George Wright Email & Phone Number

Manchester, United Kingdom

Combining years of experience with a passion for social justice, I provide communications and engagement expertise to The Big Life group.Big Life delivers children and families, health and wellbeing, and life-skills and employment services. This ranges from managing primary schools and delivering mental health services to offering supported housing, with much more in between. It includes Big Issue North, enabling people to earn an income, where they may have no other means to do so. We’re in the business of changing lives. We fight inequality by working with people and places to create opportunities and inspire change. My role in achieving this mission is encompasses:Communications: Encompassing internal and digital communications, media management and PR. Throughout, my priority is to consider creative, innovative solutions, and to value the different communities with which we engage.Fundraising: I lead and deliver a fundraising strategy for Big Issue North Trust focused on community, corporate and individual giving. The income from this work enables us to support more people to sell Big Issue magazine, smash barriers stopping them from making positive changes, earn an income and change their lives. Marketing: Big Life has developed a range of products, and I lead our work to ensure that they are seen, used and valued by their target audience. This includes places at a Big Life nursery, online mental health tools, and our Street News app, which raises the voices of marginalised communities.News content: I lead our work in creating journalistic content for Big Issue UK, the Street News app and across our digital channels, focusing on giving space for people from marginalised communities to tell their story and amplify their voice.Volunteering and engagement: I oversee our approach to volunteering and engagement, ensuring that we give our volunteers a first-class service, and working with experts by experience to create community-led services.

Manchester, England, United Kingdom

As a Trustee for Europia, a registered charity and community development organisation committed to supporting and empowering European nationals who have come to live and work in Greater Manchester, I provide oversight and guidance to the Senior Leadership Team. In particular, I bring my experience in fundraising, communications and relationship-building to the role.Through our practical community and well-being projects, training sessions, advice clinics and legal surgeries, we make people feel at home, connect them with their local communities, and give them the knowledge and skills they need to make their hopes and dreams a reality.

Providing digital communications strategy, planning and delivery for our clients - primarily Greater Manchester's clinical commissioning groups - and for the CSU itself, I combine several years of all round communications experience with a passion for new media.My role includes: practical delivery of social media channels ranging from Twitter and Facebook to Pinterest, Storify and Tumblr; strategic online profiling of the CSU and its clients, whether as thought leaders among peers, or as central points of information about health services for the public; taking websites from conception to delivery and ongoing maintenance; and ensuring that the CSU and its clients make full use of the online space available to them - whether through their own channels or elsewhere.I also work closely with our marketing lead on offline promotional and events work.Following a period of intense and challenging change within the health service, the need to reach out to the public has never been greater, and digital and social media does that in a way traditional methods often cannot.Greater Manchester CSU provides its clients with expertise and innovation, as a result, it is part of my role, as well as part of my personal interest, to continually scan the horizons of digital communications, discovering and evaluating new media.

Bolton

My role was to communicate, both internally and externally, the work of NHS Bolton, the Primary Care Trust for the town. My work includes: liaison with the media, both proactively and reactively; internal communications; marketing and campaigns; and design work. As the health landscape changes, one of the challenges, and therefore most interesting, aspects of the role is to unravel the complexities of the recent health and social care bill for staff and the public, and provide reassurance that good health remains the organisation's priority.

Bolton

BoltonMy job was to ensure the good reputation of the council within all aspects of the media, both reactively and proactively. This involved issuing press releases and organising briefings to promote the good work done by Bolton Council, and minimising any negative publicity that may arise, through liaising with colleagues in the council to respond to any enquiries from the media in a sensitive and positive manner.

At GovNet Communications, having arrived as a Production Assistant and risen to Production Manager, I progressed to the role of Editor-in-Chief within ten months, and gained responsibility for content of all of the company's six public-sector based magazine titles. This involved an intimate knowledge of every aspect of the public sector, as well as the ability to work confidently with government press offices on a daily basis in order to secure interviews with, and written contributions from, ministers of state.Two magazines, moderngov and Sustainable Development UK, fell under my direct editorship, and I was responsible for writing and compiling their entire editorial content to a high standard. For the company's four other magazines, I line managed the editors directly responsible, ensuring that their work was of a sufficient standard, and that the subject matter covered in each magazine was suitable for both readers and advertisers. This involved prior preparation in terms of creating features lists, liaison with other departments, management of freelance staff, and strict adherence to tight deadlines.I also attended and reported on GovNet's public sector conferences, involving a large amount of networking with both public and private sector bodies, as well as face-to-face meetings and interviews with speakers at the conferences. I also undertook work copywriting and researching for the conference websites and marketing material. To do this I worked closely with, and gained insight from, the event management and marketing teams.While in the role of editor-in-chief, I continued to oversee the production department, ensuring that advertising and editorial was aligned and complementary, liaising with advertising clients and ensuring their satisfaction in the finished product. In order to ensure that the staff under my line-management were working to a suitably high standard, I introduced auditing processes and regular one-to-one feedback sessions.

While retaining the responsibilities I had as a Production Assistant, I became responsible for overseeing all production issues on all magazines. This involved line management of production staff, and regular reporting to senior management. It also involved liaison and resolution of problems with our printers, designers, sales people, accountants, credit controllers and editors - putting me at the hub of all magazine activity within the company.During my time in the role, I successfully oversaw, on top of our usual six bi-monthly publications, the production of a 240-page edition of moderngov magazine designed specifically for the political autumn party conferences.

My duties as a Production Assistant primarily involved being a constant point of contact for advertising clients in GovNet Communications six publications. Working with one other assistant, I was tasked to proofread all advertising and editorial pages, and to paginate each issue of the magazines to ensure that the issue worked thematically, and, crucially, that all the requirements of advertising clients had been met.I was also responsible for the final sign-off of the magazine, being the final pair of eyes between the production process and the public.

Following my work experience at Carnegie Publishing I was offered a part time role at the company, which developed into a full time job on completion of my MA. Although initially intended to be largely a typesetting role, I soon became involved in client liaison, ensuring that authors provided copy and pictures on time and in the correct fashion. I was also responsible for proofreading, correcting, and page layout.

My responsibilities as a Research Assistant, a role I successfully undertook while undertaking a full time MA, involved compiling a large database of references for a textbook on career development, and for a Ph.D. in Occupational Therapy.This meant that I was required to study certain areas comprehensively and provide a detailed report on these subjects. On completion of the reference database, I then organised it into themes relevant to the chapters in the book and the Ph.D.

Master Of Arts - Ma, Literary And Cultural Studies, Pass (67%)

Diploma In Fundraising, Fundraising, Distinction

Bachelor Of Arts - Ba, English With Writing And Performance, 2:1

A Levels, English Literature, Maths, French, History (A/S), A, A, B, C

Gcse, 10 Subjects (Inc English, Mathematics And Science), 7A*, 2A, 1B