Your Voice, Your Solution for promoting your club

At 9:06AM on 9 November 2009, Frank Devlyn wrote: Let me encourage all clubs to consider their weekly guest speaker as an opportunity for the press / media to be invited to interview that person on the subject he / she will be talking on.

At 9:17AM on 6 November 2009, Tracy Main wrote: When I first joined Rotary, the HFM club did and continues to do many projects both within the community and internationally. We did notice though the club did not recieve much press for the things they did. We then established a relationship with the local newspaper and started submitting articles not just about what we did in the community but what we as a Rotary club were all about. We started structering the articles with what Rotary was and lisiting information about Rotary and its membership. So many individuals new that a Rotary club exisited but had no idea of what Rotary was. We then got involved with the Village and Town Boards sitting on the parks committeess. This allowed us to get ourselves out there to assist them, not only cleaning up the parks but allowing us to have out signage within those parks. We have fostered a great partnership with both of them and have had a park renamed Rotary Park for all that we have accomplished. We continue our relationship with the local paper and regularly place articles in the paper. We established a line item on our yearly budget just for this purpose. This has increased our membership ans awareness in the community of not only what we do but who we are while we perform Service Above Self.

At 9:19AM on 2 November 2009, PHF Rtn.Atul Agrawal, Charter President & Asstt. Gov. (RID: 3110) wrote: To get the attention of the media of the projects you are doing, you should invite the press in advance before doing the project and should give the information how the community can be benfited with this. Secondly keep the media in regular contact with your regular activities. You can also invite them some times in your family and cultural program as a guest. Specially the higher officials of the local media should be invited so that the lower and other official will get involved automatically. We, at our club are doing this on regular basis and we are getting a good support from the media, very effective coverage. Try this it will work.

At 9:21AM on 19 October 2009, Bronwyn Martin wrote: if samula musana, uganda, could please contact me. I am trying to create a breast cancer awareness program originating with our district 7450 in USA. many thanks, bronwyn l. martin ksrotary.bronwyn@gmail.com

At 10:25AM on 19 October 2009, Rtn.Dr.Hari S.Chndran,Editor, The Chariot RC of Mavelikara, kerala,India .Dist 3211 wrote: Doing something good to the society is important and attracting attention comes next. Let me share an exp. with you. Our club has a project of old age clinic for poor people in and around the town. We run the clinic on every saturday. Patients undergo free medical check ups, free blood/ urin examination and medicines are distributed absolutely free. Slowly this news spread around and the crowd gathering on every saturday grew in size. Media people had no other way than attending to it, they reported about the project which inturn demanded more effort on our part in running the clinic. Hence I personally say that doing something good to the society is intial and attraction of attention comes next.

At 11:08AM on 15 October 2009, Spence Jordan wrote: Our members mention Rotary when they speak with the newspaper's advertising sales personnel. This puts the newspaper on notice that Rotary coverage is important to their advertisers. Our club "comps" the meal for the newspaper reporter, to encourage her to attend and publish articles. She is an Honorary Member, and proudly wears her pin!

At 9:18AM on 9 October 2009, Trevor J Atkin wrote: There are a couple of easy ways to get the media's attention. 1 Sponsor an Interact c;ub, nothing attracts like working with kids and 2 Sponsor a Read-along program wherein club members read books to kids at school and discuss the content so as to encourage interest in reading. You might also try having some especially interesting or even contravertial guest speakers and inviting reporter(s) to the meeting. Has anyone been to the local newspaper or radio station and given them a briefing on club activities?

At 3:37PM on 7 October 2009, Emmanuel Konze wrote: Good projects with correspondng needs assessment will certainly attract quality media coverage

At 9:33AM on 6 October 2009, Gururajan CS wrote: Let us try to be practical in tackling this issue. Invite the local newspaper owner / partner to attend a few club meetings and impress upon him to become a member of the Rotary , at least on a honorary member. Do some social work as required during that season. Invite popular guest speakers.For some weekly meetins or community service programmes wear a uniform type of dress, say , T shirts ( with catchy logos ) , maintain a park and arrange a musical band for the weekend from a local school or the police personnel. Depending on local conditions study and execute the needbased services. Arrange for Quiz /Essay writing / Drawing /Paiting / Debates etc., etc.involvingstudents especially. There is limit for ideas. Involve all the club members and do the programmes Generally people believe in thepast and not the promises Do it and show The Press and Media will folloe you.

At 12:00PM on 5 October 2009, Rtn Thyumanavan Sabesan wrote: Acquainting the local press people, involving them in some of our projects, inviting them as guest of honor, make them meet and have a discussion with the beneficiaries of our project, showing them the reach of their articles with respect to number of beneficiaries will definitely help.

At 12:00PM on 5 October 2009, Samuel Musana PHF Rotary Club of Bukoto Kampala Uganda D 9200 wrote: The press in Uganda seems not to realize that Rotary World wide is doing a lot. In my community we have a lot of projects in alleviating problems of sanitation, immunizing children in our community against many diseases, however when the press is called upon you find that at times they take what we do so lightly. Even when they report then the story is relegated to the inside pages which is done several days after the event has taken place. We were happy however with the Daily Monitor who gave our project prominence in a sort of pull out for our support to an old lady and over 15 orphans. The lady died recently due to breast cancer and we are finding it difficult to sustain the project. We sponsored Kampala Naguru CLUB and 3 to 4 members work with a local newspaper and we think they will help us get out of this predicament. I would also like to take this opportunity to seek for help from Canada Clubs for the orphans project as the future of Rotary is in your hands.

At 10:26AM on 5 October 2009, Abraham Mathew wrote: The Newspapers usually take the news something sensitive. So the clubs should make such news.

At 10:25AM on 5 October 2009, Rtn Dinesh Pandya (Dist-3140) wrote: Our club does a lot of projects around the community but is never recognized by the local media. This can be solved with very simple solutions 1. Invite media persons to cover the event / project, instead of sending them a report. 2. Recognize their service to community. This October month is 'Vocational Service Month'. Find out who is the deserving person from media to get recognized as 'Vocational Excellence' and invite all media persons to that event. 3. Support our local media. Our city has small local news tabloids, published weekly and monthly. Ask / request members of club to give advertisement. 4. Invite some local political leaders as guest of honour / chief guest for the project / event. Send invitation to media to cover the event.

At 10:25AM on 5 October 2009, Rtn.PHF. P. O. Thomas wrote: We cannot simply blame the Press. Many clubs are not approaching the press. Your existence can be noticed only when you speak about it.

At 10:29AM on 5 October 2009, Robert G. Small wrote: Writing a good news release (with photos) is only part of the solution. Many papers need as much as a month lead time to be able to place your story in a timely manner. This is also a question you could pose to your local media sources.

At 4:36PM on 2 October 2009, PDG Doug Vincent, D7080 Canada wrote: I believe that media coverage can be enhanced if a good relationship exists between the local newspaper editor and Rotarians. So I suggest making an effort to go and visit the editor to get acquainted, share basic information on the club and ask what type(s) of news items the paper is interested in. It is important that the media be aware of interesting Rotary events and activities. Remember to send out press releases of upcoming activities, events and possible news stories. Opportunities such as Group Study Exchange and Youth Exchange are something the local media may be interested in. Be sure to promote these programs when you are looking for applications. These programs are of special interest when you have foreign visitors in your community. Make a special effort to introduce them to media and offer time for an interview. It is also great to share upcoming speakers and club program details with the media. This can include putting them on your list for newsletter distribution. (Be sure your newsletter is of good quality and does not contain private or controversial information). Some newspapers do not have the staff or resources to cover everything that is going on in their area. So be sure to take good quality photos and write up an article for submission to them. Be sure that it shares the human interest aspect. RI has various publications with tips on how to do this. I've seen some clubs host special events where media are invited to participate. It may be a 'pancake flipping contest' at the annual Rotary breakfast where various media celebrities come to have some fun. Create unique and interesting activities which may help attract their attention. . . . and of course, the obvious is to have media classificatons represented in your membership. Hope these ideas are of some help.