TWITTERSTORMS&THUNDERCLAPS!

Not that long ago, I would have had no idea what a twitterstorm or a thunderclap was! lol I'm not quite "down with the kids" as I used to be and computer, techy stuff often confuses the hell out of me lol.
Since starting the SaveHomeFires campaign, i've become quite a "tweeter" and learnt how it all works.
I'm sure many of you feel the same! I know some of you have never been on Twitter before but thankfully decided to give it a go to help the campaign along and for that we are so grateful!

We hope to see even more newbies joining us tonight for the Twitterstorm.

If you are a tweeting virgin and would like to come along and help us to trend, then please see Jess Taylor's brilliant "beginner guide to Twitter" post on our savehomefires official campaign group on Facebook:  

How to use twitter

We have decided to use a new hashtag for tonight's twitterstorm, which will give it more of a chance to trend, but PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS HASHTAG UNTIL 9PM TONIGHT!

Before 9pm continue to use #savehomefires. 

After 9pm use #teamhomefires

We are really excited that we'll get it trending again this week and hopefully get the petition seen by more people!

We also have the Thunderclap ending tonight and the tweets will coincide with the Twitterstorm, so that we have more posts all at once.

Please support if you haven't done so far: 

Thunderclap

You can help on both Facebook and Twitter, so just press "support" on the link and give them authorisation to post on your behalf. (They don't use your details for anything and only post once on your wall).

Let's all make this the biggest Twitterstorm so far!! xxx

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I just wanted to take the time again to say a huge THANK YOU to USA fan, Lorraine Ruth Rosenberg, for sending me such a wonderful Home Fires parcel! I am so touched by such kindness and thoughtfulness.
I just love my Pat doll! She will forever be a lovely reminder of the campaign and the friendships created around the world due to our beloved show!

I have no doubt that the cast and crew involved in Home Fires will be very moved to see how our community has grown and how many new friendships have been made because of the love for their show. It's just another reason why this is about so much more than just a tv show. There are so many awful things happening around the world, so anything that can encourage people to be nicer to each other and make friendships is worth everything in my eyes! 

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Thank you to the lovely Bunbury village for their mention of the campaign on their village website!! We are so grateful and thankful! 

Bunbury village 

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There has been a great response to the call for "letterstorm" volunteers and we are so grateful that so many of you want to help us.

I'll update this blog tomorrow with the details of the first recipient for our mass letterstorm and if you could all get your letters posted asap it would be really appreciated. Let's show other channels just how much we love the show and how we would all give them a huge amount of free publicity if they bought the show.

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Just in case any of you haven't seen our wonderful new website, here is the link again: 

campaign website

It's had many hundreds of views daily and the petition has increased since it went live, so please continue to spread the word and get more people reading it!

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Anyway I wish you all a happy Sunday and look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on Twitter tonight xxxx

WE HAVE A WEBSITE!!

One of our wonderful "homies" Jessica Taylor has been working her little socks off for the past few weeks creating our very own campaign website and it looks utterly brilliant. I can't thank Jess enough for all the time, effort and love she has put into it.

Please have a visit and go and see why we all feel so strongly about the show and how well we've all done in such a short amount of time! 

SaveHomeFires website. 

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We know that the production company have come to the end of the road in trying to have the show recommissioned, but we just cant give up so soon. It's only been a month and we feel we have so much more we can do. 

I was recently shown this article from the Daily Mirror: 

Daily Mirror

and as you can see, it mirrors everything that Home Fires is going through now. Fans did what we are doing now and eventually Amazon bought the rights.

They've had the same outcome with Foyle's war as well as shows in the US and Australia, so we know that fan pressure can work. It's what's giving us the impetus to carry on.

So again, i'm asking for as much help as possible from all of you that want to continue this campaign with us.
The biggest thing we need is more names on that petition. We need to show a channel that there are enough people angry about the axing of such a good show.

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So if you can, can you please print off some posters and have them displayed locally? Take photos of them up and let me know via Facebook, Twitter or here, so we can see how far the word is getting out. There is also a prize to win for someone who puts a poster up (please click here for poster download and competition details: Poster competition ) 

Also print off petition sheets to collect offline signatures. We can't add them onto the online petition as people need an email address to sign it, but we can keep a record of how many offline names we have! Link here: petition sheet download

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I'd like to get an idea of how many people would be willing to write a letter to some tv channels for a "mass letter storm"? We'd choose a channel and a person to target each week maybe and ask you all to get a letter sent asap, so they get them all within days of each other. This obviously would only work if we had a large number of fans joining in. So can anyone that would join in with this please let me know on FB, Twitter or in the comments below, so I can get an idea of numbers.
If the letters could be accompanied with a jar of jam then even better!! lol If we get enough people willing to help then i'll give more details soon. 

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We again have a Twitterstorm on Sunday evening. As I explained in a previous post, we have looked into how to get things trending and the only way to do it is to have as many people as possible joining in, especially new tweeters, and all using a new hashtag.
SO this Sunday we will be using the #teamhomefires hashtag instead, but to make sure it has the biggest impact on the night, we really need you NOT to use this until the twitterstorm.
Until then continue to use #savehomefires and we'll remind you all nearer the time to use #teamhomefires.
Anyone new to Twitter who wants to help us on Sunday, please give any of us a shout on the FB group and we'll help you as much as we can, although it is very easy to pick up!

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I'll leave you all with this, as it was so beautifully put together and it'll remind you of just why you love Home Fires. 

WE ARE NOT GIVING UP!! 

Last night, I had a message from someone directly involved in Home Fires. I'm not going to reveal names or exact details out of respect for that person.
However I have to share that I was told that despite huge efforts being made to save the show that sadly, they had come to the end of the line with it. They have been unable to have the show bought by another channel and ITV are not budging.

My first reaction to this was genuine sadness and a real feeling of deflation. I feel so strongly about this show, as I know many of you do, and I can't stand the thought that it's just been dumped on the cutting floor as if it didn't mean anything.

Yes I know it's only a tv show. In the grand scheme of things, it's not as important as many things that happen daily. Saying that, tv is a large part of many peoples lives. Lots of people spend the evening in front of the box with their family, loved ones and friends, all laughing together, crying together, being gripped by a drama or being entertained by a comedy.

The special thing about Home Fires is that is appealed to all age groups, male and female, rich and poor. The story of how the WI helped the war effort in the 1940's is an important one to tell. Women are not often celebrated and they certainly weren't back in those days.
Today, there are still examples of gender inequality in many areas of the entertainment industry, with female actors fighting to be paid the same as their male counterparts and the shameless media obsession with a woman's appearance, weight, sex life etc....
The thing that really stood out with Home Fires was the fact that it was a heavily female led cast. Actresses of various ages were all part of a wonderful ensemble cast yet the male roles weren't overshadowed by that.

There has been a change in the types of tv shows made and reality tv as well as talent style shows have become very popular. I won't deny that I am a fan of  some of these and I do watch a wide range of types of tv shows. Saying that, I do feel that well written, good quality drama should always be prioritised over cheap to make reality shows. Sadly it seems that ITV don't agree with this and continue to make pretty trashy shows like Love Island, whilst axing a hugely popular drama, leaving it on a cliffhanger.

This is why we are angry. This is why we have felt the need to start a campaign and this is why we will not give up!

I understand that our efforts may be futile. I know that some will think that we are wasting our time and need to accept what we've been told.
The thing is, it doesn't feel like we've done everything we could. It doesn't feel like we've been campaigning for long enough.
SO, alongside many other campaigners, who have now become friends, I am going to keep fighting to have our voices heard. We have been working on some great things, which we will share as soon as they are finished.

This is a plea really. If you really love the show then please will you continue to stand by us? Will you continue to get the word out there? Will you continue to show ITV your disgust  at the dreadful way they have treated the cast, crew and viewers? Will you continue to get those posters displayed to alert all the people who still have no idea it's been axed?
Will you continue to contact other channels and show them how big the support would be if they bought the show?
Would you continue to collect offline signatures so we can give a voice to all those who don't have internet access?

Of course I understand that some of you will feel that it's pretty pointless and you aren't willing to keep using your time on something that's unlikely to succeed. However if you feel that you want to continue to fight with us, then we hugely appreciate that.

WHY on earth won't another channel see what a gem this is? Why can they not see that a drama, that already had more of the series written, is worth so much to them? How can they not see that buying the show would give them millions of viewers as well as a free, well publicised campaign full of people who would shout from the rooftops about the show? The free PR they would get from us all would be nothing but a benefit to them. Why can they not see that a drama such as this is real quality? 

SO, if you are with me, thank you!! I'm NOT GIVING UP YET and i'm going to continue to show the producers, cast and crew just how much we care.
If you are with me, then THANK YOU xxxx

TWITTERSTORM 

Last night's twitterstorm was a great success! We were so happy to see so many new tweeters joining us and with over 4000 tweets it proved just how many of you were tweeting your bums off! lol
Thank you so much to everyone who took part and all you lovely newbies who really helped us trend. 

We are doing another Twitterstorm next Sunday night and we need it to be bigger and better.
We can only keep asking that anyone who hasn't joined in, pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeee join Twitter, even if it's just to help this campaign, and tweet like mad with us.

We've been looking into how Twitter works out the trending list and how best to get something trending:

► It has to have no foul language in it.
► It has to be popular with a lot of people in a short period of time—it has to “peak” in popularity.
► Total tweets AND the total number of people tweeting BOTH matter. But unless there are tweets from a lot of people—what Twitter calls “widespread popularity“—total tweets will NOT matter.

But that’s still not enough to become a trend! Even when a lot of people are tweeting about something, it won’t become a #TT unless it also meets one of these other criteria:

1. It has to be a new topic that has never been popular before, or…
2. It has to be a previously popular topic that has become popular with a new group of people.

So lots of tweets is not enough. And lots of people tweeting is not enough. A topic also has to be newly popular, or popular with a new group of people, as determined by Twitter’s automated algorithm

SO, as you can see, we really really need you all to help us. We need as many people as possible, especially as many NEW people as possible, all tweeting at the same time. 

We will also be releasing a new hashtag to use this coming Sunday, which will make it more likely to trend, but we'll share that nearer the time so we ensure that it's not used before the Twitterstorm.


I know some of you will think Twitter is too confusing to use, but I promise you it's very simple and you'll soon pick it up.
Here is a step by step guide to help you if you need: 

Twitter help

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The only way this campaign can succeed is if we get loads more names on that petition and for that to happen, we need the help of all of you fans.

*Please print off a poster or two and get them displayed locally. If everyone just had 1 poster displayed it would alert so many more people to the fact that it's been cancelled. There is still a huge number of viewers that have no idea that ITV have axed the show, so we need to get the word out there!!

(see previous post for poster and flyers download). 

*We need more signatures and sadly not everyone will be online or even have an email account. We can't add names to the online petition without an email address, so we have a paper version for you to print off and collect signatures like that. Don't forget to take photos to show us where the posters are so we can add your name to the competition to win a limited edition 1940's style print.  (again, see previous posts for the petition download and competition details).

If you'd like to help collect names like this then maybe pop to your local age concern centre, your local church, a retirement home if you visit a family member or even at local events.
Please contact me on Facebook or Twitter for where to send the petition sheets to. 

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So thank you for everything you've all done so far and keep trying to get that petition rising!

I'll update again soon with more news and info on next weeks Twitterstorm and the campaign. xx

WE NEEEEEEED YOUR HELP!!

Hi everyone!! I cannot shout this loud enough: 

WE NEEEEEED YOUR HELP!!! PLEASEEEEEEEEEE!

The ONLY way we will keep this campaign going and get the publicity it badly needs is if as many Home Fires fans as possible join in with the campaign ideas that we are sharing.

There are so many of you on Twitter and Facebook groups who are all gutted and angry that it has been axed, but we need you all to help us.

The MOST IMPORTANT thing is to get the petition signed and shared. SO many people still have no idea the show has been cancelled. Many people won't have access to the internet so we REALLY REALLY need as many of you as possible to get the posters printed and displayed around your local areas. (see earlier posts for poster download). 

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We also REALLY need as many of you as possible to print off the offline petition sheets and get as many signatures as possible. I can't add these to the online petition, as you need to have an email address to sign it, but I will be keeping an "offline tally" on my blog to alert ITV and other channels to.
Do you know any local age concern groups? Anyone have relatives in sheltered housing or retirement homes? Can you take petition sheets in and see how many Home Fires fans you can get?
(see previous posts for offline printable petition sheets). 

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I know lots of you have written to ITV about your anger and disappointment to them axing the show, but THE BEST way for them or other channels to listen is if we all do the same things as a collective.
That's why we NEED as many of you as possible to join in the Twitterstorm this coming Sunday at 9pm. We know many of you aren't on Twitter but we are literally begging you to join up, even if it's just to help this campaign. The more people we have tweeting #savehomefires, the more likely it is to trend. Trending, for those who don't know about Twitter, is a list of the top 10 things most talked about on Twitter. For this to happen we need thousands of tweets all happening in a very short space of time. We trended on our first Twitterstorm and had over 4000 tweets. When #savehomefires appears on the trending list, people will click on it to see what it's about. This is how the word spreads and we alert more people who are unaware it's been axed.

So I can't emphasise this enough. If you are fully behind this campaign and you really want to help us save this show, PLEASEEEEEEE consider helping us on Twitter on Sunday night. I'm not saying that Twitter is "more important" than Facebook, but it is more public. It is something that has worked before. The signatures always increase after a Twitterstorm. So i'm down on my hands and knees begging you.

If you need any help then please ask. Many on the official save home fires campaign Facebook page are happy to help and guide you. 

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Publicity. We need more of it. Badly!
The press love a gimmick. When people were sending jars of jam to ITV, the press jumped on it.

SO, we have a plan. We need AS MANY OF YOU AS POSSIBLE to join us in a photo sharing idea.
Can you take a photo of yourself (or your pet if you are not happy to share photos of yourself in public) with a jar of jam? If you can then add "I'm in a jam" and "#savehomefires"onto the image using any of the free photo editing apps on your phones or online. (I'm happy to add this for you, if you send me your photos, if you don't know how).
Then share it on Facebook and Twitter (using the hashtag #savehomefires)
You can then add messages with why you love Home Fires.
If enough people do this, then we can share like mad on social media and get the campaign noticed.

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We are working on many ideas and will alert you all when anything new is organised.

As I said, we can't emphasise how important it is that we get your help. The only way this campaign will be successful is if enough people help us.
I'm in regular contact with people who work on the show and many people are being made aware of the campaign, so we MUST keep doing all we can to make a big, collective, noise!!

Please keep sharing this blog as well, as many people don't know about what's going on.

Thank you for reading and thank you to all who have helped us so amazingly so far!!

More Publicity!!! 

Good evening to all you lovely supporters! I've just re watched Home Fires on ITV Encore and it's made me even more determined to keep fighting to save our beloved show.

Luckily we still have bits in the press and on the radio, which will alert fans who don't know it's been axed.

I did an interview with the TV Times, and despite them only printing a very small amount, we at least have some more publicity. 

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The lovely Jim Whelan, aka Thumbs in the show, also did a wonderful interview with Jeff Brazier, on BBC radio Sussex today. Hearing him speak so passionately about the show and so kindly about me, made me cry! It's not only us fans that love the show so dearly.

Listen here, from 2hrs 40 mins: 

Jim on the radio.

Thank you so much Jim for great publicity for the campaign! xxx

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The show was also mentioned in What's on TV magazine letter's page:

Thank you to Beth Monaghan! 

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Our brilliant supporter, "Northern Lass on Twitter" has done an amazing job putting posters up today!

We've also got our lovely Julie Summers putting posters up, including outside her house! :

We also have Miss Shevlin, on Twitter, putting posters up!: 

So a big THANK YOU to everyone who have printed off the posters and are/will be having them displayed! It's a great way for people that aren't online to find out that the show has been axed.
Please try to get them up around your local area if you can!

Here is the link again to download the poster: 

Poster and flyers download

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If you haven't already, you could consider buying the Home Fires soundtrack too, as it's entered the classical chart at no.6! It would be another great way to gain more publicity if we can get it to no.1!! 

Well, that's all from me for tonight.
It's been another good day for the campaign!

Keep fighting boys and girls!! xxxxx

 

OFFICIAL FACEBOOK CAMPAIGN GROUP

Hello everyone!!
Well we are nearing 27,000 now in just 3 weeks. Amazing.

We need that number to increase, so keep sharing the petition link and get those posters printed and displayed in as many places as you can.

See earlier posts for details on the petition, posters, printable petition and other bits of advice. 

We've decided to create an official campaign group on Facebook as well, so that supporters know where to go for official news and advice.
Please add any Facebook friends who love the show and want to help us get it recommissioned. 

Here's the link: 

OFFICIAL CAMPAIGN FACEBOOK GROUP

Thank you all again for such amazing support. Let's continue to build this friendly, fun community we have started!