IT WAS one of those fantastic, spine tingling occasions – a night when disability stopped the world in its tracks, writes All Together NOW! editor TOM DOWLING
More than 11 million people tuned in to Channel 4 to watch the opening ceremony of the London 2012 (the station’s biggest audience in a decade).
Another 60,000 people packed the Olympic stadium – and I was lucky to be among them, thanks to Eurostar, who went the extra mile to get me and my wheelchair across the capital.
“Prepare to be inspired, prepare to be dazzled, prepare to be moved,” Lord Seb Coe, chairman of the Olympic organising team, told the crowds.
All stirring stuff.
But people are also now talking about the legacy of the Games – about how we can all start helping to make Britain a better place for the nation’s 10.4 million disabled people and 6.6 million carers.
I know one very easy way – turn the North West’s trailblazing and multi award-winning charity newspaper All Together NOW! into a national paper so that the whole of the UK can benefit from its unique and inspirational content.
Regular readers across the North West already know that All Together NOW! is jam-packed with news and information that’s helping the one-in-four families affected by disability.
It’s also doing a magnificent job in raising much-needed public awareness about all kinds of health and disability issues.
Launched just seven years ago, the FREE paper – the only one of its kind in the UK – is now one of the best-read papers in the region.
Available at more than 400 outlets, including 40 Asda, Sainsbury’s and Tesco supermarkets, All Together NOW! has a readership that’s now nearing half a million people – twice as many since this time last year AND significantly more than the region’s two big evening papers, the Liverpool ECHO and the Manchester Evening News.
And the figure can so easily be doubled again – with more a bit more funding or advertising revenue.
With the right level of commercial support plus a community-minded supermarket chain that would stock the paper in all its outlets, All Together NOW! could even become a national paper, helping millions of people all over the UK to cope with – and understand – the immense challenges of living with disability.
Now what a legacy that would be . . .
From where I sit, there can be nothing better.
If your company or organisation would like to team up with us, call me on 0151 230 0307. Email: news@alltogethernow.org.uk
