Good News

BULLETIN 1 November 

Good afternoon, here is your Good News:

# Non-profit organisation, Outside the Bowl Africa, is urging South Africans to join its current Million Meals campaign. The campaign aims to provide one million meals to vulnerable children across the country. A donation of 150-rand can feed 20 children and make a direct impact. The organisation’s executive director, Loren Erasmus, says through collaboration with Feed the Nation Foundation and support from donors, they are setting the stage to ensure that no child goes hungry. The campaign ends in the first week of December.

# The University of the Witwatersrand’s professor, Garth Stevens, has been honoured with a prestigious lifetime achievement award from the Psychological Society of South Africa. This is in recognition of his dedication to psychology in the country. Members of the Psychological Society of South Africa have described Stevens as loyal, consistent and hard-working. He joins a list of illustrious recipients who received the award in previous years including professors Chabani Manganyi, Saths Cooper, Cheryl de la Rey, and Norman Duncan.

# Police investigating the theft of 22 tonnes of cheese have arrested a 63-year-old man on suspicion of fraud and handling stolen goods. It follows the theft at Neal’s Yard Dairy in Southwark, south London, last week. Company bosses said the firm had lost clothbound Cheddar worth almost seven-million-rand after being conned by a fraudulent buyer posing as a legitimate wholesale distributor for a major French retailer. The three types of artisan cheeses stolen have won numerous awards and are amongst the most sought-after artisan cheeses in the UK.

# The Lego Group is developing three live-action movies for Universal Pictures. Directors Jake Kasdan, Patty Jenkins, and Joe Cornish have been picked for the projects. The Lego brand’s expansion into feature films began at Warner Bros Entertainment in 2014 with The Lego Movie, which has developed into a 17-billion-rand-grossing franchise including subsequent titles, The Lego Batman Movie, and The Lego Ninjago Movie. Universal’s Focus Features most recently collaborated with Lego on Pharrell Williams’ biopic Piece by Piece.

# And finally: Today marks 50 years since Japanese merchandising company Sanrio created the first iteration of Hello Kitty. It is designed with a face without a mouth, an oval nose, and a signature red bow. Sanrio says these features have remained central to Hello Kitty’s appeal and her ability to be a blank canvas onto which fans can project their emotions. Today, Hello Kitty stands among the most profitable media franchises globally, earning an estimated 1.4-trillion-rand, making her a close competitor to franchises like Winnie-the-Pooh, Pokémon, and Star Wars.

Stay tuned for more news………….