WMPRSA November

2005 E-Newsletter

President's Message

Dear WMPRSA Members:

Congratulations to WMPRSA member Betty Pritchard, APR, who has received the distinguished Durocher Award from PRSA's East Central District. Betty has been active at the chapter, district and national levels of PRSA. She is highly deserving of this honor and has done much for our profession. Many of you know Betty and if you haven't done so already, take a moment to say congratulations!   

Meanwhile, it's time to start thinking of your fun yet mildly embarrassing PR stories. Our final program of the year will be a second annual "Eggnog on My Face" holiday social networking gathering on December 9. It's a fun opportunity to chat with other PR pros and share some of the funny things that have happened to us working in this exciting profession in the past year. Don't worry--what happens at WMPRSA stays in WMPRSA. We're like Vegas that way (perhaps that's the only way).
   

Finally, be sure to read the updates from the annual conference.  Rick Chambers, APR, and Andrea Clark, APR, represented our chapter at the national assembly in New  York. Their report about recent PRSA decisions and announcement is below.

Enhancing the Profession,

Tim Penning, APR
2005 WMPRSA President
penningt@gvsu.edu 

       December Program

             Eggnog on My Face:  WMPRSA Goof Awards

WMPRSA is holding its 2nd Annual Eggnog on My Face event December 9, 2005.  This is an event where we get together to share different blunders that have occurred to us in our work over the last year.  This year, we are asking each of you to share your blunders with us before the big event.  We are awarding the first-ever WMPRSA Goof Awards.  This will be an informal award ceremony, so pretty much anything goes. There are no rules!  Except one: your Goof can't be fiction.
 
To enter your Goof for an award, simply write a brief description in 200
words or less and submit it to Erin Smith at esmith@ibcp.com or Amy
Miller at amy.miller@priority-health.com by November 24.
 
This promises to be a great opportunity to get together to laugh and learn from our shared Goofs.  But please note you do not have to enter a Goof to join in the fun.  

Where:  Bar Divani, 15 Ionia Ave., Grand Rapids
When:   Thursday, December 9   5:30 PM

Reservation Details:

Cost: $25 for members, $30 for non-members and $20 for students.
    The cost includes hors d'oeuvres.  A cash bar will be open.

RSVP Deadline: Friday, December 5.

To Register:  Call the WMPRSA hotline at 616-336-0678, 
                        Fax to 616-451-3108, or 
                       E-mail WMPRSA at admin@wmprsa.org.

All program reservations MUST be guaranteed with a credit card. You can still pay the day of the event with a check.

When you make a reservation we will need your name, company name, phone
number, membership status and credit card number and expiration date,
and credit card billing address (including ZIP code) of where you receive
your credit card bills. "No shows" will be billed. 24-hour notice is required for a full refund.

Assembly Delegate Report
Andrea Clark, APR, and Rick Chambers, APR, represented the WMPRSA chapter at PRSA's 2005 Assembly last month in New York City.  Here is their report.

The Assembly meeting hosted 268 delegates who dealt with three bylaw amendments:

* Assembly Representation (Article III) - The Assembly voted IN FAVOR of allowing non-APR professionals to represent chapters as delegates to the Assembly provided they are current board members in their chapters, districts or sections.  As you might imagine, the discussion on this was spirited and lengthy.  We, as the West Michigan delegates made a motion directing the PRSA Board to form a task force to work directly with chapters with low APR representation, develop targeted plans to increase that representation and report back to the Assembly in 2005; unfortunately, the motion was ruled out of order due to ongoing debate on the bylaw amendment, and by the time the amendment was passed, we felt reintroducing our motion would not be constructive at the Assembly.  However, the idea remains sound and might be worth submitting by other means.

* Foundation Advisory Board (proposed bylaw) - The Assembly voted IN FAVOR of creating an advisory board of 12 members to provide guidance to the PRSA Board on Foundation initiatives.  The advisory board has no decision-making responsibility itself. Members are reappointed annually by the PRSA Board.  There was relatively little discussion on this proposed by law.

* Accreditation (Article XIII) - On a second vote, the Assembly voted IN FAVOR of a number of changes to the bylaw on accreditation.  Most of these were minor updates to the language, but there were two points that prompted lively discussion: 1) whether a member must be employed on a full-time basis
to retain accreditation; and 2) whether to continue mandating a minimum of five years experience before taking the APR exam.  The Assembly voted in favor of eliminating the full-time employment provision but did not have the two-thirds majority needed to approve the revised bylaw.  The reason for the failed vote was the five-year requirement - those who favored eliminating it said it puts PRSA at a competitive disadvantage because other UAB agencies don't have that provision, while those who wanted it retained stressed the value of professional experience as a quality standard.  The bylaw came up for second vote later in the day when a motion was made to replace the five-year requirement with language from UAB's guidelines, "recommended five to seven years" of public relations experience and a Bachelor's degree or equivalent.  This compromise achieved the two-thirds majority to pass.

Other news of note:

* The Assembly enthusiastically endorsed the Board's recommendation that there be no dues increase for 2005.

* PRSA increased its membership this year by 3.7 percent to over 20,000 members for the first time.  There are 8,000 student members as well. Also, PRSA is pursuing several outreach initiatives outside the United States, including programs in China and Croatia.

* Three inactive chapters were dissolved:  Central Massachusetts, Chesapeake Bay and DelMar.

* Elected to the PRSA Board for 2005:  Cheryl Procter-Rogers (President-Elect), Jeffrey Julin (Secretary), Rhoda Weiss (Treasurer), Gary McCormick (Director, Southeast District), John Deveney (Director, Southwest District), and Mary Deming Barber and Gerard Corbett (Directors At-Large).

  Board members also promised to address concerns voiced by some delegates that the nomination process was not transparent.

* The Board has launched an historical archive project in preparation for PRSA's 60th anniversary in 2008.

    New Member Profile
 

Susan Buckles
Public Relations & Communications Specialist
Area Agency on Aging of Western Michigan
 
Question:  What are your job responsibilities?

Answer:  My job duties include developing and placing stories in newspapers, radio, and television across a nine-county region of West Michigan, media relations, writing guest editorials and letters to the editor, managing the agency Web page; drafting and implementing strategic public relations plans; desktop publishing of newsletters for lawmakers, staff, and board members; developing Power Point presentations and speech writing, writing and printing the annual report, planning the annual meeting for stakeholders, and generally coordinating all printed and spoken communications.
 
Question:  What path did your career follow leading to your present position?

Answer:  I have a speech communications degree from Bethel University in St.Paul, Minnesota and have a strong background in broadcast journalism, having worked as a reporter, producer, and anchor for television stations in three different states.  That has given me a solid background for understanding editorial decisions, which has resulted in many successful story placements in my career.  I worked for a year as a public relations spokesperson for a major hospital before taking my current position.
  
Question:  What was one of your biggest PR successes?

Answer:  It's hard to put a finger on my biggest PR success, but certainly one of them has been continued high level story placements. When I started working for the Area Agency on Aging, it had very little exposure in the media.  Now, we have on average, about 100 story placements per year in newspapers, radio, and television across a nine county region.  One of the stories that I placed for the hospital was picked up by the Associated Press, and ended up on the front page of the Marquette, Michigan daily newspaper!
 
Question:  What was one of your biggest PR challenges?

Answer:  One of the biggest challenges was dealing with a union movement at one of my places of employment.  I worked with human resources and other managers to effectively communicate with employees, and ultimately the union activity stopped.
 
Question:  What do you do in your spare time?

Answer:  Spare time is rare, spent mostly chasing after my two young boys, ages six and three-and-a-half.  My husband and I are physical fitness buffs who go biking a lot and work out regularly at the gym. We also enjoy traveling. We have visited Greece, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Italy, France and Switzerland, and many wonderful places in the Caribbean.

JOB BOARD

Public Relations Account and Business Development Manager
(2nd posting--position still open.)

Top-50 Midwest B2B Agency is seeking a motivated Public Relations Manager to serve existing accounts and develop additional PR business in our Grand Rapids and Chicago offices. Our primary focus today is product publicity on behalf of a diverse and established list of national and global clients.The successful candidate will have three to five years of successful experience as an agency public relations account executive/writer and will have demonstrated strategy development, writing, account and project management skills. This position offers significant career growth potential to the professional who can work both independently and in cooperation with other agency executives to build our PR business.
 
Submit resume with salary history to: Cathy Luck
Alexander Marketing Services, P.O. Box 601, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49516-0601

Communications Manager

News You Can Use

Some of you may be aware of "The Publicity Hound," but for those of you who are not, you may wish to check out Joan Stewart's free e-newsletter entitled, "Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity." To sign up, visit her website at www.PublicityHound.com. Her most recent newsletter provided information about the power of blogging and bloggers vs. "real" journalists. 

Subscriptions and 2005 Newsletter Editor Contact

This monthly electronic newsletter comes from the West Michigan Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America. Sponsorship of the newsletter is provided by http://www.pathwaynet.com, which also hosts the WMPRSA website.

WMPRSA
PO Box 68124
Grand Rapids, MI 49516
Phone: 616-336-0678
Fax: 616-451-3108
http://www.wmprsa.org

Send newsletter feedback, ideas and accompanying color or b&w photos in jpeg format to: Carol Tanis at ctanis@grsymphony.org.

Deadline for newsletter content is the 1st of each month.