Read the latest school food blogs, including Irene Carroll, Former Chair of LACA as she talks about healthy school lunches and the build up to the week.

The vote to find Britain's most popular school meal is well underway and there is just about another month to go. We want to make this a truly national vote so if you have not done so please vote, just follow this link www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk/vote.

We want to get more votes from Primary pupils so please can you encourage your schools to "Get involved" now. There is a draft letter you can download from www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk once you have registered on the website. You can edit and amend this to meet your needs.

Also, get your family, friends and colleagues to take part as it is the more the merrier.

As you were all preparing for the pupils going back to school the NSMW girls were busy filming the Get Active day video with Colin Jackson. Getting ready in the morning we talked about how nervous we were. It is such a big part of the week we wanted to be sure it would all run smoothly. But there was no need to be nervous. Colin was a true professional! He was great fun, really kind (he even got his driver to take Nicola to the station) and made the whole event run smoothly. We think he will be a real inspiration to young people. He certainly inspired us!

We were lucky to have the help and support of Chris Lee from Trojan Training. Chris is a very experienced personal trainer and he put together all the exercises for the Get Active Day. Karen and Chris also went through all the coaching points beforehand so we could make sure that young people knew how to do the exercises correctly. Some of the exercises Colin hadn't done before so a lot of time was spent on Chris showing him the exercise first and then talking through the points that had to be put across. When we were filming Karen watched it on a screen, Chris checked the exercises were being done properly and Nicola checked all the points were being made whilst Nigel from Lancashire One TV filmed. It was a real team effort!

During the day we realised how much benefit there was to selecting an athlete who was used to being on camera. Colin came across brilliantly and his experience meant we got through it without there being too many takes. Of course, there were some outtakes and very amusing moments, some of which I am sure will stick with us for a long time. This included Colin getting his glutes and quads muddled up several times which caused much laughter.
We had a fantastic buffet lunch, which we made sure was very healthy seeing as we had a former World Champion to cater for. This gave us opportunity to get to know Colin better. He's speaking at the School Food Trust Conference at the end of the month and Karen is running a workshop there. We will also meet with him again at the launch of NSMW on 9th November.

In the afternoon it was straight back to filming as we were under a great time pressure as we only had this one day to get it all right. We all worked hard to have all the filming finished by 4.30pm and then we had to do photographs of all the exercises and stretches.

We learnt a lot about Colin during the afternoon. He can juggle grapes, is an expert with a skipping rope and struggled with the dance steps in the early days of Strictly Come Dancing (obviously he improved as he was 2nd in his series and won the Christmas Day special). We also learnt that Karen likes to pose in front of the camera and would make an excellent ring girl. Oh and that Nicola can't control her giggles at really inappropriate moments i.e. mid filming. Joking aside, it is thanks to Colin, Chris and Nigel we now have a fantastic resource that you can all use to promote your school meals during NSMW. We just can't wait to see the final version!

Those of you that have met us will know we don't let a good opportunity go to waste!! We didn't let Colin leave until he had posed for photographs with the NSMW Girls and signed some autographs for us. We also asked him to sign the exercise mat that was used for the filming which will be awarded as a prize during the week. Come back soon to find out more!

Well I am packing my bags and off to Devon but not going for a holiday this time, much is the pity as we had a lovely family holiday in August. We are filming Debbie Mumford and her SCOTY winning recipes at her school in Ivybridge, Devon. On top of that we will be creating short clips that show off some basic cooking skills. These will be uploaded later and there will be a lesson plan to support the clips.

I think this initiative is really important. Firstly it promotes the skills of all our school caterers from across the country. We know how good they are but we need to make sure parents, teachers and pupils know just how much care and thought goes into preparing every meal.

The second and perhaps the most important is that we can stimulate an interest in food and cooking. This will give the young watchers a skill for life that will also help them enjoy healthy food to the full. The younger we start the better, in my opinion.

So please tell your teachers what is on the way so the video clips can reach the biggest audience.

Well I am not sure if my Welsh above is correct but I do know that a lot of Welsh translation has been taking place. Firstly you can now download all the NSMW posters in the Welsh language so our colleagues in Wales can fully take part in the week.

The next area to go live is the Welsh version of the vote to find Britain's Favourite School Meal. It means we will have a Welsh regional result and that should make an interesting comparison with England and Scotland. And finally there will be a Welsh mini site for the week at www.iloveschoolmeals.co.uk/welsh. The online videos and thank you cards will be translated so that all the Welsh language schools can take part.

This is the first time LACA has created a Welsh language version and was an urgently needed development.

As everyone was getting ready for the new academic year Karen and Nicola were filming Colin Jackson undertaking a wide variety of exercise routines. It is all part of the Get Active Day that is taking place on Wednesday 11th November. Apparently there were some amusing out takes but no secrets have yet been revealed. I will keep trying to find out more.

Nicola said: "We all had a great day at the filming. Colin was a very funny, professional and really nice person to work with. I am confident that we have created a great resource for schools and caterers to use during National School Meals Week so watch this space!"

Colin is talking at the School Food Trust Conference in Birmingham on 29th September so many of you will be able to hear him then.

You can also find out more about what happened at the filming in Karen and Nicola's blog, which will be live soon.

I received an email this morning saying thank you for the webinar I ran on Friday about digital marketing. This was one of two webinars that I ran with Arnold Fewell.

I enjoy speaking about digital marketing as I know everyone is very keen to learn the best ways to use the modern tools of marketing. I show some great case studies in my presentation and people soon realise how easy it is to get fantastic results or a complete failure.

We are running webinars right up until National School Meals Week. The best thing for you is that they are free. You can dial in from a conference phone so all your team can get free training. Just login to ‘My NSMW' and register for your chosen dates.

I look forward to talking to you soon

Karen Fewell, the older NSMW girl