By Engin Dervişağa…..
Here at BRTK, our team contribute many weekly articles to promote our TV and Radio shows thorough cyprusscene.com and by popular demand we are repeating our Vox Pop show when we visited the home of Chris Elliott and Margaret Sheard again to discover how our articles are received by their world wide audience.
Chris reflected on how over the past 4 years since they moved away from writing in local english language newspapers, how the many articles and reviews that are sent to them, have now gained a far larger outreach on the internet which in turn has encouraged many more people and organisations to seek their help and support.
Not bad for two retired people with an all consuming hobby which is proving so successful in sharing news that it has even outlived other commercial online news media and newspapers.
If that was not enough to tax anyone’s time and patience, Chris told me he was asked to take over North Cyprus Forum.net during the latter part of last year following the death of his friend and mentor, Nigel Watson in 2014 and this has proved to be an incredible project to rebuild the forum alongside a blogging system into which cyprusscene.com and other websites and writers share their articles.
Chris said, we have tried to maintain Nigel’s dream of a friendly forum and it is still early days with a small sweet forum membership developing and for every 1 member registering, we have turned away 3 undesirable or suspicious applications with the use of a very effective security system and great help from one of the forum’s original moderators..
I asked Chris again as I have asked so many times before, why does he do it and he said “We are just the bearer of news and reviews of others which we want to share widely for the benefit of those it is about and also for the enjoyment of our readers no matter what website or social media page the articles are placed in. Many people say to me, is your operation a commercial one and I say no, we do not take money and to consider starting a company just to earn money through advertising and promotional activities is not worth the efforts as others have proved who are no longer publishing.
Many of our readers and BRT2 viewers will have seen many of the fine promotional articles and reviews written by Margaret Sheard and she told me about their desire to make available as much helpful information as possible to their worldwide readers and that both she and Chris have contacts with a number of TRNC ministries from which they gain and publish information.
One of Margaret’s current projects is writing promotional articles about the Cyprus Rock project which is almost a one man task by David Littlemore to have a 3 ton piece of Cyprus Rock which has been shipped from Cyprus to the UK and will be used as the central feature of a memorial in the National Memorial Arboretum to all of the British Servicemen and also UK Cyprus Police who lost their lives during the Cyprus Emergency. To read more of this project please click here.
Margaret also compiles and maintains a weekly events calendar which is shared on websites and social media pages.
I have met a number of the writers for cyprusscene.com in the past and I was delighted to meet Steven Roberts who moved to the TRNC during the latter part of last year and has already written a number of very interesting and successful articles about local events and reviews.
One of his projects was a series of articles over a few weeks recording how parts of Iskele town centre were being turned into a film set. The Turkish film director Ali Avci was in the TRNC making a new film called ‘Reis’ (Leader) documenting the life of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Iskele was being transformed to look like the Kasimpasa district of Istanbul, where Erdogan spent his life in the 1950’s. The film could not be made in Istanbul because so much development has taken place in the last couple of decades.
He also wrote a series of articles about driving from the UK to the TRNC with a lot of very helpful information for others who may wish to do the same and is looking long term to write more and also try to raise readers’ awareness and promote the Karpaz region in which he lives.
Please tune in to my Vox Pop show on BRT2 Television on Sunday 19th June at 15.00pm to learn all about cyprusscene.com and North Cyprus Forum.net and this show will be repeated on Wednesday 22nd June at 11.00am.
To go direct to BRT 2 TV to watch these shows by live streaming on your PC at Cyprus local time click here and if you want to learn more of Bayrak Radio and Television click here
If you wish you can also watch a number of my past Vox Pop shows which can be selected for viewing by clicking here
For Radio Lovers do also tune in and join me on BRT Radio on Saturday at 19.00pm for my programme Top Twenty which is compiled by DJ Bora and this show is repeated on Sunday at 15.00pm. We are transmitting this on 6.150 MH/z. Short-wave, 87.8 and 105 FM Stereo or tune click here
