Welcome to Viva Communications Limited

Public relations advisers based in Stroud, Gloucestershire

Our ten top tips for writing effective press releases.

BBC TV's Countryfile (which has around 8m viewers) featured our client the Ernest Cook Trust charity. Countryfile Presenter Ellie Harrison is shown interviewing the charity's Chief Executive Nicholas Ford on one of the Trust's estates at Fairford. The Trust's education work was featured throughout the hour-long programme, winning around 15 minutes of prime time exposure.

Press releases and media campaigns, social media skills development, copywriting for magazines, websites and publications of all kinds, planning website content, photography, graphic and web design, communications strategies, media awareness training, promotional materials, pull-up banners...

Find out what we can do for you

We specialise in helping charities, social enterprises, community groups and small businesses communicate more effectively with their supporters, clients, customers, trustees or neighbours using tried and tested professional public relations and communications support and techniques. Read our simple guide to prioritising your communications.

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"Viva Communications are thoroughly professional in everything they do, prompt and understanding in their dealings with the client, innovative and experienced. The Whittakers...do not have any of the unrealistic jargon-filled airs and approaches that are all too commonly found in the PR profession."

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What we've been working on:

• BBC Radio 4 Women's Hour is featuring interviews with three sisters who are all foster carers employed by our clients Community Foster Care for Fostercare Fortnight. We also won coverage on local BBC radio and regional newspapers

• Happy to be working with Gloucestershire developer Colburn who are committed to building sustainable homes. Writing press releases and copy for their brochures

• Delighted to have helped Somerset farmers Nick and Claire Bragg plan, design and launch their new website www.frogmarygreenfarm.co.uk - and advised them on setting up a Twitter account! It's a Wordpress site but thanks to the fabulous skills of one of our favourite designers, it looks completely unique - and very elegant

• We've helped another new client, Get-eco select a new logo and branding and advised them on how to improve their website which sells green and ethical gifts, gizmos and gadgets. We've also shown them how to 'Tweet' more effectively

• We're working with community groups in the delightful Cotswold town of Chipping Campden to help them plan the promotion of  (and manage visitor expectations) of the Cotswolds' very own Olimpick Games (400 years old this year!) This work has been funded through the Gloucestershire Rural Community Council's Rural Community Accelerator programme. We're passing on social media skills and encouraging stronger co-operation between the groups involved in the events

• Welcome to new clients Get-eco - a locally-based business running an online catalogue of Fairtrade and environmentally-friendly gifts, the UK Chapter of the International Association of Infant Massage and relationships counsellor Gunilla Thor-Finch

• Gloucester Freight Services' website now has content it can be proud of after we worked with them and their site developer to completely re-write it

• We're working with social enterprise the Severn Wye Energy Agency to promote free insulation to help people living in Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire keep Warm and Well. We also research, write and oversee design and production of the Agency's newsletter

• BBC TV's Countryfile agreed with us that our charity client the Ernest Cook Trust was worth featuring on the programme! The Trust's coverage totalled 15 minutes of the programme on December 28th. Millions of viewers found out more about this great educational charity celebrating its Diamond Jubilee this year

• We were delighted to work with brilliant local film maker Jeremy Power to produce some powerful video interviews with patients who have benefited from 'art on prescription' Art-Lift courses supported by the NHS. See the videos here

• We're getting to know our new clients, Community Foster Care (a social enterprise), The King's School, Gloucester (Gloucestershire's oldest school - seen in scenes from Harry Potter) local curtain-maker extraordinaire Curtains Made for You and Frogmary Green Farm in Somerset (website under construction!)

• Working for faster rural broadband in the Forest of Dean is at the centre of a new contract with GFirst, Gloucestershire's Local Enterprise Partnership

• Educational charity and social enterprise Severn Wye Energy Agency has commissioned us to help raise their profile, reviewing their PR and communications strategy, website and printed publications

• We helped Chartered Surveyor Guy Welfare plan and write content for his new website, www.guywelfare.co.uk bringing together a bespoke team including a photographer, graphic designer and website developer to produce a cost-effective and elegant website

• We achieved national and regional media coverage - including TV! - for the national charity, the Education and Employers Taskforce, for the launch of its new 'Visit Our Schools and Colleges' campaign, designed to link education and employers. We helped plan an effective media campaign, wrote powerful press releases, made all the right contacts and followed it through

• We worked with a web designer and web developer to plan, design and launch a new website, complete with content management system, for the Gloucestershire Market Towns Forum, helping our client through the technical maze. Now we will train our clients to keep the website updated themselves www.glosmtf.org.uk 

• Live interviews we conducted with people whose lives have changed thanks to Neighbourhood Learning in Deprived Communities (NLDC) projects, were described as 'very inspiring', 'moving' and by Penny Lamb, an LGA senior policy consultant as: 'what Government Ministers need to hear'

• 100 per cent success rate for media coverage of case studies of successful Open University students we wrote to accompany press releases commissioned by the OU, including newspapers, websites and two radio interviews on the BBC

• We've helped shine the spotlight on voluntary and community groups which have raised their quality standards by researching and writing case studies of their experiences of Performance Improvement for All programme run by Gloucestershire Rural Community Council

• We have helped Gloucestershire First develop a communications strategy for raising awareness of the support available for rural communities to apply for grants to develop Community and Social Enterprises to run local services, funded by the EU's Rural Development Programme for England. We've also helped them develop an interactive information pack

• An interactive pdf training manual for people caring for dementia sufferers we produced for Gloucestershire County Council and the NHS as a way to share best practice nationally, has been downloaded more than 70 times from the county council's website

• We're promoting a rural Gloucestershire Trade Local Campaign for Gloucestershire County Council in association with the Federation of Small Businesses and Gloucestershire Market Towns Forum

• While providing PR and communications support to LSN (the Learning and Skills Network) during maternity and annual leave, we achieved coverage in the Times Educational Supplement and the Guardian and contributed to, and edited, influential research reports

• We help celebrate some of the country's most successful small rural shops by interviewing retailers and writing feature articles for the national Rural Retailer magazine, commissioned by the Rural Shops Alliance

• The Cabinet Office praised an innovative interactive toolkit we designed and produced for Gloucestershire Rural Community Council to help rural communities develop their own Emergency Plan to prepare for emergencies such as floods

• We designed and produced printed training manuals for people caring for dementia sufferers and a best-practice pdf on dementia training for the NHS and Gloucestershire County Council

• We researched and wrote content for a new website, overseeing the design and launch of the site www.ernestcooktrust.org.uk , for the Gloucestershire-based Ernest Cook Trust, one of the UK's leading educational charities

• We produced and continue to update an innovative careers information website for secondary schools, including free lesson plans for teachers www.focusoncareers.org.uk for AimHigher West of England      

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viva communications limited, stroud, gloucestershire

a private limited company registered in england , number 4737440

registered office: 701 Stonehouse Park, Sperry Way, Stonehouse, GL10 3UT

registered for VAT

We are members of the Federation of Small Businesses