Well the team managed to successfully complete the Krypton Factor Assault Course in North Yorkshire yesterday. We climbed a 40 foot tree, zipped down a wire, jumped into muddy pits up to our waists, rolled under logs, ran through mud, crawled through tunnels, swung on rope-swings and generally tired ourselves out completely for the Direct Marketing Association. We combatted fear (mostly mine) and raised £600 for Help for Heroes (the overall event raised around £4k). A great day had by all.

Amanda McDonald

This week I've been judging the creative work from Advertising students across Europe for the Ad Venture competition for the EFCCE (the European Foundation for Commercial Communications Education). It's been a fascinating experience to be on the receiving end of lots of proposals, and to see how these talented students tackled the brief. Some of the campaign ideas are fantastic, but what was really interesting is that a brief can be tackled in so many dramatically different ways.

It's a great competition and shows us, the jury, that there are lots of work-ready undergraduates just waiting to slot into our industry. Plus, there's a few lessons to be learnt for us in how we present our ideas...

Amanda McDonald

A new website has been launched in David's constituency of Broxtowe in the run up to the General Election. broxtowe2010.co.uk will keep track of events and news over the four weeks of the election campaign.