Question The Campaign

Meeting Minutes for Monday 1 March between CEO  & Head of Campaigns

 “What’s our campaign this week?”

“Maybe – tackling food poverty?”

“That’ll raise the charity’s profile and brand, yeah?”

“We’ll use some vloggers to tell people how to eat and budget properly and create some hashtags, perhaps?”

“How about telling people to use Food banks?” 

   “Do you want to spend big on this campaign?”

“No, No – I’ll just get the PR team to send some free stuff to the vloggers and buy their weeks shopping how much do you reckon that’ll cost?”

        “We’ll tell the vloggers they’re ambassadors for this campaign, they’ll love that and a week’s shopping and some of that promotional fairtrade stuff lying in the warehouse, total outlay under £1000?” 

“Sounds great, can you make sure we get the social media team and the vloggers to add the JustGiving links?”

         “To the food banks?”

“No to our charity, we can get Legal involved to get a disclaimer put in so we can say a percentage of donations will go to the Food bank can’t we?”

“Of course, just wanted to make sure, should I give you the metrics in a couple of weeks?”

That’s great, so is that it?

Meeting Minutes for Monday 1 March between CEO  & Head of Campaigns

“I called you in just to ask for the final metrics for the tackling food poverty campaign?”

“Bit of a success. We raised just over £3million in the past couple of weeks, once we get the gift aid revenues from HMRC, that’s £4million and we’ve had tonnes of clicks, likes, and retweets, we were even trending on Twitter, how much should I transfer to a food bank charity?

How much did it cost in the end to run?

“All in all £1250, PR decided to use a ‘premium’ grocer. I watched one of the Vloggers videos, a bit preachy about organics but they prepared a Katsu Curry with Sticky Jasmine Rice only £7.37 per portion, can you believe it?”

How about we give £100k? 

“Sounds good, we’ll tackle food poverty again yeah?”

“Yeah it’s a good little earner and I think we have done the Food bank charity a favour, don’t you?

“Sure?”

Thanks for taking the time to read this poem. It is an experimental piece. I hope you enjoyed it.

Take it Easy,

Paul.

Can’t See Her Cry

She’s grateful
her kids are away
at their dad’s
for the weekend
she likes quiet
when she’s thinking
she doesn’t miss
the boiler’s hum
she wraps up
warm under
two layers of clothing
waning woollen sleeves
try to keep
the cold at bay
saving the £2.31
that’s left
of the emergency fiver
on the electric meter
she’ll dine well
she lies to herself
calling her
Chicken & Mushroom Pot Noodle
a takeaway
technically
it’s a withdrawal
from the food bank
she used to make deposits into
her account there
now in negative balance
the only levelling up
she ever witnesses
is the poverty
and the ‘isms’
fuelled by the rich
to stoke fires
in the poor.

She’s grateful
her kids are away
so they can’t see her cry.