Day: August 26, 2010

Valuing Our Retired NFPW Members

NFPW’s retired members spoke, and we listened.

In an effort to clean up and streamline the NFPW bylaws, the board suggested that retired members should not be able to participate in the communications contest. If they wanted to participate, we thought they should do so at the full member rate.

We didn’t realize how important the contest was to our retired members. Frankly, we didn’t consider that retirement today does not mean what it did 30 years ago or even 10 years ago. Many of our members continue to work in some capacity (but not full time) and want to be recognized for their work. A valid point.

We heard you. Our retired members will continue to have the right to enter the communications contest. We did eliminate the emeritus designation because it was confused with retired. We also eliminated the corporate designation. And we added in that out publications are both printed and electronic.

Thanks for speaking up! Our members always have been vocal. That’s why NFPW continues to thrive.

Campaign SNAP! Continues

When I ran for president of NFPW, my campaign slogan was SNAP! which stands for Sustainability, Networking and Professional Development.

Today I reported out on this board’s first year together. For those of you who couldn’t be in Chicago, here’s an update.

Sustainability: We continue to recruit members, and membership remains our heavy focus. During this year’s conference we’re pairing first-timers with veteran conference attendees so that first-timers can get their questions answered and more easily network. Despite the harsh economic climate, NFPW ended the year in the black! The board is looking at additional revenue streams. We also renewed our contract with American Press Works, which held its fees to last year’s levels.

Networking: We’ve established a presence on several social media platforms, including LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube. We stay in touch through the quarterly Agenda (I hope you’ve checked it our recently. Linda Koehler and Teresa Ford are doing a fabulous job with it!) and through a monthly e-letter. The emphasis at this year’s conference is about Face 2 Face communications. One of my goals is to reach out more frequently to the affiliate presidents so that we can all learn from each other.

Professional Development: During the meeting I unveiled the new NFPW website, which is designed to be more news and member focused. It will be live within 30 days. We posted numerous business tools to the website, including templates for business cards and letterhead. I’ve been sharing communications trends, tips and happenings through this blog. I hope you’ll encourage others to read it.  

Other highlights: The NFPW board met in New Mexico as the guests of the New Mexico Press Women. We were able to celebrate their 60th anniversary with them. Here in Chicago we’re celebrating the 125th anniversary of our founding affiliate Illinois Woman’s Press Association. Congratulations!

So now it’s time to SNAP! Forward for the next year. We’ll continue to grow our membership. I’m visiting affiliates when asked and schedule permitting. I’ll represent NFPW at the Councail of Journalist Organizations this fall. And we’ll keep reaching out through LinkedIn, Facebook and the blog.

I hope you’ll continue the journey with us!