Neil Anderson Media - Public relations

01/10/2026

It’s always particularly rewarding to work on a project where you can see the difference it has made.
Neil Anderson Media has been supporting Graysons Solicitors with communications around its sponsorship of the inaugural HeART of Ashgate.
The three-day event attracted 540 visitors and raised £12,500 for Ashgate Hospice - enough to fund 10 weeks of specialist nursing support for a patient in their own home.
The event brought together artists, families, supporters and the wider community, turning the hospice and its gardens into a showcase for work created and donated by artists from across the region.
It also builds on a longstanding relationship between Graysons and Ashgate Hospice, which has included support for the Dragonfly, Butterfly and Forget Me Not appeals and the recent Tree of Life initiative.
Really pleased to have played a small part in helping tell the story of a partnership delivering such a tangible benefit for the local community.
Graysons Solicitors
Ashgate Hospice

25/09/2026

Another great year for Art in the Gardens!
More than 8,000 visitors enjoyed this year's event at Sheffield Botanical Gardens, with record sales at the Open Art Exhibition.
Great to have been involved once again with Graysons Solicitors, who returned as Premier Sponsor for the eighth consecutive year.
Here's a little film we di celebrating another brilliant Sheffield weekend!
https://youtu.be/3U-9nOWJ6ac

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.

07/09/2026

Neil Anderson Media was delighted to be back at Art in the Gardens at the weekend.

Neil originally worked on the PR launch of the event in the early 2000s and has watched it develop over more than two decades into one of the cornerstones of Sheffield’s cultural calendar.

Neil Anderson Media also introduced Graysons Solicitors to the event. The firm has now been Premier Sponsor for eight consecutive years, demonstrating the value of long-term partnerships between local businesses and the cultural sector.

This year, more than 8,000 people visited the event, making it one of the busiest in recent years, while the Open Art Exhibition achieved record sales.

Art in the Gardens continues to provide a powerful showcase for Sheffield’s extraordinary creative talent and remains one of the city’s most distinctive cultural events.

26/08/2026

One of the most rewarding parts of heritage communications is getting under the skin of the headlines and hearing what history actually felt like to the people who lived through it.

That has certainly been the case with 'Coalfield Battles: The Strikes That Shaped Derbyshire', which launches at The Hub in Clay Cross on Saturday, September 12th.

Neil Anderson has had the privilege of helping compile the book with The Hub, exploring more than a century of industrial struggle, from the early labour movement and the 1926 General Strike through the national coal strikes of 1972 and 1974, before concentrating particularly on the events of 1984/85.

But this has been anything but a one-person job.

At its heart are the oral histories of people who experienced these events first-hand.

Former miner Kev Kew has provided an enormous amount of knowledge, support and fact-checking.

Lynda Skinner, who was heavily involved as a woman supporting the strike, gave a wonderful first-hand interview and shared memorabilia from the period.

Many others have provided the project with photographs, documents, memories and stories.

For Neil there is also a very personal connection. He grew up in Chesterfield while the events of the Miners’ Strike were unfolding around him.

The launch also celebrates the achievements of The Hub’s £79,650 National Lottery Heritage Fund-supported mining heritage project.

Visitors will be able to meet some of the people involved in the project, see representatives from Sheffield’s National Emergency Services Museum, purchase the earlier 'Coal Dust & Community' book and experience The Hub’s newly opened Amici café.

The free event runs from 10.30am until 3pm at The Hub, Gladstone Buildings, Clay Cross.




Thanks to National Lottery players.

24/08/2026

A year into the King Mojo project and it’s hugely satisfying to see the reaction we’d hoped for actually happening - in fact, if anything, it’s been even better.
Neil Anderson Media has been looking after the PR and communications for the project, and over the past 12 months we’ve had a fantastic amount to shout about.
Scores of people have got involved. They’ve attended events, shared memories, volunteered, sat down for interviews, dug out photographs, completed questionnaires and helped us build a much richer picture of what this extraordinary club meant to Sheffield.
That level of engagement is exactly what you want from a heritage project. It gives us real stories to tell, real people to put at the heart of the coverage and a constant stream of strong, authentic content.
Our next Mojo Rising reunion takes place on Friday, 4 December, at The Library in Attercliffe.
We’ve already held two reunions as part of the project and the last one sold out.
This one will be particularly special because it will be the first public outing for the brand new King Mojo mural created by Angie Hardwick, with help from former Mojo artist Paul Norton and the involvement of former Mojo-goers and members of the wider community.
Greg Heap will once again be behind the decks with the soul, Motown, R&B and sounds that kept the original King Mojo dancefloor moving between 1964 and 1967.
Tickets/info available now from www.kingmojo.org
A huge thank you to everyone who has helped make the first year of the project such a success. From a communications point of view, it’s been a joy to work with a project that has generated so much genuine enthusiasm, goodwill and involvement.
And there’s plenty more still to come.

Thanks to National Lottery players.

18/08/2026

It’s always good to see a heritage communications campaign translate into people actually coming through the doors.

There was a steady stream of visitors to Holy Trinity Church in Chesterfield for its latest George Stephenson open day, held to mark 178 years since the death of the “Father of Railways”.

Visitors explored the growing exhibition, saw artefacts connected with Stephenson’s remarkable story, visited his grave and got another look at the progress being made on the church’s new visitor facilities.

Neil Anderson Media has been supporting the communications around the project – helping shape the narrative, promote the events and tell the wider story of Holy Trinity’s transformation into a heritage destination celebrating Chesterfield’s railway and industrial history.

The project is supported by a £240,600 grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, with additional backing from EMR, CrossCountry Rail, the Raymond Ross Fund, Graysons Solicitors and Holy Trinity Church.





Thanks to National Lottery players.

18/08/2026

I’m increasingly being presented with press releases that clients have drafted using AI.

And why shouldn’t they?

Why pay someone to write 600 words when ChatGPT can produce something perfectly competent in ten seconds?

There’s just one problem.

If you use AI to do something you’re not an expert in, you often don’t have the expertise to spot the problems.

A press release can be beautifully written, grammatically perfect and contain every fact the client wants included – but still have virtually no chance of becoming a story.

Why? Because AI can’t read a newsroom or know the nuanced tastes of an individual journalist or media channel.

When I’m writing a release, I’m thinking about what will make a journalist stop scrolling. What the actual story is. What should be in paragraph one rather than paragraph five. What needs taking out. What their readers, listeners or viewers will care about. How much of the legwork can be done by an accompanying image or video clip.

And I’ll frequently produce different versions for different media.

A business title gets one angle. A local newspaper another. Radio needs something else again.

Sometimes I’ll change little more than the headline and opening sentence.

But after 30 years of doing this, I know those few words can be the difference between the front page and the recycle bin.

That’s the fascinating thing about AI.

The danger isn’t when it produces something terrible.

It’s when it produces something that looks perfectly good.

AI is an extraordinarily powerful tool in the hands of somebody who knows their subject. I use it myself.

But AI plus deep subject knowledge and AI without deep subject knowledge are two very different things.

So when a client jokingly suggests they’ve beaten me at my own game with their AI-generated press release, I’m not panicking just yet.

I just take a deep breath and start explaining what’s wrong with ‘their’ beautiful prose – without putting their nose out of joint.

For the moment, I’m pleased to report I still have a job.

Which is always a bonus.

15/08/2026

A fantastic result for the first-ever HeART of Ashgate.

The three-day event, sponsored by Graysons Solicitors, saw Ashgate Hospice and its gardens transformed into a showcase of art, creativity and community.

Visitors enjoyed paintings, photography, ceramics and mixed-media work alongside live entertainment, food, family activities and the popular sip-and-paint sessions.

The weekend also helped raise vital funds to support Ashgate Hospice’s specialist care for patients and their families across North Derbyshire.

Laura Cowan, Partner at Graysons Solicitors, said: “It was wonderful to see so many people enjoying the first HeART of Ashgate and supporting such an important local cause.”

Graysons has supported Ashgate over many years, including the hospice’s Dragonfly, Butterfly and Forget Me Not appeals and its recent Tree of Life initiative.

Delighted to have helped share the story of another successful partnership between two organisations doing so much in the local community.

Graysons Solicitors
Ashgate Hospice

12/08/2026

We’re delighted to welcome Cultura Creative to Neil Anderson Media.

Based in Sheffield’s Kelham Island, Cultura is a boutique, all-female creative technology company doing extraordinary work on the international stage.

In just three months, its specialist team coordinated the capture of more than 400,000 images across six countries and eleven cities, helping create representative visual datasets used to train artificial intelligence and machine learning systems.

And there’s a really important purpose behind the work.

Cultura is helping tackle bias in AI by ensuring the information used to train emerging technologies better reflects the diversity of the real world.

Our initial work will focus on raising Cultura’s profile across Sheffield and South Yorkshire, strengthening its connections within the region’s growing innovation community and helping tell what we believe is one of the most exciting business stories currently emerging from the city.

We’re incredibly excited to be part of the journey.

10/08/2026

THIS WEDNESDAY – discover the remarkable Chesterfield story of the “Father of Railways”.

Holy Trinity Church opens its doors this Wednesday, 12 August, for a special open day marking the 178th anniversary of the death of George Stephenson.

From 10am–4pm you can:

• Visit George Stephenson’s grave inside the church
• Explore the growing exhibition and information displays
• See artefacts connected with his life and industrial legacy
• See the progress being made on Holy Trinity’s new visitor facilities
• Enjoy tea, coffee and homemade cakes

George Stephenson changed the world – yet many people are still surprised to discover that his final resting place is right here in Chesterfield.

Admission is FREE and everyone is welcome.

Holy Trinity Church, Newbold Road, Chesterfield
Wednesday 12 August
10am–4pm

The event forms part of the wider Holy Trinity heritage project, supported by a £240,600 grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, with additional backing from EMR, CrossCountry Rail, the Raymond Ross Fund, Graysons Solicitors and Holy Trinity Church.

Thanks to National Lottery players.

Please share and help us spread the word.


Graysons Solicitors