Yesterday was a day of firsts for me; TV shows, meeting the Mayor, being told to ‘go on go on’ by a genuine Irish person…

All of these momentous events were down to the launch of the Make Manchester Proud Campaign which is part of the Dublin-based Niall Mellon Township Trust.

The charity is searching for 70 Mancunians to travel with 1,000 Irish volunteers to South Africa to build houses in Townships and we helped them to launch this at a very busy event yesterday at the Midland Hotel.

The TV appearance was on the Channel M Breakfast show, thankfully at that hour of the day it wasn’t me but Charlie O’Kelly of the charity who chatted with the presenters on the red sofa.

Meeting the Mayor came later as she came along to the event, green St Patrick’s Day hair and all,  to show her support for the charity. We were also joined by City and Ireland keeper Shay Given who was a good sport and merrily posed with a hard hat and shovel.

Being St Patrick’s Day the ‘go on go on’ was an offer of alcohol but given that I was signing in the ‘dignitaries of the city’ at the time I politely refused.

The launch event was such a success that I have really high hopes of the people of Manchester to make this charity a success and if the support we’ve had so far is anything to go by I’m sure I won’t be disappointed.

Last Thursday I spent the day as a newshound at the Manchester Evening News.

Democracy had bid for the pleasure at Twestival last month and I was the lucky recipient of a day as a journalist with self confessed Blogger, journalist, foodie and social media junky Sarah Hartley.

I met Sarah bright and early at Urbis to take a peak at Channel M‘s Breakfast Show. I was amazed by the levels of calm in the studio; that was until we popped down to the gallery and heard what was going on behind the scenes and in everyone’s ears.

Following a quick dash across the city I met the very charming people at the Newsdesk then headed out to meet journalist Chris Osuh at the County Court.

After a morning learning about court reporting I returned for the 12.30 conference where the editors of each section share their stories for the next day’s paper.

Dianne Bourne of The Diary Page then injected some glamour into the day as the three of us went out for a lovely lunch at San Carlo (apparently a celeb favourite although sadly I didn’t spot any).

Back to it and a whistle-stop tour of the important people of the Newsroom including Business and Sports editors as well as the Sub Editors.

What struck me most was the way the whole newsroom is getting involved in providing online content alongside putting together a paper which is published three times a day.

Quick stop at the 4pm conference then off to the spectacular Great John Street Hotel with Dianne to meet Debbie Rush (Corrie’s Anna Windass) and her lovely family for a Mother’s Day feature.

The cakes that formed part of the afternoon-tea themed interview sustained me until 7.30, and 12 hours after I’d met Sarah I’d definitely got the full picture of life at the MEN.