Film Festival! Film Festival! Oh.... And PR!

So here we are, just over two weeks until the Film Festival of Cornwall opens its doors in the Princess pavilion right here in Falmouth and as a volunteer I was pouring wine and setting up the press opening this morning.
Probably one of the easiest journeys into town this morning, as I knew that I had to take the 968 at 0830 just to be sure of being at the pavilion for 0900. Arriving was an odd experience all of itself; Ben, (seemingly) the head coordinator was there already in a rather sharp suit for the time of day munching on a sausage sandwich that I wasn't coveting as much as my breakfast would have allowed. He explained that there was going to be somewhat of a wait until the equipment, buffet and wine arrived, so he suggested that we sat down.
As we start talking, I find that he did his degree (probably in Performing arts) at Suffolk College in Ipswich (my home town). We discuss all the nightspots that we each frequented (a few matches) and on and on about the town and our memories of it. As things start arriving I sweep into organised mode and start off by laying tables for wine glasses. I arrange press packs, blackout windows and meet and greet at the door all the way up to 1215 when I have to leave to go back up to Woodlane to listen to the best guest speaker so far.
Megan Lloyd Laney is a Communications Consultant working within the charity and non-profit sector. She did a geography degree and ended up attending a masters in Journalism. She's worked for the Economist, New Scientist and The Voice simply on the back of being able to convince editors that "I can write these stories". She then moved to Jo'burg SA in the late eighties and wrote about apartheid and AIDS within the development community, but ended up having her phone tapped and her life threatened. Upon returning to Britain she decided that she had enough influence to go to major charities asking for a single page press release a week. Finding that these charities couldn't manage this she decided that she would help them craft a tangible message to release into the world. She now works as an advisor to the Department of International Development who spend "a penny in every pound" the Inland Revenue receives and teaches part time at UCF.
She is so on point for the whole hour that I would love to meet up with her at some point and pick her brain about anything, but specifically about changing the world!
During the rather large amount of down time whilst waiting for stuff to turn up this morning I picked up a leaflet (more of a pamphlet) called Grrr Grrr! It explains that it "has been put together for the sheer love of music, strange art and just random being". It's a magazine I can imagine going around London in the late '70's, early '80's. It's got REALLY bad spelling and the design could do with a lick here and there, but the content is Class A, heart-felt prose about small bands from all genres. There's the odd review, but this being the first issue, I think is more of a statement of intent in the shape of a showcase of bands that the magazine likes/want to see more of. Thoroughly impressive in today's atmosphere of cutthroat, soulless music journalism... Fantastic!