Travelling around Tyne & Wear became much easier in 1980, when the Metro opened to transport Geordies around the region. To celebrate the system's 30th anniversary last year, BBC North East and BBC Outreach worked together to create the all-singing, all-dancing Metro the Musical.

Written by Benjamin Till and performed by over 200 members of the public, the short film highlights some of the stories of people who travel or work on the Metro.

The film has just been premiered at the Sage, Gateshead, and BBC Outreach was there to meet the participants and other local opinion formers. The event was filmed and broadcast on BBC Look North, along with clips of the film.

You can watch Metro the Musical on the BBC News Tyne & Wear website.

Alec McGivan is Head of BBC Outreach

School Report is the project from BBC News which sees young students all over the UK developing news reporting skills – using lesson plans and materials from the School Report website. With support from BBC staff and partners, teachers help students develop their journalistic skills to become School Reporters. 

The highlight of all this activity is School Report News Day, which falls in March every year.  It's a chance for all participating schools to publish their own news reports simultaneously.  Last year, over 25,000 young people from over 700 schools prepared and published reports on a variety of topics, covering local, domestic and international issues.

This year, the ambition is to be bigger still and we’re expecting around 800 schools to take part across the UK.  We’ll have 7 hours of live coverage on TV and radio on the School Report website and the red button, as well as lots of coverage on other BBC news programmes.

Over 100 students will be on site for the first ever live TV broadcast from the BBC’s new home in Salford, Media City UK, which will feature content from a range of schools, hourly headlines and interviews from students based in Television Centre in London.

The young people at Media City will work together to produce a live bulletin at 2pm for our red button and web services and the entire School Report TV channel will be directed from the studio gallery there.

School Reporters have also been asked to complete the School Report survey, which aims to provide a snapshot of the UK through the eyes of 11 to 16-year-olds. More than 23,000 students have already completed it, giving us a fascinating glimpse into their lives. If we're lucky enough to have good weather on Thursday, our 100 young people at Media City will become a human percentage figure on the piazza to represent some of the results!

Check the School Report website and the @BBCSchoolReport Twitter feed for updates throughout the day.

You can keep up-to-date with news about outreach projects from across the BBC by signing up for the BBC Outreach newsletter.

Alec McGivan is Head of BBC Outreach

I had the good fortune to be back in my home city of Bristol this week to see the launch of a new BBC outreach project Live In and Live On. We do many different projects across the country with young and older people but less common is combining the two. This is exactly what Live In and Live On is doing by bringing a group of elderly residents from the Easton area of the city into conversation with a group of twenty or so young people, most of whom have newly arrived in Easton, some the children of asylum seekers and all of whom do not have English as their main language.

It was particularly fascinating to hear some of the parallels between today’s generation arriving in a new country and the experiences of immigrants arriving in Bristol in the 1950’s & 60’s.

Communications abroad to relatives and friends was and is still very important. But whereas the older generation had to wait weeks for the post, today emails and the internet have transformed the time such contact takes. And the BBC of course is constantly seeking to helps all sorts of people make the most of changing technology.

At this opening session the young people showed a film that some of them had made about the problem of modern day racism. Sadly a not so different experience to the older people’s accounts of 50 years ago when hospital patients would sometimes ask a black nurse not to touch them or white people would move on the bus if a black person sat next to them.

This particular project has an extra ingredient. Local artists involved with sculpture, pottery, photography, painting and ceramics will be working with the children to interpret the older generation’s personal stories into pieces of art. It promises to be quite an experience and challenge for all involved.

This type of project gets the BBC right into the heart of local communities, getting to people that our broadcasts don’t easily reach. In turn projects also inform our own staff and often lead to great new content for online, radio or television. I’ll be watching closely to see how this works out and I’ll be returning to Bristol on Saturday 2 April to see the artwork exhibited at the Easton Community Centre.

Alec McGivan is the Head of BBC Outreach

More about BBC Outreach

 

On Monday night this week BBC Outreach hosted an event to celebrate and encourage our connections with the community in West London especially those in and around White City, the home of the BBC's largest working site. The idea of the get together was to give local partners, organisations, residents and staff a great opportunity to talk to each other. It also gave the BBC the chance to highlight some of the work we are already doing in the local community through our staff volunteering to support a range of different projects.
 
One of the schemes we referred to was the school reading scheme we manage with the Hammersmith and Fulham Education Business Partnership. A considerable number of our staff give up their lunchtimes once a week to visit local schools and spend time reading with the pupils. Some are struggling with reading in the classroom and they really benefit from the one-to-one attention they receive. One of these volunteers, Simon Broad, spoke about his experiences and the value he himself gets from taking part in the scheme. It is clearly a two-way process of benefit to both participants. The children gain in self confidence. The reader gains a huge amount of satisfaction in seeing the child's abilities grow.

The event also gave us the opportunity to refer to several other projects including BBC lawyers volunteering to go into local schools to discuss legal issues of interest to the students; our long-standing support for the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith and the work they do with many young people; our tours of Television Centre for local residents and our free screenings for local children notably the Doctor Who Christmas special in December. One of our newest projects is with Fulham Football Club, giving some of our staff the chance to volunteer to teach soccer skills to young people. To be fair to the loyalties of local residents I think we'll be starting a similar scheme with QPR shortly!

Our very latest project is particularly exciting as it involves young people in West London getting to know young people in Salford where new BBC offices will open in May. It is called 'Take Two' and will be asking our staff to volunteer as mentors to help young people improve their communication skills. We are very much looking forward to running lots of twinning activities with the students in both places. Indeed it was off to Salford I went the morning after our West London event. It won't be long now before staff start to arrive in our new offices there in Media City. BBC Outreach will be doing all it can to make sure we have a very active presence in the local Salford community.

Alec McGivan is Head of BBC Outreach

Just over two years ago the BBC launched a new environmental policy. Along with many other companies we sought to reduce our carbon footprint by bringing down the amount of energy and water we used, reducing the amount of waste we sent to landfill and the level of carbon emissions our travel was producing.

We are now half way through the five years we set ourselves to achieve these reductions and two things are clear. Firstly that we need to work harder to reach the targets we set ourselves and secondly that in those two years the environmental agenda has moved on significantly.

So we’re adding to our existing work and adopting a more holistic approach to sustainability. We want the BBC to become a more sustainable organisation across the whole range of our operations. Sustainability means different things to different people and for us it is about being a responsible steward of our natural, human and financial resources. 

Embedding sustainability into everyday working is key and that is why today we are launching our new sustainability plan called The Difference. 

A central plank of The Difference is that the BBC should lead the media industry in sustainability – creating and exemplifying industry best practice. Pat Younge, BBC Vision Chief Creative Officer has written about the launch of our Carbon Calculator and the work that BBC Vision Productions are doing with the independent production sector. And we are looking at ways in which our Research & Development department can help work with external suppliers to reduce the energy use of new broadcast technology such as YouView set-top boxes.

I should also stress that this initiative isn’t about making editorial decisions based around one particular side of the environmental argument. As always our editorial decision making will be guided by due impartiality and a diversity of opinion. However, where we can reduce our own negative environmental and sustainability impacts, cut our costs and use our size and scope to make it easier for others to do the same, we believe this is in the public interest.

Among the internal initiatives we are launching as part of The Difference are changes to our buildings to ensure that we reduce the amount of water and energy we use and cut the volume of waste we send to landfill. We are rolling out improved video conferencing facilities, encouraging cab share and introducing a policy to limit flights to help reduce our travel footprint. We are introducing new technology to reduce the number of computer servers we use and avoid printing unnecessarily. Beyond the BBC we are also setting higher sustainability expectations from our suppliers. These and many more smaller actions will help us make the changes needed to become a more sustainable organisation.  
   
Finally I should say that the initiatives outlined today overall will save the BBC money over the course of the current licence fee period. We only approve large scale investment if we can prove that it will return money to the BBC over a period of time and help our target of reducing the amount we spend on running the BBC.

Alec McGivan is Head of BBC Outreach

• Press release - BBC launches UK's first carbon calculator for television.
  

• Patrick Younge, Chief Creative Officer of BBC Vision Productions, has also blogged today about what programme makers can do to make sustainable productions.

• Read Alec McGivan's previous blog about the BBC's annual Corporate Responsibility Report and the accompanying Press release.

I can’t believe it’s been a whole year since the BBC announced its first ever city partnership, yet here we are about to celebrate the first anniversary of the Anchor Collaboration in Bristol. The partnership saw key media organisations in the city agree to work together to create a media and creative hub. Part of the BBC’s commitment was to increase our outreach work in the area.  Well, we’ve certainly been getting out and about to meet the people of Bristol in the last year.

One of the highlights was School Report, our flagship student journalism scheme, which has seen the number of Bristol schools participating soar since the city partnership began.  On annual School Report News Day in March there was a large outside broadcast live from Bridge Learning Campus, which involved many of the local students.

It wasn’t just school children who benefited.  We also provided production training for 15 young people not in employment, education or training through BBC Bristol’s Face-to-Face scheme.  All the participants received three days intensive training and BBC mentor support. Three of the young people also went on to complete six-week paid work placements. One of the trainees, Romayne Graham, is now working as a runner on Bargain Hunt. This year’s trainees have just been recruited - so good luck to them.

One year on is a great time to review the project and I’ll be in Bristol next week to meet with the partners involved. I look forward to hearing about the successes of the other partners and plans for the future.

Alec McGivan is Head of Outreach

The videos were made in March 2010 as part of BBC School Report, find out more on their website.

 

It created a bit of a stir when George Sampson, one of the new stars of BBC One's Waterloo Road programme, arrived at a screening event at the Printworks in Manchester last night. In all honesty I didn't immediately recognise the Britain's Got Talent winner, but clearly that wasn't a problem for the mainly teenage crowd - they were whooping and cheering with lots of enthusiasm - and it wasn't just for the celebrities - it was also because they were about to see themselves on the big screen as well.

Waterloo Road is filmed in Rochdale and the screening event was about celebrating the series' northern routes as well as showcasing a project that has got some real-life students involved. Peter Salmon, Director of BBC North, spoke at the event and re-confirmed the BBC's commitment to the north of England. As the BBC's physical move to Salford Quays draws closer (the first staff move in during May 2011), it's really important that we continue to look for new ways of connecting with audiences - and I think this was a fantastic example of that in action.

My team got involved by working with staff from Shed, the programme's production company, to get pupils creating their own versions of the school-based programme Waterloo Road. The BBC bus visited schools to film mini-episodes of the hit drama in Grimsby, Preston, Sheffield and Gateshead. Each school did an amazing job - especially considering the whole thing was filmed in just one day per school.

It was interesting to get pupils' take on some of the issues they face in their own lives - and to see how those compare to the fictional drama! It has been a great chance to get Shed script writers and BBC staff up close and personal with their audiences and real life students. It was also good to see the different stories each school came up with - the Preston school looked at gangs, while Sheffield focused on bullying. All four short films will be on the Waterloo Road website next week so you can watch for yourself.

At the screening last night, we not only watched the students films, we also saw previews of the next series of Waterloo Road. Several people then took to the stage for questions, including two of the programme's other new famous faces, Robson Green and Mark Benton. Both congratulated the pupils - and even said they'd spotted some rising acting talent amongst the young audience. The BBC's Controller of Drama Commissioning, Ben Stephenson, also praised the young film-makers and encouraged them to follow their dreams if any of them now wanted to pursue their own career in the industry.

All the participating schools came along to the event from right across the country, which was very impressive. We also had a great turnout from Shed, as well as a good mix of press and opinion formers. I spoke to Ann McManus, Shed's Creative Director, after the event and it's clear she has a real passion for the project. Their support for the initiative was really impressive and I'm very pleased with the results.

Alec McGivan is Head of BBC Outreach

It was great to be in Liverpool on Wednesday for an event in the fantastic setting of the Metropolitan Cathedral Crypt. The evening was presented by BBC Merseyside's Roger Phillips and he did a brilliant job of introducing performances by three very different local choirs. The musical talent really shone through and we had a good turn out, with a mix of creative and community leaders attending, as well as music fans and members of the public who had taken up BBC Merseyside's offer of free tickets for listeners.
 
The event was about showcasing the choral singing talent in Liverpool and celebrating the local winners of BBC Performing Arts Fund grants. All three choirs that performed have received grants from the Fund. It's one of the BBC's corporate charities and sits in my department, BBC Outreach.  

The Metropolitan Cathedral's Cantata Choir performed traditional choral music, while Mersey Harmony treated us to such numbers as Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy and the third choir, Hope Street Harmonies, gave a performance that was anything but traditional, with a medley of Madonna's hits finishing the concert - it was terrific to see such innovation and learn more about the ways the funding has directly benefited the choirs that performed.
 
The choirs also sang on-air earlier in the week to promote the event - and they also created jingles with BBC Merseyside's radio presenters.

The event was a great opportunity to meet some of the people who led Liverpool through its City of Culture triumphs and who continue to work to support the thriving creative industry there. It was also a good chance to offer something different to BBC Merseyside listeners. We not only held an evening event, but also offered a free drop-in singing workshop at BBC Merseyside's performance space during the afternoon. 

The BBC Performing Arts Fund is a registered charity, number 1101276. The charity (formerly Fame Academy Bursary Trust) was set up in 2003 within the BBC.

The Fund receives revenue from the voting lines of BBC One entertainment programmes that seek to find new performing talent (including Fame Academy, How Do you Solve a Problem Like Maria? and I’d Do Anything).

To date the fund has allocated £3m to fund musicians to help them pursue their careers in music. Last year, they awarded over £208,000 to 98 choirs around the UK through their Choral Ambition scheme.
For more details about that, check the website.

It can sometimes feel like an anxious time when annual reports are looming - the trenches of stats and information, probing questions from verifiers! Essentially though, I think external reporting is a thoroughly useful process - both for ensuring we keep our house in order and also for being more open with our audiences. Reporting creates a useful (and public) milestone and a chance to reflect on the year's achievements - which are by no means small.

For me, one of the highlights of the year has been seeing the strength of the BBC's charity broadcast appeals - in spite of the current economic climate. Audiences have been incredibly generous. Both Children in Need and Sport Relief exceeded their previous fundraising totals, raising £39m and over £40m respectively - a fantastic achievement that will benefit people across the UK and abroad.

I've also been incredibly proud of the support BBC staff have given to outreach initiatives that
extend beyond their day jobs. School Report is just one example. It's a project that engages 11-14 year olds with BBC News - and one of the ways it achieves that is by drawing on the expertise of BBC journalists.

Staff provide mentoring support and help guide teachers, often including a visit to their matched school. In March, over 25,000 students from over 700 UK-wide schools took part in annual News Day by publishing their own reports, on news that matters to them. It's a fantastic moment in the BBC calendar and creates a truly unique opportunity for our young audiences to have their voices heard across BBC News.

Several of my team have been School Report mentors and they've got a great deal out of it. It's amazing how talking to young people about what you do can reconfirm the reasons you do it - not to mention developing communication skills - it's no small feat to hold the attention of a room full of 13 year olds!

Staff also get involved by volunteering with charity partners through the BBC Connect & Create scheme. Last year, an impressive 694 colleagues took part and I also continued providing mentoring support for the charity Tomorrow's People. Ten new national charity partners have now been selected and real effort has gone into ensuring these represent the diversity of our audiences - so staff can develop their understanding at the same time as developing specific skills. I look forward to seeing how these relationships grow over the year ahead.

Reporting on the BBC's environmental performance was another key focus for this year's Corporate Responsibility Report. We have continued to make progress towards reaching the targets set in the 2008 Environmental Action Plan and we're delighted to be on-track with this challenging task.

One of the most significant developments is that the team have been working hard to extend our environmental initiatives - to include how we make our programmes, as well as the way we run our business. As a result, later this year we'll launch "Albert" - a carbon calculator to help production teams assess and measure carbon emissions. I'm told the name has no particular significance - and can confirm that it's not the name of the project lead either (he's called Richard in case you wondered).

BBC Environment Action Plan targets for year end 2012/13:

While the year ahead will present challenges, we remain committed to corporate responsibility and are delighted to have retained Platinum status in Business in the Community's Corporate Responsibility Index - a benchmark for evaluating our impacts in society and on the environment.

I look forward to the year ahead and in particular we plan to focus on the community impacts of opening a new BBC site in Salford in 2010. We're already developing relationships with people on the ground and I'm optimistic that we can make contact with significant sections of the community in advance of the building even opening. Already we have met over 3000 local young people, through projects including media training and backstage tours for schools.

Alec McGivan is the Head of BBC Outreach 

• Read the full Corporate Responsibility Report

• Listen to highlights of the School Report radio broadcasts and find out what happened in schools around the UK and overseas, as students turned their classrooms into newsrooms
   
• Find out what BBC School Report is all about from students at schools who have been preparing for a big News Day. 
  

There's been a real buzz in the office over the last few weeks as the BBC Wildlife Fund has been preparing for it's second appeal. The BBC Wildlife Fund is the youngest of the BBC's four corporate charities - the others being Children in Need, Performing Arts Fund and the World Service Trust. It's aim is to raise awareness and funds to help threatened wildlife and places and that's been addressed in a variety of ways since setting up just a few years ago.

 Our nature documentaries often inspire people to ask us what they can do to help and we launched the Wildlife Fund in 2007 in response to public interest. We have been able to build on the awareness created by our programmes to get audiences involved and raise money to help animals and places.

During May and June we've been out and about encouraging people to 'Go Wild for Wildlife' at BBC Springwatch Wild Days Out, which are fun, family events where everyone can get involved with wildlife-themed activities.

BBC staff have also been encouraged to get involved and we're delighted that they've responded enthusiastically. Over 100 staff volunteered to help out at the fundraising events and many others are helping out in other ways - from wearing their wildlife prints to work to taking part in team sponsored activities.

Watch the film above to hear Amy Coyte, Director of the Fund, talking more about their work. 

As part of the appeal, the Fund has also given fundraising packs and other goodies to people who want to raise money with a 'wild' theme in their own time, with friends and family and in their own communities.

The BBC Wildlife Fund's first appeal, which featured the Saving Planet Earth series ended with a live broadcast event which raised £1.8 million thanks to fantastic public support. The Fund has since distributed this money via grants to independent charities working across the UK and abroad. Examples include funding for a project that created 'elephant corridors' to prevent conflict between the animals and farmers in Namibia, and a project to restore the food supply of the Adonis Blue butterfly in Suffolk, which is apparently a very fussy eater!

The Fund is already making a clear difference, although there is of course a lot more to be done. Good news then that the team is back with another appeal this year, to coincide with the UN International Year of Biodiversity.

I'll be at the recording of the live Wild Night In TV programme at London Zoo, which will be the climax of the appeal. It's airing from 8pm on Sunday 20th June on BBC TWO. The programme will feature some familiar faces from Springwatch, as well as contributions from Sir David Attenborough among others. It should be an entertaining evening (and doesn't clash with an England match!) so do tune in if you can and let us know what you think by leaving a comment below.

Alec McGivan is Head of BBC Outreach

Sometimes, when you work on the corporate side of the BBC, you can feel a bit far from the production teams, so it's good to get on set and see a live show in action every so often. That wasn't the reason I went along this weekend though - it was actually about the charitable work that is made possible by this series and other programmes like it.

On air, the series is about providing a platform for a handful of young people with talent, and off air that's an even bigger story. The BBC Performing Arts Fund is a charity of which I'm a Trustee, as well as line manager for the small team. The Fund helps aspiring music-makers and performers looking for a way to get ahead. The charity receives its revenue from the voting lines of BBC One entertainment programmes that seek to find new performing talent. In this case that's Over the Rainbow, but it has also included past series like Any Dream Will Do and it was originally set up around the Fame Academy series in 2003.

On Saturday I hosted a reception event around the show's live recording, offering guests including journalists and other arts charities the opportunity to see the show first hand and meet some of the previous winners. It was all about letting people know what's done with the revenue from these BBC phone lines and how it's helping support new talent.

I met several Performing Arts Fund bursary winners on Saturday. It was great to hear what a difference the money had made to their careers. One of the winners, Briony, graduated last summer and now has an agent and is auditioning for roles. Two of the other winners I met, who are both still studying, told me they need all the help they can get in this economic climate, so the award is a real benefit - both practically and also to help make their CVs stand out.

It's a significant moment for the Fund because just last month last we gave a round of grants that means we have now distributed over £3m in total (£3,017,332). The Fund has now supported 739 individuals and around 6,000 members of 98 choirs through a number of different schemes: the Education Bursary, Training in Musical Theatre, Instrument and Equipment Awards, Junior Instrument and Equipment Awards, Urban Music and Choral Ambition.

If you need any evidence of the impact of the Fund, you can look to the West End. Several winners of the Musical Theatre Award are currently starring in shows, including Dirty Dancing (Fra Fee), Mamma Mia (Nicola Hawkins and Nikki Bentley) and The Sound of Music UK Tour (Zoe Doano).


As the Over the Rainbow TV series is running, the BBC is also holding live events across the country offering audiences the chance to participate and enjoy singing and performance themselves. There will be 10 events in total, visiting locations from Glasgow to Cardiff to London to offer musical theatre masterclasses to an estimated 15,000 people. The events kicked off on 1 May at Leeds Town Hall. Anyone could apply for tickets via the Over the Rainbow website and those have now all been snapped up. However, if the show has given you the singing bug, you can still get some good tips from this downloadable singing guide (PDF).

The next event I'll be going along to with the Performing Arts Fund charity is in September. We'll be working with BBC Merseyside to host a performance opportunity for the Fund's north-west England based winners of the Choral Ambition scheme, which ran last autumn and is all about group singing and development. We hope to highlight the contribution that the BBC Performing Arts Fund is making to the voluntary arts sectors across the north-west. The performance will be at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Liverpool and the audience will be made up of members of the public, as well as guests and local press. It should be a good day and I look forward to reporting back on how it went.

Follow Dorothy and Toto's progress on Twitter and become a friend of the BBC Performing Arts Fund on Facebook.

Alec McGivan is Head of BBC Outreach

We're always looking for fresh voices and today we were able to offer the nation's 11-14 year olds a chance to talk about the issues that matter to them on BBC School Report News Day, the annual event which sees young journalists preparing and broadcasting their own reports.

It's been all go from early this morning at Television Centre, where the day kicked off with a world record attempt. Students from schools across the UK, including a team here in the Blue Peter garden, recorded the temperature at precisely 9.15am then sent through their data to the BBC Weather Centre. The data was verified by, amongst others, the Mayor of Hammersmith & Fulham as well as the legendary weatherman, Michael Fish. We then compiled it into what we hope will be the largest ever interactive weather report.

Later on, I was joined by Caroline Thomson, the BBC's Chief Operating Officer, to see students from the London Academy as they talked on a live radio broadcast. The students had the opportunity to put their questions to Maggie Atkinson, the new Children's Commissioner for England, and to interview Blue Peter presenter Helen Skelton who has just returned from her gruelling trip rowing the Amazon for Sport Relief.

Of course, the action wasn't all happening in Television Centre. Broadcasts have been coming in from all over the country. You can read, watch and listen to the reports online but the highlights for me included a humbling conversation between the Winterbourne International Academy and students in Kabul, the Cockermouth School report on the floods which hit their town last year, (during which they got to speak to Lord Mandelson as he visited the town) and David Cameron being grilled by students from schools in Bristol, Lewisham and Salford.

It's been particularly rewarding for me to see the success of today as I remember the start of the project four years ago. To see over 700 schools taking part, a good rise on the 524 which took part last year, makes me feel especially proud and privileged to be a part of such an organisation. Next week, the focus shifts to Schools Question Time and the judging of the regional finals. It starts on Monday at Cator Park school in Bromley and ends in July when the winners get to broadcast their own Schools Question Time programme. I'm one of the judges and looking forward to it already!

Alec McGivan is the Head of BBC Outreach, Corporate Responsibility & Partnerships