The background to our county day is provided on the home page but, if you deal with us, you will be talking to Jane Hunt, MD of Catapult PR, who conceived the idea of Northumberland Day and originally drove it with the passionate support of the then General Manager of Langley Castle Hotel, Anton Phillips and Langley Castle’s American owner, Dr Stuart Madnick.
Anton retired shortly after the idea was conceived but still passionately supports the idea from his home in Spain.
Northumberland Day has won many marketing and PR awards, because it has had tremendous successes over the years and been filled with exciting concepts and ideas. It strives to bring the Northumberland community together in one shared celebration of its identity, culture, landscape, past and present, and all aspects of daily life.
Northumberland Day has been embraced by many schools, who recognise that it is an initiative through which to teach young minds about their local area and its history, creating a real sense of pride in the citizens of tomorrow. Many schools enthusiastically integrate Northumberland Day into their lesson plans and create special memories amongst their pupils.
But Northumberland Day is also about businesses demonstrating their commitment to their grassroots local community, by getting involved, whether that is through staging an event, decorating their premises, or sponsoring an initiative.
What are Northumberland Day’s aims
- To instil pride in the county of Northumberland amongst citizens of all ages
- To seek to ensure that nobody is excluded from the celebration, whether you are 9 months old or 90. (Anyone, from any demographic, can do that every simple thing of waving a flag, whether it is made from material or hand-coloured on a bit of paper)
- To turn the county red and yellow, from top to bottom, when the day comes along.
- To showcase the passion of Northumbrians (we drive tremendous traffic to our website and engagement on social media)
- To help create economic benefits for those staging events within their own communities and businesses, to help mark the day.
- To ensure that Northumberland Day is embedded in the county calendar for ever more and that celebrating it becomes a way of life.
Helping us with these goals is our mascot, Northumbear, created in April 2019 after a design brief was given to the very talented, Sooz Perry, of BearTonBorough, at the North Tourism Show earlier that year. Since then, we have launched his brand of friends, NElephant, Oswaldain and Heartley, who capture children’s hearts and help us communicate the message. Read more about this little band of brothers (and sisters) here.