Good Relations has kick-started its third decade in Wales with a clutch of new business wins, dozens of long-standing loyal clients, a dynamic and creative staff - and a very healthy bottom line.
Despite the recession, Good Relations Wales exceeded its half-year profit targets by 10 per cent and is well on course to deliver a consistent performance throughout 2009. Good Relations is part of the Bell Pottinger Group, the public relations division of Chime Communications PLC which recently announced its interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2009. These demonstrated the highest first half pretax profit in the history of the company.
New clients for Good Relations Wales this year include the Older People’s Commissioner for Wales, Remploy, Sports Council for Wales, Ufi/learndirect and Vale Healthcare.
As well as attracting more business, Good Relations has continued to work closely with long-established clients who have been with the agency many years, including Cardiff Bus and Hugh James solicitors. It is this dedication to all clients that is the key to success, believes Managing Director in Wales, Helen Birtwhistle.
“Reputation is key to business growth, even to business survival in a tough economic climate. I am pleased to say that Good Relations has established a reputation among our clients as a ‘can-do’ consultancy, always ready to go that extra mile. They tell us that they appreciate the quality of both strategic advice and hands-on implementation, our flexibility and, of course, value for money.
“Reputation management is an integral part of what Good Relations Wales offers our wide range of clients to help them develop the right relationships with the individuals and organisations they need to work. We help our clients to state their point of view, to talk clearly and in plain language and to embrace the modern information age by having a 24/7 approach to communication – be that meeting the demands of the media or taking part in social networks,” she added.
Part of Bell Pottinger, the number one communications group in the UK, Good Relations established its office in Cardiff in 1989 to service the newly-won Welsh Development Agency Account. Since then Good Relations has been instrumental in helping to transform Wales into a vibrant and confident nation through its involvement in a range of milestone developments. These include devising and implementing strong public and media relations strategies to harness widespread public support across Wales, which in turn attracted Lottery funding first for the landmark Millennium Stadium and subsequently for the iconic Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay. Good Relations also launched the information campaign to explain how to vote in the first Assembly elections.
In keeping with schemes that have helped shape Cardiff, Good Relations has most recently helped leading property developer PMG communicate the story behind another iconic landmark, Cardiff’s new stadium shared by Cardiff City and Cardiff Blues.
Other current work includes explaining the benefits of television Switchover with Digital UK, helping Local Health Boards through NHS restructuring, highlighting the achievements of housing association Linc-Cymru as it develops new and innovative services and conducting a campaign for a state-of-the-art Energy from Waste plant for Viridor. Other prestigious clients include, St David’s Foundation Hospice Care, several NHS Trusts and the Welsh Medicines Partnership.
“All the team have a passion for communications, for delivering effective solutions for our clients and for doing the basics brilliantly. Whether we are called on to do a media relations campaign, public affairs, crisis handling, presentation training, event management or a combination of all of them, we always put our clients’ needs first. It’s a constantly changing, always surprising, never dull and great fun profession to be in. As for Good Relations Wales, bring on the next twenty years!” said Helen Birtwhistle.
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Notes for journalists
The Team
Helen Birtwhistle, Managing Director, Wales
Helen Birtwhistle joined Good Relations over 18 years ago, having previously worked as a journalist and an NHS manager. She is particularly experienced in reputation and crisis management and community relations.
Noreen Bray OBE, Chair Wales
Prior to joining Good Relations and establishing the Wales office, Noreen was co-presenter of BBC Wales’ nightly news programme ‘Wales Today’ and reporter on the current affairs series ‘Week In Week Out’. She is a former Equal Opportunities Commissioner for Wales (1990-1995) and was awarded an OBE in 1996 for her services to equal opportunities.
Paul Shackson, Account Director
An experienced Account Director who returned to his native Wales to join Good Relations in 2004 after four and a half years in London. He has an impressive track record in handling corporate, consumer and business to business public relations accounts and is experienced in running dedicated press offices for clients.
Heather Martin, Account Manager
Heather Martin joined Good Relations as an Account Manager following her relocation to Wales from Norwich. After cutting her teeth in the PR industry working in a busy full-service advertising agency, Heather brings invaluable experience of developing integrated campaigns for her clients, winning Silver for Best Integrated Campaign at the CIPR’s industry awards in 2007.
Siôn Owen, Senior Account Executive
Since joining Good Relations in early 2008, Siôn Owen has made significant contributions to a number of high-profile national and regional public affairs and public relations campaigns. He has been called to the Bar by Inner Temple and previously worked as a researcher for Llanelli MP Nia Griffith.
Sara Siddall, Office Manager
Sara has been with Good Relations since 1999 after working as a NHS administrator for five years at one of South Wales' leading hospitals. A lynchpin of our successful events management team, Sara is also our first point of contact for clients and journalists alike.
Elfyn Thomas, Senior Consultant
A former BBC TV News business correspondent, a Welsh speaker and former award winning journalist, Elfyn Thomas has helped leading public and private sector companies and organisations in Wales and beyond to communicate effectively with the public, the media and with opinion formers.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is about positively addressing our environmental and social impacts, and doing the best for our employees, our clients and our investors. Our three CSR focus areas are environment, people and community
Avoiding treating CSR as a box-ticking exercise, we have made it part of the culture by embedding environmentally and socially responsible practice from the ground up, encouraging employees, suppliers and clients to take small, achievable steps. With an initial focus on environmental issues, we are now striving to boost our performance in our other CSR areas
We are delighted that our CSR achievements have received external recognition from a number of sources:
– Chime Communications plc has been listed on the FTSE4Good Index since 2008
– We were awarded a Business in the Community (BITC) Big Tick in 2008 and reaccredited in 2009
– HRH Prince of Wales highlighted Chime Communications as the example of environmental business best practice in his BITC May Day Summit speech in 2009
– Noreen Bray, Good Relations Wales’ Chair was the Prince's Ambassador 2007 for Business in the Community in Wales.
A Carbon Neutral Company
Chime Communications plc made the commitment to go carbon neutral in May 2006 and achieved carbon neutral status on 1st January 2007.
Climate change is the biggest challenge facing us today. Chime’s approach to environmental management, and the decision to go carbon neutral, is therefore driven by an acknowledgement that, like any company, we make a contribution to climate change and that we must take responsibility for reducing this contribution. As a leading communications company we have a particular responsibility in enabling environmental messages to be heard, but recognise the starting point for all of this is our own actions
