We've just had our first delivery of fluorescent, reflective lanyards which we will be launching on the website to sell shortly. The latest craze at school is for kids to have a tamagotchi on a lanyard - so we thought 'why not design a high vis version'. So it's fluorescent orange (for daytime visibility) and then for night turn it round the other way and it is reflective.

In case you don't know what a lanyard is, it's a ribbon you put round your neck. It has a clip on the end which you can attach things too, eg for work ID cards, conference name badges. Also popular for holding iPods, keys, mobile phones, etc. For sport or leisure use for whistle, stopwatch, drinks bottle, compass etc.

Ours have got safety breaks in the back so they come apart if pulled hard or caught (important for kids and cyclists).

At night the grey/silver bits are reflective and so look bright white.

There...sales plug of the day over with!!!!

The Reception class children at our local school went home with a free reflector each yesterday.
This was part of the big UK-wide scheme by the Nationwide building society to make them more visible to traffic after dark. It's a great idea (they won a big road safety award for it) and has helped get across the 'be safe be seen' message for night time.

In Scandinavian countries the children attach reflectors to a string. The other end of the string is fastened to the inside of a pocket. When they go out after dark they pull the reflector out and let it swing so it catches the light from car headlights.

These reflectors come in different colours and some of them are fluorescent yellow - this is the best colour as it shows up really well in daylight as well as after dark. If you didn't get one from your school or you lost yours you can buy the same type from us as well!!!

I've turned green....This afternoon I helped out at the after school 'Green Club'. In the warmer months it's 'Gardening Club' but now it's a bit chilly for that so they renamed it Green Club. The kids do craft activities indoors to do with the environment, recycling and getting more people to walk etc. In some of the sessions they'll be doing things like Park & Stride posters and whatever else they want to do to promote all their walk to school schemes.

The ET (local paper) did another really good feature on BrightKidz.

It was all go on the media front today as the production company for a Channel Four documentary arrived to prepare for filming tomorrow. I had 'Krypton Factor' type fun (remember that?) trying to put together a wheelchair we'd borrowed from the hospital (to enable the cameraman to film at a child's level on the Walking Bus).

Turning into a bit of a saddo Celebrity Big Brother addict; soon be time to get my fix so bye for now.

Tales from the Walking Bus #2 - Visit from our MP
Today Philip Hollobone our MP came along on our Walking Bus for the second time. It's a good idea to invite your MP along and let them know what you're up to if you've got a Walking Bus. They can tell others about your scheme which helps raise the profile. Also another excuse for a bit more coverage from the local paper - thank you to the guys and gals at the Evening Telegraph (Northants News)!! The photo of the kids wearing multi-fluorescent colour high vis waistcoats should look good in print.

My fingers nearly fell off today. I spent nearly an hour outside in the freezing cold and drizzle doing photos for our new 'special packs' for Walking Buses and class trips.

I could call it a photoshoot to make it sound glam. But what it actually meant was me out in the garden trying to cover a wet, leafstrewn plastic table with the least creased tablecloth I could find to use as a backdrop. Trying to stop the sheets of Walking Bus stickers flying away was another challenge. Bet David Bailey doesn't have those problems.

At least we've got the Walking Bus special pack on the website now (smartened up the photo first) and the Class set pack details should be published early next week.

Had a tear-around afternoon to factory and printers before parking in the local pub car park to Park & Stride and pick the kids up from school and hand out Walking Bus annual registration forms to parents.

No guilt at all about the teatime fish and chips - deserve!

Hey Wow! Someone's put a comment on my Blog! V. exciting for a new blogger like me. Thanks Corinne (must admit she's a friend of mine who I know because she runs another local Walking Bus).

Time to put the tinsel away here at Safe Kids Walking. It's been a good break but when you're not doing the daily walk to school you start to feel lethargic (yes I know.....I've been a slob, I admit it, could have done lots but TV was calling - not v good role model for the kids). At least we had good fun out in the snow the day after Boxing Day. As you can see our BrightKidz fluorescent pink fleece was tested out in the snow!

Last year when it snowed we re-named our Walking Bus the Skating Bus and someone even carried their bags on a pull-along plastic sledge. Our pushchair buggy wheels couldn't cope with the deep snow so we borrowed a 3-wheeler one for the following day. On snowy or icy days I think people must be mad to drive if they can walk - who wants to be scraping ice of the car first thing in the morning if you don't have to?

More snow forecast for the weekend....

Tales from the Walking Bus #1: Walking Bus to the Rescue.
Last week on a cold and icy morning we were walking along to school as normal. Then we saw a lady who had slipped over and hurt herself badly. A couple of the mums went to help her and call an ambulance. Their own children joined us on the Walking Bus so they could get to school while their mums helped the lady (they were already registered to join).

Of course someone would have helped the lady anyway but the Walking Bus made it much easier for the assistants as they didn't have to worry about getting their kids to school. It probably gave the lady more dignity not having kids standing around watching her too.

Hubby was watching Match of the Day on TV last weekend. Three kids in the crowd were wearing yellow high visibility waistcoats....and the camera focused on them for ages.

Moral of this story is...if you take your kids to a football match that's being televised and you want a better chance of seeing them on TV in the crowd, make sure they're wearing a fluorescent, reflective waistcoat!!!

Today a BBC television crew rolled up to film us for a news item about BrightKidz for Look East, our regional BBC news programme. Massive excitement for the children of course!! We had the perfect setting because we were outside the school and it was getting near to twilight so the children's fluorescent colours showed up really well, as they are meant to when daylight is fading.

Nowadays lots of the local children wear high-vis when they walk to and from school. Admitedly even more of them did today than usual (the power of TV!). I hope more of them will get the 'high-vis habit' and wear it regularly especially at this time of year when it gets dark so early.

I think our new fluorescent pink reflective sashes will be popular with the older girls. The boys like winding the fluorescent yellow reflective sashes around their rucksacks.

Another use for high-vis I've thought of today..... if you're in a crowd being filmed for TV and you want to be spotted just wear some high-vis. Best if it's in a colour other than fluorescent yellow otherwise you will blend in with the police and security guards. Not a good idea if you are an extra in something like Lord of the Rings as I don't think they had high-vis waistcoats in Tolkein's day.

Bbbbbrrrrrrr.....it's freezing today. Despite the cold weather our Walking Bus turnout was really good as so many people have just got into the habit. The kids (not just on the Walking Bus) were excited as today they were given their WOW badges for Walking On Wednesdays in November (a scheme by Living Streets).

Yesterday it was so dark as the children came out of school. At least more and more of them are wearing their high vis waistcoats as they come out, rather than just in the morning. After school is when they really need to be bright nowadays. It helps having the teachers reminding them to put them on!

Welcome to the first Blog from BrightKidz and Safe Kids Walking. This is a busy time of year for us and we've got lots of news on walk to school schemes and high vis for kids, so I'd better getting on with telling you about it....

High Vis Workshop
On Wednesday I visited a local primary school to try out our new School High Vis Resource pack. I ran a high vis workshop for 3 classes of Year One pupils. We're trying to get across the message that fluorescent colours help you to be seen in daytime and towards dusk and reflective things help you to be seen after dark. They had good fun trying on the different colour fluorescent, reflective vests...of course the girls really went for the fluorescent pink waistcoat! They learnt the difference between fluorescent and reflective. They made collages of people wearing high vis waistcoats and carrying high vis umbrellas, bookbags etc for a display along the school corridor. We're hoping other schools will use the resource packs in the same way.

High Vis Message to Parents
We wanted to get the message home to parents too so gave each child a fluorescent bookmark with a message about 'fluorescent for day, reflective for night' and asked them to show it to their parents. Many parents mistakenly think that a little bit of reflective tape on a bag or coat will make their kids visible to traffic in the daytime. They don't realise the importance of bright or fluorescent colours in daytime and towards dusk; which is when primary school children are going to and from school.

CBBC Newsround Website High Vis Competition
Other major news for us this week... Our products now appear on the CBBC Newsround website! Their website team are running a road safety competition with some of our BrightKidz and BrightSportz 'cool, funky' high vis accessories as prizes. These include our fluorescent yellow umbrellas which have a reflective band. Our BrightSportz duffle bags are also on offer as prizes as well as smaller accessories such as slappits (slapbands), reflective badges, high vis stickers, Talmu reflectors (like the ones Nationwide give away to Reception class children), our multicolour Be Bright wristband as well as a new product we are about to launch (still a secret but you'll hear about it here first). Hope they get lots of entries.

CBBC Newsround, Brake and Jacqueline Wilson
A couple of weeks ago it was Road Safety week organised by the charity Brake. In Westminster, children from a local primary school took part in the launch which was also attended by Jacqueline Wilson (the seriously famous and seriously respected children's author who does loads to support road safety initiatives). My kids aren't old enough to be into her books yet but even I have heard of her! Apparently Jackie magazine (teen girls mag from 1970s) was named after her because at that time she worked in the magazine office...way before she became a famous author.

Here are some photos of the launch, (thanks to Brake for letting us use these). CBBC Newsround had a feature on this on television that week. You may recognise the multicolour high vis jackets (BrightKidz of course)... the first appearance of a BrightKidz waistcoat on national TV!