The official launch of our Smokeoff campaign went really well on Saturday! We teamed up with a fantastic entertainment act - 'faces of dicso' who helped to promote our campaign and remove smoking from TV shows such as Coronation Street and Eastenders. We also had a face in the hole attraction which was hugely popular with you people and children alike. Look out for photos on Twitter, facebook and our new instagram account @d_myst_uk - the best photo will win a £50 shopping voucher!! The day was a huge success and to add to all the fun we collected a further 1,000 signatures in support of our campaign!

We had an exciting meeting this evening! We spent our time going over the final plans for the official launch of our Smoke-off campaign! We have an exciting day planned on Saturday 19th March and we are hoping to get as many members of the public involved! Keep an eye out for us and all the special surprises we have planned and if you see us please come over to say hello and help us in our task to take smoking out of coronation street and eastenders!

Today we had a fun meeting storyboarding some ideas for videos. We have come up with some exciting ideas for an animation style video based on the members of D-MYST the agency. Watch this space for the next You Tube sensation! We then moved on to talk about the launch of the Smoke Off campaign! We have some very exciting plans that we hope to put in place! The launch of the Smoke-Off campaign will be on Saturday 19th October in Liverpool City Centre! Make sure you come and say hello!

We had a great meeting this weekend continuing our work on the shisha awareness campaign! We started the meeting by discussing the trip to New Zealand in March next year and the amazing opportunities a lucky member of D-MYST will have when they are there! We discussed the results of the shisha questionnaires we had completed and decided to have a fun creative session designing the information board and vinyl education matt that will be used in schools and at events across Liverpool! If you see our shisha board make sure you come over and say hello! Over lunch we talked about creating a new film for D-MYST and began to story board some ideas! This will be filmed during our next meeting in a few weeks time so watch this space!

Today we took to the streets of Liverpool to gather research on shisha smoking. We asked the public various questions to gather their opinion on shisha and its health effects. It was a great opportunity to hand out our shisha fact card and educate people on how harmful smoking shisha is. We will be out and about in different areas of Liverpool over the next few weeks so keep an eye out for us and feel free to head over and help us with our research!

Our meeting today started off with great news! Our proposal for a campaign around shisha awareness has been accepted and so we started work straight away! As part of the shisha campaign we need to understand what the general public know about shisha and its health risks! During the meeting we brainstormed some ideas on how to collect this information and decided that creating a survey for the public to complete would be the best idea! Look out for us around Liverpool next week and help us with our research by taking part in our survey! We have also been out and about this week collecting signatures in support of our latest SmokeOff campaign, targeting TV shows directly in a bid to take smoking off pre-watershed television! We have had some fantastic support from the people of Liverpool so far. If you see us at an event near you please come and say hi!

We had a great meeting outside in the sun on Saturday and planned our summer activity! Not only will be launching the second phase of our SmokeOff campaign, targeting TV shows directly, we have also written a proposal for a second summer campaign that we hope to carry out! It is always fun writing a proposal and putting all of our ideas down, but then we have to present it around the boardroom table and that part is always a bit nerve-wracking! Hopefully within the next couple of weeks we will be able to promote our new summer campaign! Look out for us around Liverpool over the next couple of months and come and say hi!

Today we have been getting our creative juices flowing working with a designer on our new campaign materials! We have a lot planned over the summer and will be out and about in Liverpool speaking to the public about our SmokeOff campaign and raising awareness of the amount of smoking shown on television that young people and children see. We were so pleased with the amount of public support we had for this last year and we are hoping that this will continue until OFCOM and programme makers realise that showing smoking before the watershed is irresponsible and contributes to the take up of young people smoking.

Today our presentation that we have been working on will be showcased at the ASH Scotland 'Towards A Generation Free From Tobacco' conference in Edinburgh! We are really proud to be able to show others how we have developed our SmokeOff campaign and the support we have gained!

Great meeting today! We finished filming our presentation that will be showcased at the ASH Scotland: Towards a generation free from tobacco next week! Our presentation focuses on our SmokeOff campaign and the response we have had from OFCOM.

We also have decided what we are going to do next with our campaigning - we have BIG plans so watch this space!!!!

We have been asked to put together a short presentation for the ASH Scotland Conference in Edinburgh next month. We have decided to make a short film to be shown at the conference that showcases our SmokeOff campaign. We spend a sunny Saturday filming in Liverpool this Bank Holiday weekend and are now in the process of editing our footage!

Yesterday we were lucky enough to be invited to an event at the House of Commons hosted by ASH and The British Heart Foundation! The All Party Parliamentary event was on plain packaging and we were able to speak to MPs and let them know our thoughts on plain packaging. We were also able to inform them that since the start of the UK plain packaging consultation 1,848 young people have started smoking in Liverpool...

Hi Everyone!

Yesterday we took a day trip to London, along with over 10,000 postcards that we have collected in support of our SmokeOff campaign! We had twenty bags of postcards with us that we took by train, tube and taxi to the offices of OFCOM near London Bridge. We asked at reception if they would mind giving the letter we had written to the CEO and if we would leave our postcards for him. The receptionist said that was fine but we don't think she had realised just how many postcards we would be leaving! By the time we had finished putting the postcards on her desk you couldn't see her any more as she was hidden by them!

We explained in our letter to the CEO that we would like OFCOM to follow their own guidelines and stop showing programmes that contain smoking before the watershed so that children are not influenced by what they are watching.

We await his response!

Thank you to everyone who has supported this campaign!

 

Great day for us today as we now have over 10,000 postcards signed in support of our SmokeOff campaign! The SmokeOff campaign targets OFCOM and asks the organisation to follow their own guidelines with regards to smoking on television. OFCOM guidelines state "Smoking must not be condoned, encouraged or glamourised in programmes likely to be widely seen or heard by under-18s unless there is editorial justification." Yet many programmes like Coronation Street and Eastenders regularly contain smoking scenes, at times when young people are watching.

Research shows that there is a close relationship between exposure to smoking on TV and the take up of smoking among 10 - 15 year olds.

We are not asking OFCOM to edit shows that have already been shown, rather to ensure that all future pre-watershed programmes are smoke free.

We are happy for historical figures to still smoke, for example Winston Churchill in Dr Who, and we are happy for smoking to be shown if the health consequences of smoking are also shown.

We now have 10,000 people who support us and we will be letting OFCOM know!

Hey All!

Yesterday was National No Smoking Day and to show our support we printed an 'Open Letter' in the Liverpool Echo that made clear what the law is with regards to tobacco and children. We wanted to do this as we carried out some test purchases a couple of weeks ago in Liverpool City Centre and we were shocked to find that four out of five shops were happy to sell to us without even asking for ID - we are all under 18. We also know that many people are still confused about how old you have to be to buy cigarettes since the age rose to 18 in 2007 so we felt that it was important to give the facts. We wrote and designed the letter ourselves and were really pleased to see it in print! We hope you liked it too!

D-MYST The Agency

Hi Everyone, Matty and Prince here.

We hve been out the last couple of days in the cold, giving out leaflets and promo items about the new campaign, Play Smokefree!
It has been successful and we have given out a lot of stuff to the friendly public.
Tomorrow is our last day of visiting the Liverpool parks and we have had lots of fun!

Hi Everyone, Matty and Prince here.

We hve been out the last couple of days in the  cold, giving out leaflets and promo items about the new campaign, Play Smokefree!
It has been successful and we have given out a lot of stuff  to the friendly public.
Tomorrow is our last day of visiting the Liverpool parks and we have had lots of fun!
 

Happy Half Term! Look out for D-MYST The Agency this week as we visit parks and play areas in Liverpool to promote Play SmokeFree! If you see us come and have a chat! We have frisbees to give to those who want to play smoke free!

Hey Guys, it is Matty and Prince here.

Today at our meeting we have set our date when we will go to London and present our postcards collected from the SmokeOff campaign to OFCOM.

We have also arranged our Play SmokeFree roadshow for February half term when you will see us out and about around the parks of Liverpool promoting smoke free play areas.

D-MYST have decided upon another campaign that we will be launching within the next few weeks. Don't want to give too much away at this stage but we will be making our voice heard!

Come back soon to find out more!