Red Cross Blogs

Appeal week music video hits a high note

By Alix Miller
March 22, 2010 at 5:24 pm

The life of a charity worker isn’t just about changing and saving lives you know. It has its glamorous moments too.

Take the other day when instead of going into the office, I went behind the scenes at a Red Cross video shoot at one of our charity shops. I rubbed shoulders with the stars – some lovely staff and volunteers – and even found myself roped into the action.

Our creative team has been busy putting together the music video which will publicise this year’s Red Cross Appeal Week on 2 – 8 May, and I have been eavesdropping across our office pods as the project takes shape.

For the first time we have had a song written especially for us, called With a little help from you,  by Reid and Stanners, an unsigned duo, which will feature on the music video. It’ll help publicise this our annual whopper of a fundraising push which last year raised an amazing £935,000 for the British Red Cross.

Staff and volunteers at a London shop helped with a segment of the video by agreeing to be filmed for some of the scenes and also sing. As I arrived a Red Cross staff member who works at our London office – Liz Cole – was shuffling through a rack of clothes and belting out a line from the song.

Surrounded by staff, volunteers and the crew who were filming her, plus the odd member of the public, it must have been a nerve-wracking experience. Running a backing track wasn’t possible either so our brave volunteers needed to sing “blind”, aiming for the right pitch and timing, and hope for the best.

I caught up with Liz afterwards, who admitted: “It was scary…especially as I can’t sing!” In another scene at the shop four shop volunteers sang together at the till. One of them, Joan Marmont, has only been volunteering at the shop for two months. She said:

“A friend of mine who donates items to the shop suggested I ask about volunteering opportunities . It’s such a friendly atmosphere, and with all the designer and vintage stock, doesn’t feel like working in a second hand shop at all.”

While I was hearing from Cathy Shimell, the shop manager, about Eric Clapton donating some paintings the other day to the shop, Billy, our video guru, cornered me to act as an extra. I had to be a shopper in the background of one scene and also come into the shop from the street in other. Just as we were wrapping up, volunteers Liz and Joan screeched excitedly after discovering a pair of kitsch, beaded ornamental boots  in a bag of donated items. Perhaps Elton John was having a clear out.

Look out for the finished Red Cross Appeal Week video. This year’s Red Cross Appeal Week theme is ”With a little help from you”.  So why not find out how you can get involved.

Images © Alex Rumford and Alix Miller

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Tags: charity shops, Red Cross Appeal Week, volunteer, Volunteering

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 22nd, 2010 at 5:24 pm and is filed under Fundraising and events, UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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