Behind the Headlines

By Paula Wethington / paula@monroenews.com

Last fall, my daughter Karolyn was a speaker for an awards program. Specifically, as one of the area’s Gold Award Girl Scouts in the class of 2007, she was asked to give a speech about her scouting experiences during the Huron Valley Girl Scout Council’s annual Women of Distinction awards luncheon in September.

I made arrangements to get her from her college campus in South Bend to Ann Arbor on the appointed date, and the two of us attended the luncheon.

Before lunch, my daughter and Jennifer Guerra from Michigan Public Radio, who served as mistress of ceremonies, went over their presentation notes. Various dignitaries, some of whom we had met previously, and some we knew only by name, came by to say hello.

After the program, I told my daughter it would be polite, since she was a speaker, to give personal congratulations to each of the winners. So we made our rounds through the room.

Keep in mind my daughter was the only one in the room wearing a youth Girl Scout uniform and had already given her remarks to the audience. As a result, she was easy to pick out in a crowd.

And yet, with the rush of friends, relatives and corporate sponsors to the award winners, we had to wait quite a bit for our turn to give remarks and a handshake to each of the honorees. “Congratulations on your award, it was nice to meet you,” … and that’s about all we were able to manage.

But we accomplished our goal of personally greeting all four honorees before everyone departed.

Now what does this story have to do with the business of being a reporter? (more…)

By Paula Wethington / paula@monroenews.com

Well, the avalanche has begun. And I’m not talking about the piles of snow. I’m talking about the piles of press releases and event announcements that arrive at The Monroe Evening News starting about three weeks before Easter.

You might think that back to school or Christmas season is the busiest time of year for community events in Monroe County. Guess again. The peak happens in spring with Easter egg hunts, craft shows, school plays, fish fries, Lenten church services, fundraiser auctions, car shows, golf outings …

And since most planning committees want to avoid Easter weekend, Mother’s day weekend and Memorial Day weekend, a lot of events are crammed into the rest of the dates on the calendar.

If you, or any committee that you serve on, is planning a community event or fundraiser this spring, you will want to get those notices sent to the newsroom as soon as you have the details confirmed. The sooner we get the notice, the longer your event will be posted (and seen!) on the MonroeTalks calendar and the more likely we can arrange for the best available date for your notice to appear in the print edition.

My long-standing recommendation has been to get the announcement to the newsroom at least a week before the event or reservation deadline if you intend it to run on Community Page, and two or three weeks ahead for events that are intended for the once-a-week lists such as Arts & Entertainment.

It’s a bad idea to wait until two or three days before the event to send your announcement. You never know when crazy things will happen with e-mails inaccessible because of a power outage, stamped mail that runs into a delay at the post office, snow storms that shut down the roads for a day, and telephone tag messages that can’t be returned on time.

You’ve put a lot of time and effort into planning that event. I don’t want you to miss out on publicity opportunities because the notice arrived too late for the newspaper to help you with your marketing plan.

And what about the other free publicity you might be able to arrange for in Monroe County? I know, from having made phone calls on that very question a couple of years ago, that there are several free options that work very well in conjunction with a newspaper announcement. And the more frequently someone sees a notice, the more likely they are to remember it. But you need to make those additional publicity arrangements three to four weeks ahead in some cases!

Stephanie Ariganello; stephaniea@monroenews.com

Well, I finally found out what a feather party is - and it’s not nearly as exciting as I thought it was going to be. (Although, I have to admit I was a little leery when I kept seeing the sign for one at my local American Legion place, conjuring images I just didn’t want floating around in my brain.)

The Feather Parties are bingo/gaming parties where the participants win various assortments of fowl. They’re usually held to raise money for a church group or veteran’s organization.

I was looking for more information on them since I’ve been seeing signs and only really turned up links to Michigan. Is it true - are feather parties exclusive to the Mitten?

In recent years, there have been what I like to think of as old-timey raids on different events in southeastern Michigan because of the mix of gambling and booze.

Have you ever been to a feather party? What’s your favorite fact or story about feather parties?

(Above cartoon from www.kevscartoons.com)

By Paula Wethington / paula@monroenews.com

When a NASCAR driver wins a race, there is a ceremony in Victory Lane called “the hat dance.”

This tradition developed as a way for the winning driver to thank all of his sponsors. The driver and his pit crew put on ball caps that represent a particular sponsor, pose for a formal photograph that will be delivered to that sponsor, swap hats to pose for next photo for the next sponsor and so forth.

It’s quite possible that by the time the photo session is done, the team will have faced the camera a couple of dozen times.

Most of those sponsors are businesses and corporations you’ve never heard of. The driver, his team, and the media announcers, at least on a regular basis, don’t rattle off the entire list of 40 or so names whose logos appear on the car and uniform. Instead, the cars are generally known by the name of their major sponsor: “The Budweiser Car,” “The AT&T Car,” and so forth.

The hat dance is where all of the financial backers get a chance to be in the spotlight – at least to a certain extent.

After all, you don’t see the hat dance played out as part the media coverage of the race. The broadcast crews know this ceremony is more advertising than news, is going to take up a lot of time, and will not be watched for long by their viewers. So they treat it appropriately with a quick peek to for fans to notice the festivities and then cut to the sports news roundup or the next program on their schedule.

This story is a good analogy for local volunteers, civic clubs and community leaders to consider. How do you thank your sponsors?

One thing that doesn’t work – just as it doesn’t work in a NASCAR race – is to rely on news reports of the event to carry your thank-you message.

Page 1 in The Monroe Evening News is meant to let local residents know about the most important or most interesting story of the day. The Community Page section is meant for announcements of events, programs and awards. The Letters to the Editor section is meant for discussion of current events.

There isn’t enough space anywhere in the newspaper to provide a thank-you column for all of the sponsors of all the local fundraisers. (If you want to pay for an advertisement to list your thank-yous to the sponsors, a lot of people do that. But as someone who’s been involved in fundraisers and community events, I’d rather send or receive a thank-you card in the mail or in person.)

So if you want your sponsors to get recognition in the community, in addition to any individual thank-you gifts or thank-you notes that proper etiquette dictates you should provide to them and your special guests at the event or immediately afterward, here’s what I suggest instead:

• Allow sponsors to display advertising banners at your event. For example, it’s customary for charity golf outings in this community to have “hole sponsors.” At each hole, a banner explains which sponsor paid for that advertising spot.
• Sell advertisements in the program that will be distributed at the event, when you have the undivided attention of the people who attend the program. (If you don’t wish to sell advertising spots, you could still list those people as patrons.)
• Allow your sponsor the privilege of introducing the winner of the award they have sponsored. This is done very effectively at many local award and honoree events.
• If you have a long list of sponsors, select the one or two that provided the biggest amount of donations to promote as “major sponsors” in your publicity. (That’s what NASCAR teams do, after all.)
• Use your club’s or non-profit’s web site, or the club’s newsletter, as a way to publicize the list of everyone who contributed to the cause.
• Create a “sponsored by” plaque to display in your meeting hall or non-profit office.

By Paula Wethington / paula@monroenews.com

It’s common in the Monroe County area for charity and non-profit organizations to request a local, regional or state celebrity or a politician to attend a function or event as a special guest or a speaker. The intention is that more people will attend the event in order to meet or hear the VIP. While a celebrity appearance is no guarantee of higher attendance, there’s certainly enough established precedent for the committee chairs to give it a try.

But I admit, I find it hard to keep a straight face when a someone tells me, in all seriousness, something along the lines of, “… and I’m inviting Gov. Jennifer Granholm to come to our fundraiser.”

Go ahead and send out all the invitations you want. But I won’t include a celebrity appearance as part of your announcement in The Monroe Evening News or on MonroeTalks.com until you’ve got those details confirmed.

Even my teen-age daughter knew better, when one of her committees tasked her this summer to prepare an invitation for Gov. Granholm to attend a dinner.

Yes, the governor was expected to be in the area on the specific date. But, as my daughter said while she was scripting out the letter, the committee members knew the chances were slim that the governor would show up. (She didn’t attend.)

Now with very little thought, it’s easy to come up with list of people who are the local celebrities.

But you know what? It’s hard to book those A-list VIPS. They’ve got jobs, kids, college classes, council meetings, travel commitments, personal appointments … and everybody else’s invites to consider.

So here are some tips if you are planning an event and want to invite someone special:

• Don’t just consider name recognition. Look for a guest star who is a good fit for the demographics and interests of your audience.
• Before you contact your VIP, plan out what you’d like from him so he understands what he is being asked to do. A five-minute speech? The invocation? A photo session? Presenting an award?
• Contact your prospective VIPs very early in the planning stages for your event. Publicity for most events needs to start five or six weeks ahead of time to build up an audience, and you’ll want any celebrity appearances confirmed before the invites and fliers get distributed.
• Look for up and coming talent in addition to, or in lieu of, the usual local and state celebrities. You’ll find lots of prospects in the pages of The Monroe Evening News. In particular, pay close attention to the Community Page, Classroom Page, Business Page and Arts & Entertainment sections to read about who just released a new book or CD, won a scholarship essay contest, won a singing contest, received a heroism award, led a successful volunteer project or earned a promotion in their industry.
• The success of your event depends on a lot more things than a celebrity appearance. You need to have an entertaining or interesting program regardless of who is attending or in the audience. There’s always a chance that your celebrity will need to back out at the last minute – can your program stand on its own merits?
• Be a gracious host or hostess. Your celebrity might only be able to visit for a half-hour rather than attend the entire two-hour program. That’s fine. They still get the appearance credit, and you still get the publicity and word-of-mouth. In case the guest does need to leave early, have a thank-you card, flowers or gift ready to be presented at a minute’s notice. And show hospitality as appropriate with arrangements such as mileage reimbursement, dinner ticket for an escort or a charitable donation to their favorite cause.

By Paula Wethington / paula@monroenews.com

If you’re a crafter or home business owner, looking for a place to sell your inventory, the Monroe Evening News newsroom is starting to receive show dates and contact information for the fall and Christmas craft shows.

The announcements are listed with a “Crafters Wanted” headline in the Upcoming events section in the Community Page print edition of The Monroe Evening News.

We also post the information at the MonroeTalks calendar. This is a searchable database, look up keyword “craft show / bazaar.”

By Paula Wethington, paula@monroenews.com

Yesterday I got a call from a non-profit volunteer who wanted to promote her event. I told her the announcement was on file in the newsroom, and I’d double-check that it was running as scheduled for The Community Page.

She complained that nobody seems to have heard of her organization and wanted to know if there was any media coverage possible beyond the advance announcement.

I am familiar with her non-profit, and told her there had been stories and photos in the past. Specifically, I knew about two feature stories that ran within the past two or three years and there was additional publicity last fall … and while I didn’t remember the exact dates, I did tell her circumstances and what those pieces focused on.

I also told her an article ran in another area newspaper during the past year that mentioned her non-profit.

She didn’t remember any of the media coverage – either from our newspaper or the other one.

But what particularly upset the caller is that hardly anybody she has spoken to while promoting her event was familiar with their group. During the past month, she’d only met one person who had heard of her non-profit.

“Well, you can tell those people that they’re not reading the newspaper,” I replied. And I talked about some of the other marketing efforts I know her group is doing.

Now … while this is a story about one local non-profit, the fact is I’ve had similar conversations in the past with local volunteers and promoters.

Don’t take it personally if nobody’s heard of your non-profit. In order to become a widely recognized group, you need to work the marketing from a variety of angles like a business does. While a front-page story results in a lot of attention, it’s quickly forgotten as people go about their daily lives. The most effective marketing campaigns get the message out in a repeated manner under a variety of formats. (The more you see something, the more likely you’ll remember it.).

So this fall, while your clubs and non-profits are starting their activity seasons, hold a brainstorming session among your board of directors or members as to all the different ways you can market your event or organization to the public.

A front-page feature story is just one possibility with The Monroe Evening News. There are a lot of free options available on both The Community Page in our print edition and on our community web site at www.monroetalks.com. Feel free to contact me at paula@monroenews.com to discuss what can be done at the Community Desk. (The possibilities available at the newspaper increase if you have an advertising budget.)

Depending on what audience you’re trying to reach, you may also want to place notices in church bulletins, at school offices, on public access cablevision, the area’s weekly newspapers and the metro newspapers.

Internet sites also can be very effective ways of reaching your audience. One organization director recently told met that her group’s web site takes care of the “frequently asked questions,” and the phone queries they get involve more specific questions. (And if your group has a web site, we can link to it from an event notice on MonroeTalks.)

“We desperately need help. We urge people to please donate blood immediately, particularly if you are type O-negative or O-positive.” So said a spokesperson for the Red Cross.
Donations of all blood types are needed immediately.

Blood transfusions are used for trauma victims, heart surgery, organ transplants, women suffering from complications during childbirth, and patients receiving treatment for leukemia, cancer or other diseases. If not for the commitment of volunteer blood donors, the lives of the patients would be in jeopardy.
For information on open blood drives, call 1-800-GIVE-LIFE (1-800-448-3543), or visit the Western Lake Erie Region web site at www.givebloodtoday.org
To donate blood you must be at least 17 years old, weigh at least 110 pounds, be in general good health and provide a valid photo ID upon donation.

Do you give blood regularly? I used to attempt it, but apparently my veins are difficult to tap into. I also had the image of them forgetting about me and the bag swelling and swelling while I become dehydrated of all liquids. As realistic as that is - maybe it’s time to get back to the needles.

By Paula Wethington

Does your non-profit organization or club need volunteers? As a reporter for the Community Page at The Monroe Evening News, I get a lot of questions from local organizations on how to advertise their need for volunteers. This is the time of year when many community projects get started, and clubs resume meeting after their summer breaks. So we’re right at the start of recruiting season for members and volunteers.

Here are some volunteer recruiting tips that seem to work well in this community:

• If you send a “volunteers wanted” notice to The Monroe Evening News’ Community Page, we can run it one time. You will want to provide as many details as you can about the requirements and date, time and location for training and assignments. An announcement that “an orientation session will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday Aug. 14 and volunteers can expect to be on duty once a month” will get a better response than “call this phone number for details” or “we can only provide this service if volunteers step up and help out.”
• Use the Internet as much as possible to post details about your organization such as who the contact people are, what your mission is, dates of special events, and what you are seeking in terms of donations and volunteer hours. A director of a local organization whose activities are frequently listed in Community Page told me her organization’s web site reduced the number of phone calls they get from the public because the most frequently asked questions are answered on the web.
• Provide both an e-mail contact and phone number for the public, in order to stay in contact with both the computer-savvy and those who prefer “real person” communications. You may be surprised at how the responses arrive. I was a co-hostess for a social event this summer, and all of the reservations that came to my attention arrived via e-mail. I do have voice mail, so I would not have missed a call. I can only assume people “didn’t want to call at a bad time.”
• Come up with a list of assignments or projects that junior high or high school students can do for you. Local students often need to volunteer a certain number of hours to meet requirements for confirmation ceremonies, a class or a club; and high school students are particularly looking for leadership experience to list on college or scholarship applications. You’ll get a better response from students if you offer to sign their community service paperwork, allow for flexible schedules and encourage carpools.
• Start recruiting several weeks in advance of your need if you will rely on classroom teachers, scout troops or youth clubs to recommend or provide student volunteers. There could be a lot of logistics for the officers and teachers to work around — such as permission slips, carpools and test schedules.
• Get your request listed with 211 / First Call for Help service at the United Way of Monroe County. This program is designed to help local residents make connections with local non-profits, whether they need assistance or are able to offer assistance. The Helping Hands volunteer recruiting page that runs once a month in The Monroe Evening News is coordinated through the United Way. For information, call 242-1331 or 211.
• Encourage your existing and new volunteers to bring a friend or family member along to an event or training session. Word of mouth is a very effective advertising approach. And you might attract interest from people who have concerns that volunteering on your project will take away time they to spend with friends or family.

By Paula Wethington

If you were in the audience during the Miss Monroe County Scholarship Pageant Saturday at Monroe County Community College, you saw several other young women and girls in the audience with their own sparking crowns.

This is a tradition called “visiting queens,” and their introductions to the audience count as pageant appearances for the title-holders. In the Miss Monroe County program and many other pageant systems, any public event that a queen or princess attends where she wears her crown is called an appearance. That event is then included in her permanent pageant record of community service, platform promotion and publicity efforts.

Miss Monroe County 2006 Melissa Cousino was credited with 150 appearances during her “year of service.” That’s a huge number, considering the fact she attends Michigan State University and has to include the commute time for any appearances she does back home in Monroe County.

She’s not the only queen with a busy day planner. Looking back at recent local queens as examples, whomever serves as Miss Monroe County will make more than 100 appearances while she owns the title. This might be riding in a parade, reading stories to younger children, attending a charity event as a VIP guest, serving as a celebrity judge for another pageant, hosting a major fundraiser, … basically anything the queen and the pageant directors might agree on.

Some of them are mandatory appearances. For example, the Little Miss Monroe County contestants were provided with a list of eight required appearances that the winners will make during the coming year. But at the Miss Monroe County and Miss Monroe County Outstanding Teen Level, many events are arranged on the queen’s own initiative in promoting the pageant or her platform.

The first time I saw a Miss Monroe County queen doing an appearance (other than Miss America 1988 Kaye Lani Rafko Wilson’s celebrity visits) was when my daughter volunteered at a spring 2005 fundraiser for the Humane Society of Monroe County.

I learned a couple of days ahead of time that Miss Monroe County 2004 Kelly Smock was scheduled for an appearance. I told my daughter she should get Kelly’s autograph and pose for a picture with the queen since that was the custom during such events. We did get a picture and autograph, and we spent a lot of time talking with Kelly in between visitors and customers at the fundraiser.

“Do the queens have groupies?” I wondered after seeing more publicity about their appearances.

Well, yes. Those fans sit in the audience on pageant night! And sometimes the queen’s appearance does bring more people to an event.

But I’ve learned that what happened at the Humane Society fundraiser is pretty typical: my daughter and I were at the event anyway, so we made sure to visit the queen while we were there.

Now what’s really interesting is the word-of-mouth that happens afterward. People will save the photos and autographs and say to their friends, “I met Miss Monroe County at such-and-such event and …”

Which means both the pageant program and the charity event are part of the chit-chat in the community for some time afterward.

We’re getting a few calls at the newsroom from people who need our mailing address because they plan to mail - rather than hand-deliver - a press release because they’d rather not make a trip downtown.

Go ahead and mail your announcements. But please keep in mind that, even if you are mailing a letter from the city of Monroe, it can take two or three days for mail to get to our office and be delivered to the right person. So plan ahead for the extra lead time.

If you need quicker delivery, you can fax or e-mail the announcements. If you need to phone in an announcement, it may be hit and miss for contacting a specific reporter or editor, but generally there are people in and out of the newsroom during business hours Monday through Friday. (Weekend and holiday hours are limited.)
Contact numbers and e-mail addresses are listed at www.monroenews.com.

A couple of event organizers have made some very worried comments to me during the past week or so about “we’re not getting as many reservations / participation as we would like.”

Late April and early May is a busy time for fundraisers, festivals, rummage sales, educational programs and charity events. I’m working on the Community Page lists for the next two weeks, and it’s amazing how many events are already on file. All of these events are competing for time and attention with family and school events such as children’s sports, prom, spring musicals, First Communions, weddings, Mother’s Day and graduation parties. This means slow ticket sales or reservations while your potential benefactors and audiences juggle their other activities.

The best advice I can give is make sure The Monroe Evening News gets the notice early so we can schedule the Community Page announcement on the best possible day … and ask your committee members to keep promoting the event via word of mouth to convert that publicity and awareness into ticket sales.

During the past two days, I’ve run into three situations where fundraiser and club announcements arrived so late to The Monroe Evening News that the available publicity options were very limited.

The busiest time in the charity and civic year in Monroe County is the six weeks leading up to, and including, Easter. If you have any event taking place this spring that will be listed in the Community Page section, please get the notices to The Monroe Evening News as soon as your dates and locations are confirmed. A week before the event or reservation deadline usually is enough time to schedule our notices on the schedules you expect. But if the notice is sent only two or three days before the date, the chances increase greatly that a publication deadline could be missed because of an e-mail being misdirected, someone being out of the office and not able to take the call, etc.

With the current technology, it is to your advantage to get all publicity notices to the newsroom as early as possible anyway. All fundraisers, charity events and civic club meetings are posted in the on-line calendar at www.monroenews.com within a day or two after arrival, regardless of when the notices are scheduled in the print edition of The Monroe Evening News.

Tonight I was on assignment, covering the American Red Cross Everyday Heroes Awards program at Ambassador Hall. It’s the fifth year of the program, so I’ve become familiar with the format and what to expect.

One thing that is never scripted, but very predictable at this event: The audience always gives the military hero winners a standing ovation.

I covered the Project Homeless Connect dinner the other night and was unsure what to expect at first. Whenever going on assignment there are a number of unknowns, which is something you get accustomed to after awhile. (Which, incidentally, has improved my ability to walk into parties and feel comfortable even when I don’t know anyone. Perhaps I should market this…) What I found was a mass of people mostly willing to talk about their experiences, very welcoming and open.

What one man said, a guy who volunteers regularly at the Salvation Army Warming Center, left an impression on my brain - we’re all about one argument away from being homeless. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed accurate. Whether it’s with a significant other, the bank, a landlord, etc.

Though, a coworker pointed out as I was relaying this story, that we’re all one bullet away from dead if you want to think about things that way.