#132 Happy New Year

From Sydney Australia

Happy New Year to all Anne’s Facebook Fans, Blog Followers, and the web site watchers.

In Australia, it is already the New Year and for everyone who celebrates later today Happy New Year; we will have a special announcement for you on the 1st of January.

#131 Countdown!

Well it’s been a nice holiday break and we now look forward to the New Year.

2010 will be a special year, as it is the year for the launch of Anne’s new book 'Beginnings'. If you missed the video with Anne discussing why it is called Beginnings, watch it now. It’s referred to in blog #129.

Be sure to be on-line early in the New Year as we will be revealing exactly when Anne’s book is to be released, and we promise you, this will be very interesting! There is a special appeal as to the time!

Reaction to Anne’s app for the iPhone and iPod touch has been terrific and by taking advantage of this FREE application those with these smart devices can keep in touch whilst on the move.

Anne will be back in the studio early in January to finish designing the book, and to add the finishing touches to what promises to be a very exciting and beautiful work. We will soon start to release information on some of the images, so you know what to expect.

Two countdowns to think about now!

One to the New Year, then the next, the release date of Anne's new book!!

#130 An extra “Free” treat for the Holiday Season

For those with an iPhone, we have just launched an "Anne Geddes App" for the Apple iPhone and the Apple iPod touch available from Apple iTunes.

This is very exciting for those who own one of these products, and it’s FREE.

There are many advantages, and allows access to the website, the blog, Twitter, Facebook, videos, galleries and icards whilst away from your computer.

We always like to ensure that the Fans of Anne are able to take advantage of the best in technology, to access information and images about Anne, and as we mentioned, it’s FREE.

For those who have not seen the video posted in the last blog make sure you take a look. Anne’s new book, "Beginnings", with it’s wonderful, all new images will be something special to look forward to in 2010.

So for everyone celebrating this time of year, best wishes, we hope that everyone has a safe and happy holiday season.

We at Anne Geddes, would wish that children around the world, in the many countries that Anne’s images are appreciated, are looked after, and looked out for, so that they may enjoy a safe, happy and loving life.

Best wishes to all of you.

#129 Today is the day.

We are launching a video today that is exclusive to Anne’s Facebook Fans, her blog and web site fans and to the Twitter team.

Anne’s new book was introduced at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October to some in the publishing world, but has not been released to anyone outside of that. Today, we are showing a video of Anne that reveals the name of her new book that will be released in the Fall 2010.

A special addition that we have included (the special addition that we talked about in previous blogs) is two extra versions of the video that carry sub titles, one in Spanish and one in French. They may not, in some instances, be regionally correct but hopefully enough to be well understood.

As many of Anne’s fans speak in a variety of languages, we thought that we would trial just two to see how popular this innovation would be.

Naturally we realize that these are only two languages, but if they prove popular we will ensure that we do our best to include more translations next time.

So let us know what you think? As we said, this is just a trial, we are sorry if we did not select your particular language, and we will do our best to make it better.

Make sure you send out the message about the new title to your friends, you are the first to know, and invite them along in the New Year. We will have more videos revealing the content of the book and many other interesting items to blog about.

#128 Tomorrow is the day

We will be able to share with all of you the launch of the name of Anne's new book.

We have a video prepared and also have a extra element which we hope is going to be helpful for many.

So keep on line and we will see what tomorrow brings

#127 It’s coming together.

Time for an update.

Next week we will finally be able to show you a video of Anne talking about her new book. It’s taken a while, but we wanted to do something extra. This will be interesting, because if this move is popular we can do more.

The calendars for 2011 (the ones on sale next year, we have to work that far ahead) will be ready today for sending out to our joint publishers around the world. So you will have a really lovely selection next calendar season. But Anne also has calendars in the shops now for 2010 so you can keep up your support.

The new book is taking shape with image selection. There will be some interesting news about this early in the New Year. We will keep you advised.

More soon!

Don’t forget Anne’s Limited Edition Prints, they are a gift for a lifetime!

#126 More news on the child protection

As there was a nice reaction in the 'Like" box re the last blog, (#125) we thought you would like to hear about another programme that may have interest around the globe.

The programme that is happening "down under" is called SOSO. It is also a NAPCAN program, both effective and innovative, that brings together community, government and the digital media industry as partners to keep young internet users safe online.

SOSO stands for Smart Online, Safe Offline. (http://www.soso.org.au/)

SOSO exists because in Australia:-

• 93% of children and teenagers use the internet;
• 84% of children, some as young as 8 years old, are linked into social networking sites every day;

• technology like instant messaging, email, mobile phones and voice over internet protocol can all be used with the aim of compromising children's safety, either through bullying, predation or online grooming;

• SOSO's campaigns will reach approximately 2 million children aged 9-15 yrs and improve their awareness, attitude and behaviour about online safety.

SOSO's first campaign educated kids about the dangers of online predation. Reaching over 80% of its target market, an independent evaluation found the campaign to have achieved statistically significant shifts in awareness, attitude and intended behaviour.

Take a look if you wish and let us know what you think.

In 2010 the Geddes Philanthropic Trust is also hoping to develop a separate section that will allow you as Fans to be more involved and to be able to assist if you want to do so.


More on Anne's new book soon.

#125 Results from a survey soon.

If you look back at blog #84 you would have seen a message relating to Anne and her husband Kel, and their support of the prevention of child abuse and neglect since the launch of Anne's 1st calendar in 1992. The Geddes Philanthropic Trust has over this time been able to contribute a significant sum of money to assist in this cause. 



In that blog, we told you that NAPCAN (The National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect) in Australia had initiated a national online survey as a key element in the campaign to engage the whole community in action to prevent child abuse and neglect.

When the survey closed on 8 November, it had:

1. encouraged 22,000 people to think about child abuse and neglect – its causes and its prevention;
2. provided extensive data to help us take effective action in the future;
3. built relationships with hundreds of businesses and government organisations across the country who are not normally involved in discussing issues of child abuse and neglect;
4. created the biggest ever database of its type.

At this stage a detailed analysis of the survey results is under way.

Even though this was an Australian initiative, we are confident that many will be interested in the analysis. We will keep you all posted!

Thanks to those in Australia who helped support this survey. Everyone can help in some way.

#124 A reminder to be careful!

Sometimes on the Facebook page you may see other photographers trying to use Anne’s page, and her fans, to advertise themselves.

This is just to say, that Anne does not endorse anyone else to be able to work with babies and children, and you must use your own judgement as to the quality of the work and the environment in which the work is offered.

This is not to say anything negative about anyone else, it just says that anyone who advertises their own work, by trying to trade off Anne’s images on her official site, is not endorsed by Anne.

#123 Elements of Nature

We have mentioned our association with The Royal Botanic Gardens Foundation in Sydney, but may not have mentioned before that the Australian Museum in Sydney have also very kindly helped out with Anne’s new book by lending Anne a couple of their collections. (a mystery!!!)

Anne had the good fortune to visit one of the heads of departments at the museum and survey the vast collection – We cannot tell you what the collection is because that would be revealing too much about what Anne is up to at the studio! All will be divulged of course a little later.

The people we are dealing with at the museum are very interesting, passionate about their profession, and when you let them know how fascinated you are in what they do, they really come into their own.

We are finding that we could sit and talk to them for hours on end, which of course we can’t, as it is we are probably taking up too much of their time. On the other hand, they too are very interested in what Anne is up to in her studio.

Anne has found these conversations with these scientists to be extremely interesting and has learned fascinating pieces of information from them. Anne's passion about these various aspects of Nature is reflected in her photographs and her creativity.

The book is really taking shape, and we know that as we reveal more, then you too will become even more interested.

As promised before in previous blogs, the name of the book is coming, we are working on a video with a twist and it’s taking longer than we thought, but it won’t be too long now.

#122 Something you already know about???

We know that all of Anne’s Facebook Fans naturally know this, as the image is on the home page, (scroll down!!) and all of Anne’s website fans know this, as it is also on the home page????? But for those blog followers, who have not visited either site (impossible we know!!!), the latest Limited Edition release is Danielle as a Peony Angel, which is the first color Limited Edition Print to be revealed.

Danielle is the first image to be released from Anne's Premium Portfolio, being a selection of some of Anne's personal favorites.

Years have been spent with Anne's specialist color print expert Relda, in mastering the perfect combination of materials and technology to achieve the depth, richness and subtlety in Anne's archival digital inkjet Limited Edition Prints.

It’s a well known, favourite image of Anne’s, and would look really lovely on anyone’s wall at home.

#121 It's that time of the year

As the holiday season arrives and as you know many people are decorating trees for this season.

As part of our annual commitment, Anne’s staff in Auckland New Zealand, get together and go to Ronald McDonald House to decorate the tree with some of Anne’s plush and decorations.

As many of you would know, Ronald McDonald House is a facility that provides comfort and care to children and their families whilst their children undergo, often times, very intensive medical treatment.

It's nice to be able to help.

#120 Anne opens the exhibition

As mentioned in the last blog Anne officially opened an exhibition of photography by the staff of the Royal Botanic Gardens at the Gardens in Sydney.

Before Anne spoke, one of the indigenous people of Australia, Clarence, gave a welcome on behalf of the Cadigal, the clan who are the traditional owners of the land the Gardens are on; part of this welcome was playing the didgeridoo. The video I hope shows this off well enough for all to see and hear. (what is a didgeridoo:-The didgeridoo (also known as a didjeridu or didge) is a wind instrument of the Indigenous Australians (or aboriginal Australians) . Sometimes described as a natural wooden trumpet or "drone.)

Anne then opened the exhibition and met those attending.

A little more on Mount Annan Botanic Gardens where Anne was looking at seeds with an idea for her new book.

The NSW Seedbank is a facility for storing seed collected from plants throughout Australia, with a focus on NSW native species and threatened species. There are currently more than 8700 collections of fully documented wild sourced seed held in the Seedbank.

The Seedbank was established in 1986 as an integral part of Mount Annan Botanic Garden, the Australian plant garden of the Botanic Gardens Trust. Its initial role was to provide wild collected seed for the development of this new Garden, particularly the Garden’s major collections of wattles, eucalypts and plants in the family Proteaceae. These collections were generally in small quantity but covered a very wide range of species and localities.

It's a very worthwhile project and one which Anne supports.

More soon on Limited Editions