A 21st-century peek into ways of helping charities

"When you don't know what you don't know, you don't value it"

Well, obviously, there are plenty of things I didn't know on December 15 2013 that I know now and yes, I value them all (even the fact that my stroke has apparently taken away my ability to distinguish between 'now' and 'know,' lol).

I didn't know (now?), for instance, that 'content creation' is what I'd call journalism and that 'content marketing' is the 21st-century term for what I've been doing all my life, namely writing words and trying to make a living from it.

It was through mutual friends in the networking world that I stumbled on a Facebook group for writers, bloggers, content-marketers and the like called the Content Marketing Academy. The people involved in it seem to be mainly Scottish, so it has widened my contact base enormously.

Through it, I was introduced to a lady called Caroline McKenna. I think we initially met by contributing separately to a discussion on CMA, but I mentioned this blog and she mentioned that she runs a website called charitypeeks.com. That website tries to help smaller charities improve what they do and how they run themselves.

I explained about my charity run to raise money for Different Strokes (shameless plug - feel free to donate at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com.MartinWarrillow) and the conversation continued to the point where she invited me to be interviewed for a podcast.

That interview took place this morning and I talked about my stroke experience, how I get involved in helping charities (not just DS, also Headway and the Stroke Association) and how I work to promote understanding of stroke. When it goes on the website, I'll give it a proper plug on here.

I left you last week as I was just about to dip a toe back into the frantic world of editorial newsrooms. Since that post, I've done three more half-shifts. I'm thoroughly enjoying it, the people are lovely, the money is going to come in very handy, but it's reminding me that I am nowhere near ready to get back into that mad atmosphere full-time. And given that staff headcounts have fallen massively since I left, I do know that I wouldn't want to now anyway.