain. It's the perfect example of how much she cares about the show! Thank you so much for your time and effort Geraldine xxx

Home Fires, call to arms

 

LETTERSTORM 1

Hello everyone! Thank you so much to everyone who took part in Sunday's Twitterstorm. We had a great time and ended up trending for over 5 hours!!
We got to number 13 on the trend list with 3481 tweets!

We even had our new campaign mascot joining in. Meet Fred everyone:

(*these photos are copyrighted by Jessica Taylor so please don't use them without her permission xx)

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I had a great response to the letterstorm idea. Thank you everyone. It's the only way to get their attention if lots of us do the same thing at the same time.

So here is week 1's letterstorm target:

Charlotte Moore

BBC Broadcasting House, Portland Place, LONDON, 

W1A 1AA

She is in control of all programmes that are commissioned.

Please keep all letters polite and express why you love the show, how they would take 6 million viewers from ITV and how we would give them a huge amount of free publicity. Explain how important the role of the WI was in the war and how we, as a country, must never forget all that they did during the war.

I will put a post on the Facebook groups and when you've posted your letter, can you let us know on there, or on Twitter, so we have a rough idea of how many letters she'll be getting.
I'm going to send a jar of jam along with my letter, as that got us some good publicity at the beginning of the campaign, so if anyone wants to do the same, it'll make us more noticeable.

Thank you everyone!! xx

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Can I just ask if any of you have any experience with video making?
We are having many ideas of how to kick start this campaign again and get us more publicity and it was mentioned that we have yet to really utilise You Tube (excluding this beautiful video of course:)

So we are thinking of putting something together to express why we love the show and try to get it seen on you tube.
If anyone has any ideas for this please let us know on our FB group: 

save home fires facebook group

Maybe it could involve video clips from different fans? Clips from the show with text over the top.... ? 

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Oh and we are now over 29,000!!!!
It's rising much slower than we would want, which is why we so badly need everyone to get the word out there as much as you can.
Please continue to get posters put up locally and try to get signatures offline. (Links for these downloads are in previous posts)

Let's keep moving onwards and upwards!!