The Northern Guide to Happiness is a podcast all about what makes us smile. We’ll be talking to adopted and native Northerners about what makes them happy. We’ll be trying to uncover some of the things that we can all do to get more joy in our lives.
This week we talk to the brilliant Sara Bryson. Sara works as a Community Organiser for Citizen’s UK providing training and support to communities who want to bring about change and social justice. She told me about some of the campaigns she’s been working on including the Living Wage campaign and others around poverty and hate crime.
Sarah Sutton works at Whitley Bay Big Local which is a community venue in North Tyneside offering a range of different activities and services for the local community. We talked about what’s been happening at Whitley Bay Big Local recently including their own Action for Happiness sessions. Sarah also talks about where she personally finds happiness and what it means to her.
It's the end of the year episode! Alex, Chris and Kath look back on the project so far and talk about some of their best bits from all the episodes so far. Do you have a favourite episode or moment so far? We'd love to hear from you.
This week we talk to Jordan Blyth. Jordan is our other crucial member of the podcast production team. He works with Emma from last week on this podcast making sure each episode sounds fabulous. We had a really good chat about what it’s been like working on the podcast, his working life and things that bring him happiness.
Our interviewee this week has been working super hard behind the scenes on this podcast and is one of our producers, Emma Millen. Alongside her co-pilot Jordan Blyth, they both make us all sound good and sort pull all the audio pieces together to make the finished podcast episode each week. Emma is passionate about radio and sound, people and cats!
Alfie Joey who is probably best known for presenting on BBC Radio Newcastle talks to us this week on the podcast. He is also known for his stand up comedy and more recently for his art work which he rediscovered again and which helps with his mental health and wellbeing. Lots of fascinating discussion points in this episode around happiness and what it means to Alfie.
This week we talk to Professor Alison Stenning based at Newcastle University. Chris and Alison talk about the importance of place, places that mean something to us and places that make us happy and why. They also talk about neighbourhoods, street, why playing out is important and her work with Play Meet Street North Tyneside.
Lucy and Paul Hull run a fabulous place in Spanish City in Whitely Bay called For the Love of the North which is small business supporting other small businesses and the local community. They talk about finding happiness in their work and their passion for the North East region and how they think they have the best location for a shop in the whole of the UK!
We talk to Dr Carol Moxam this week who is a speech and language therapist and lecturer at Newcastle University. She talks to Chris about language and communication, students and wellbeing and building self belief in others. She talks about how she enjoys sharing and exchanging knowledge through her lecturing and how happiness is a feeling and not a material thing.
This week we talk to Tim Crook who is a Trustee for the Friends of Gosforth Central Park. Green spaces have been particularly valuable for all of us, especially over the last year or so. Tim talks to Chris about what he's been doing with his retirement and what it takes to keep our parks looking beautiful for us all to enjoy.
