Women's Boxing at London 2012

When it was announced that women's boxing would be included at the London 2012 Olympics, we localised the story by filming with a boxer from Rotherham. It was a challenging story to edit because the subject of the story (Sharon, boxing) was always moving.

Leeds Arena v Sheffield

On my first week at Calendar I was sent out on this story. I wasn't expected to be out reporting so soon but was really up for showing I could do it. I knew a bit about Sheffield Arena having been there to watch Queen with Paul Rogers a few years ago. First of all I turned up at a Leeds Council executive meeting to see if they were going to give the arena plans the thumbs up. It could have used up a lot of the precious time I needed to work on the package but thankfully they were helpful and let us film in there and even discussed the Leeds Arena plans earlier than planned on the agenda so that I and the cameraman could get away and film on the proposed arena site. I got back to the newsroom at about half four and with the help of a craft editor, finished the package in time for Calendar at 6pm. Thankfully I'd spent the time in the car with the cameraman writing a script so when I got back to the newsroom I was able to turn the package round quite quickly. Since my report was broadcast, the Government has refused to allow Yorkshire Forward to invest the £18 million of public money in the project so the arena may well now not be built.

Inspired at Brightlights

I recently went to Brightlights, a Catholic youth festival in north London, and met some incredible people...

One of the highlights was hearing Delia Smith talk about her faith and then spending some time one-on-one with her discussing Catholicism, football and modern life. She was very open, interested and friendly.

The most inspiring speakers of the weekend were Barry and Margaret Mizen. Their 16 year old son Jimmy was murdered in May 2008. Somehow they've been able to forgive his killer. After their talk about Jimmy, I asked them for an interview for this blog which I recorded on my mobile. (Although the sound quality isn't great - I wish I'd chosen an iPhone - it shows you that you can interview or capture audio anywhere.) I was so happy to meet Barry and Margaret; their message of forgiveness and hope was inspirational.

CLICK HERE, THEN CLICK ON 'MIZENS', THEN 'OK' TO LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW

Another speaker at Brightlights that really impressed me was Kepha, a young leader from Kenya. He lives in Kibera, one of Africa's biggest slums. Kepha set up Kibera Community Youth Programme with a group of friends to help other young people from the slum succeed in life. After the violence which followed Kenya's 2007 elections, their peace project brought young people together for healing and reconciliation. I wanted to find out why he feels so passionately about young people being key to tackling poverty and hardship and ask him his thoughts on our culture.

CLICK HERE, THEN ON 'KEPHA', THEN 'OK' TO LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW

As well as recording both interviews on my phone, I also took all of these photo with my Nokia E71.