Portfolio Story 2 - Nightclub to host charity event

A night club in Preston has announced it is holding a charity event night in aid of Rock FMs cash for kids Christmas appeal. Baluga Bar and Club is to host a create your own cocktail night on Tuesday 18th December to raise money for the charity with the winning cocktail to feature on the Baluga menu for the next month.

To enter the contest and be within the chance of winning £250, participants must pay an initial £5 for entry to the club.

They will have an 8 minutes to create a cocktail of there own making, with a wide list of ingredients available they will aim to impress the 3 judges who have been selected to overview the event, Baluga's very own bar manager, Vodka Revolution's bar manager and a professional cocktail maker from Manchester's Hula Tika Lounge.

The winner will be announced before the end of the night and all takings for the competition will be donated to the cash for kids appeal. Bar manager Tom Havlin said. :" I'm thoroughly looking forward to the event, to see what kind of cocktails people will fix up, we've got all sorts of crazy fruit and other ingredients on the list. I'm not expecting any miracles but hopefully the odd good one and of course it's all for a great cause."

The money raised for cash for kids is donated around locally going to children and to young people under the age of 18 with physical, mental, psychological or behavioural disorders, living in poverty or situations of deprivation, suffering through distress, abuse of neglect

In relation to the charity Mr Havlin said: "I think its a brilliant charity, Christmas for a child you know, you can only experience it for so many years before you grow out of it. Waking up on Christmas day as a kid with no presents is unthinkable."

If you want to donate to the charity you can via text, over the phone, via a cheque online at Rock FM cash for kids. They really need donations to help raise funds for underprivileged children in the Preston area.

If you are looking to attend the event, check out the map below for directions and places to park and other alternative travel routes.

View full size map Baluga Bar & Club

Portfolio Story 1 - Preston boxer goes Pro

A Fulwood boxer has agreed to sign professional after successful four year career as an amateur.

Reece Fowler, 22 of Fulwood ABC boxing club has signed his first professional contract with VIP promotions from Bolton, all the training will be done at the original elite gym in Horwich.
He will be trained by Karl Ince, who has coached former World, European and British champions in the past, including Enzo Maccarinelli and Joe Calzaghe.


Fowler makes the step up to the professional scene after a strong amateur career, highlighted by his victory in the crusierweight division in the 2009 amateur boxing championships. After winning the title, Fowler took almost a year and half out after suffering a shoulder injury after being involved in a car crash.

Reece will make the step down to super middleweight when he turns professional in January.
 On the issue, Mr Fowler said: “Before I suffered my injury I was on the cusp of signing pro with Hatton promotions, but with the length of time I was out I felt I needed to prove to myself and everyone else that I still had what it takes, I got back in training and was feeling sharp and personally felt I would of won last year’s ABAs again if I wasn't eliminated.”

Fowler was thrown out of the 2011 competition at the quarter final stage after his next opponent informed the committee that Fowler had already competed in the ABAs before at a different weight class, leading to him getting disqualified.

His new trainer Karl Ince had this to say, “Reece has got the potential to be a very good boxer, the middleweight class suits him down to a tee. We are already looking at getting his first fight sorted before the summer. 2013 is going to be a big year for Reece Fowler.” The full interview with Karl can be heard below.



Fowler had many highlights from his amateur career and actually holds the British record for the fastest knock out in amateur boxing. He has also held the Northwest and Midlands title on two occasions. It looks like being a bright future for Reece if he can repeat the success he had in his amateur career to his professional.

 To check some of Reece's other achievements search the timeline below.

Reece's Amateur Career on Dipity.

Video Skills Test

This is my short video clip of my work colleague and his thoughts on the effects Twitter has had on Journalism. My question was quite broad so it was a struggle to keep the video down to the 30 second allotted time, whilst including a title page. The original video actually lasted for around 39 seconds this wasn't including title page, I also tried to get away with my title clip only lasting 1 second but eventually noticing that it was rather pointless, therefore increasing it to a 3 second duration. So I did have to make a few copies to finally come up with my final video, which can be seen below.

Audio Skills Test

Below are the answers to my vox pop based around cyclist Lance Armstrong. The question raised was to whether the criticism aimed at Lance Armstrong was could be deemed fair after what he battled back from and achieved in his career.

Image Skills Test

For the image task we were asked to photograph something from the University. I decided to go with the Brook building sign as for me personally it is the building where most of my lessons take place and most of my has been spent throughout my course.

Original image (click for full size)

Cropped 100px by 100px - Actual size

I used Adobe Photoshop to resize the photograph to an appropriate size, before cropping a 100px by 100px segment with the focus on the building name and UCLAN logo in the center.

Cropped 400px by 300px - Actual size

I re-loaded the original image in Adobe Photoshop and resized it appropriately before cropping a 400px by 300px segment from it, ensuring the focus of the image was on the building name and the UCLAN logo.

Cropped 200px by 500px - Actual size

Finally I reszied and cropped the image appropriatly to a 200px by 500px frame. This image turned out to be the most suitable in my opinion as it is almost entirly the sign, which was intended to be the focal point of the original photograph.

Map Skills Test

This map features four stories from the 12th November edition of the Lancashire Evening Post, which all include links to the online LEP article as well as an additional link which is related to the story. There wasn't a wide range of stories to choose from in my edition but the ones I selected have a strong 'where' element located in different areas of the city and offer different news values.

1. City Centre tram plans to create new network  
This was one of the stand out stories of my edition for a number of reasons. You could say the location was all around the core area of Preston, the image used highlighted what the future may look like down the down the busy Fishergate high street in Preston city centre. The impact of a tramlines throughout Preston could affect everyone in the city. My additional link takes you to trampowers website where you can further explore the intentions they have for Preston.

2. Heroic PCSO to be honoured for rescue 
This story was covered with a full page spread in the edition highlighting its value. The heroic/miracle aspect and unexpectedness of this story really makes it newsworthy and would bring the community of Preston closer together. The location is just your average everyday terrace housing street, but that is something more people can relate to whilst carry the values of a hard news story. My additional link gives some helpful tips and guidance on how to avoid house fires.

3. Legal action to be take in bid to save disabled charity
This story was also given a lot of space in the paper. The fact that it is about a organisation who cater the needs for disabled children in the Preston area is already heart warming but when you consider they may have been closing down until the latest reports makes it something special, another story built for the community and definitely had a soft news edge. The location was strong as it was near the Preston docks area and away from any of my other stories. My additional link takes you to the space centre home page where you can see all the help the charity really does provide.

4. Girls help foil crime
This was the headline and front page article from my edition and rightly so. A story about two school girls helping the police to catch a criminal, the perfect story for my map, contains both soft and hard news values, whilst again bringing in good ties with the community. The location was in one of the suburbs of Preston, Penwortham again not in the proximity of my other stories. My additional link takes you to a wiki page on what to if you spot a hit run, whilst giving further information into the crime in question.



View full size map

Data Skills Test

The graph illustrates the amount of money spent by Barclays Premier League clubs on players since 2003, the information was gathered from a BBC article which is linked below. The year 2003 is significant, this was the beginning of the raise of the extremely rich foreign owner. Since then it has become apparent that these new style owners fall in two categories firstly the benefactor, exemplified by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, secondly the business entity exemplified by the Glazer family.
Abramovich took over the slightly above average team Chelsea and would go on to pump vast amounts of money into the club over the coming years, it cannot maintain itself as conventional business ie generating a profit. The Glazers bought Manchester United and immediately added the purchase price to the balance sheet,placing the club in considerable debt and have since run the club with two aims, maintain the status of the club and receive a handsome reward for their efforts. Both methods have worked and other persons/entities have followed these paths.
However for all the positives there are also the negatives. My additional link mentions how the investors may perhaps ruin the League in the long run. It also explores some possible scenarios that foreign owners may wish to pursue which fans and even the Football Association are unaware of.
This is the link to the news story. BBC Story For additional information click here