Beata Palis of the Convention Bureau of the Municipality of Kraków was present at this years INMA/OPA conference in Liverpool and invited about 200 attendees to visit her city and Malopolska region in Poland.

Kraków’s event is scheduled to September 29 – October 1, 2010. During the prestigious three-day hundreds of media people from all over Europe will gather at the capital of Malopolska to participate in lectures, debates and workshops on the latest challenges and trends in the media, as well as to exchange ideas, opinions with colleagues from other countries.

Successful bid to host this conference was carried out just by the Convention Bureau, supported by the Mayor of Kraków, Marshal of Voivodship Malopolska and editors of news media headquartered in Kraków: newspapers Dziennik Polski, Gazeta Krakowska, local edition of Gazeta Wyborcza, internet portal Interia.pl and radio station RMF FM.

Ms. Palis promoted at Liverpool her city and the region as a dream place for international meetings: the town has not only the rich history, charming architecture and hospitable residents, but also a convenient network of direct flights, European class conference venues, accommodation and catering.

At an exhibition accompanying the Liverpool conference, the participants might see 15 more reasons to visit this town, learn what must-sights during a short 3-day visit and why you should stay there longer. Editors and publishers had also an opportunity to taste the specialties of traditional cuisine, including delicious honey from hives in Malopolska.

Liverpool: Rachel Armstrong of Dainik Jagran and Alison Fennah of European Interactive Advertising Association learn more about Kraków from Beata Palis, its convention bureau manager

Ms. Palis met also lord mayor of Liverpool Mike Storey — whose efforts helped to establish there a modern BT Convention Center — and Carol O’Reilly, a manager of Convention Bureau in Liverpool. They were talking about Liverpool’s experience with the use of the center to promote the city.

BT Convention Center in Liverpool was opened in April 2008. In the first year it hosted more than 200 events attended by 71 thousand delegates. The Center has a total of 18 rooms. The largest auditorium can accommodate 1350 persons.

Similar center is being constructed in Krakow at the moment and it is scheduled to be open by 2013. The city and the region are hoping that the center will attract thousands of visitors from home and abroad, who fill up the local hotels, restaurants, pubs, visit museums, theaters and an opera, and at least some of them will stay longer to see the Tatra Mountains, the salt mines in Wieliczka or pay a memorable visit to the former Nazi camp — now museum Auschwitz.

Watch video about Kraków’s mysteries and attractions:

Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz (in the centre of the photo), who is now cardinal of Cracow, Poland, was John Paul’s private secretary and closest aide for nearly 40 years, including all of his 27 years as pontiff.

The documentary, called “Testimony“, or ”A Life With Karol”, is a film version of a memoir released in 2007 under the same title. The movie was co-produced by a Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.

As forum4editors.com informed earlier, the movie will make its official premiere at the Vatican on Thursday night (October 16) in the presence of Pope Benedict XVI. The next day, Oct. 17, the movie will hit theatres in John Paul II’s homeland.

“It was my duty toward John Paul. I had to pay back his goodness, which put up with me for 39 years,” Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz told a Vatican press conference introducing the movie on Wednesday, Oct. 15 (see the photo above: Dziwisz is in the centre, on his right hand sits a film producer Przemyslaw Hauser, on his left hand – Vatican’s spokesman Federico Lombardi).

Assasination attempt that the Pope kept in secret

In the movie Cardinal Dziwisz discloses for the first time new facts about the second assasination attempt.

On May 12, 1982, the pope was visiting the shrine city of Fatima in Portugal to give thanks for surviving a first assassination attempt a year earlier on May 13, 1981, when he was shot in St Peter’s Square by Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca.

A crazed ultra-conservative Spanish priest, Juan Fernandez Krohn, lunged at the pope with a dagger and was knocked to the ground by police and arrested. The fact that the knife actually reached the pope and cut him was not known until now.

“I can now reveal that the Holy Father was wounded. When we got back to the room (in the Fatima sanctuary complex) there was blood,” Dziwisz says in the documentary, according to Reuters (via ABC News).

The pope carried on with the trip without disclosing his wound.

Krohn was arrested and served several years in a Portuguese prison before being expelled from the country.

Basic facts about the new documentary

Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz’s tale is set against never-before-published documentary materials and photographs from the Vatican’s archives and private collections.

These are supplemented by poignantly re-enacted scenes featuring original objects used daily by Karol Wojtyla, such as a portable altar which always accompanied him during tourist excursions when he was a bishop; his own liturgical vessels, cassock and belt.

The makers of the movie who worked at his house in Wadowice, in which the future pope had been raised, had an impression they were dealing with real relics, according to the official movie’s website.

All elements of the movie are brought together by the narrator, the British actor Michael York (Cabaret, The Three Musketeers, Jesus of Nazareth).

Work on the movie lasted almost one year, and shooting began in autumn 2007. The film was shot on location in Vatican City, Cracow, and Wadowice. The dramatised reconstructions of landmark events from the life of Karol Wojty?a were shot on locations across Europe.

The music that opens and closes the film is composed by the internationally renowned composer and Academy Award-winner, Vangelis (Chariots of Fire, Blade Runner, 1492: Conquest of Paradise). The remaining original score of Testimony has been composed by Polish musician, Robert Janson.

The movie has been produced by TBA Group in association with Vatican’s publishing house Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Poland’s Agora (publisher of Gazeta Wyborcza), NewCast/ZenithOptimedia Group and Network Production.

“The movie is meant to be a bridge which unites the testimony of Cardinal Dziwisz to the context of the man who became pope,” said producer Przemyslaw Hauser during a press conference in Vatican.

Catholics still waiting for a saint

Cardinal Dziwisz told reporters that he prayed the pope would be made a saint in his lifetime.

“This is our great desire, and for that we pray and we hope it will happen during our lifetime,” he said, but added: “Canonization doesn’t create a saint, it is only recognition” that he is a saint”.

Msgr. Slawomir Oder, the priest in charge of promoting Pope John Paul’s cause, told reporters in Rome Oct. 13 that the cause was proceeding “with seriousness and rigor.”

He said Pope Benedict XVI told him many times to “do it quickly, but well, without irregularities.”

Further information about a movie

• Browse the official website of the movie ”Testimony” (in English).
• Learn more about the movie’s creators and read interviews with them (in English).
• Look at the photos gallery from the shooting ground.
• Watch a trailer of the movie (in Polish):

The “tie” (or knot) refers to the attachment by newsmedia professionals to the newsmedia industry and is presented each year by the International Newsmedia Marketing Association.

Nearly 200 delegates from 25 counties had assembled for the association’s annual European conference which covered the latest trends in newspapers, online and mobile.

Herman Verwimp, past winner of the award from Gijbels Group, Voeren, Belgium, presented the award saying:

“Every year, the European division of INMA honours one person who has contributed great value to the newsmedia world. Much of the work in the organisation is done by volunteers…people with little time in their busy agendas yet they still are willing to spend time and energy with and for INMA. After discussion with former recipients of this award, we came to one name.

This year’s recipient is a person who is always ready to help when a volunteer is needed. He has become one of the most well known names and faces in the newsmedia world. He’s super creative…which makes him ideal in his current job within one of the faster moving areas of our industry, mobile.

He became the association’s European President, currently serves on the international board, has hosted an INMA European conference in Brighton and will again next year in his home town of Liverpool, England.

Tonight we honour a truly magical man in the select group of Golden Tie award winners. One of the most charming people I know, one of the best volunteers inma ever had. If you don’t know him, grab your chance and talk to him: he’s a treasure full of ideas.

For those who don’t know who I am talking of, the Golden Tie Award winner for 2008 is, from the UK, Mark Challinor.”

Mr. Challinor responded by saying:

“The newsmedia industry had been a good friend to me over the years. Having worked inside newspapers for over 20 years and now in the digital world, in mobile, working with newspapers, I have acquired a huge network of friends on all continents: friends who would take the time for you and share their experiences and thoughts without any hesitation. That is what is important. Sharing ideas with like minded people! That’s what INMA is all about!

The network is the main thing I have taken from my time as a volunteer with the association and I intend to enhance that even more in the coming years, starting with next year’s conference in Liverpool, next October. I would like to thank the judging panel for voting for me. I am truly honoured to be given this award”.

About Mark Challinor

He is a high profile, respected marketing & promotions professional within the international newspaper industry. He started his business career in direct marketing, working on below-the-line campaigns for diverse clients such as B&Q stores and The Conservative Party in the UK.

He joined the Liverpool Echo and Daily Post as Marketing Manager in 1987, where he spent 8 years developing the brands and their various promotional/marketing campaigns in his hometown, Liverpool.

Mark came to work and live in London in 1995 where he joined Thomson Regional Newspapers as Group Promotions Manager: the group at the time, being the UK’s largest publishers of regional press. There he provided a national consultancy role to TRN centres across Britain on all promotional matters, developing newspaper sales/advertising revenues and was responsible for the training of centre staff in marketing/promotional areas.

He went on to ultimately spend over 10 years in UK national newspapers working as Promotions Director at Mirror Group Newspapers (The Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror) and Group Promotions Manager at Associated Newspapers (The Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard and Metro). Here, Mark was responsible for many high profile promotional campaigns and interaction techniques on some of the world’s largest newspapers. At Associated, he began to develop mobile marketing techniques into the Group’s promotional mix, which was where his original interest in the mobile space began.

Currently, he is Managing Director of g8wave Ltd, an integrated mobile media company with offices based in London and Boston. The company was created by the 40-year-old, Phoenix Media which is an entrepreneurial, converged media organisation, based in Boston, with interests in publishing, radio, printing, Internet, audiotext and mobile.

Five promotions that Mr. Challinor is most proud of

forum4editors.com asked this year’s Golden Tie award winner about the Top list of promotions that he carried at newspapers.

Mark Challinor responded:

“Difficult to say what was the best or indeed proudest but… here are some perhaps interesting points.

1. Launched the first ever bingo game in regional press in the 80s. Liverpool Echo.

2. Launched the first ever newspaper fantasy football game in Europe! Liverpool Echo. 80s

3. Ran the first ever “free cd” offer (free inside the paper!). Evening standard. 90s.

4. Did the original feasibility studies for launching Metro in the UK. 90s.

5. Was the pioneer in the mobile space bringing newspapers and mobile together for the first time.”

The European Football Championships in Austria and Switzerland have stimulated more promotions and advertising from all kinds of different products.

Newspapers have made editorial content on different platforms and made promotions and special editions. Has this stimulated extra sales? Did it bring extra advertising? What are the lessons learned?

In conjunction with the INMA Europe Conference in Vienna in October 1-3, the International Newsmedia Marketing Association wants to find the best practices and bring them together in one forum.

Reward your staff’s hard work, share your best practices, and benchmark against your peers throughout Europe by entering the competition. The Top 5 entries will be honoured at the INMA Europe Conference in Vienna – and includes free or discounted access to major association events in North America and Europe.

Links:
More information about the competition.
More information about the INMA European Conference Experience in Vienna.