MEETINGS
Let's Have a Hand for the Brand
Lynn Handley, for more than 20 years a communications professional and a decision maker behind the new logo and rebranding at UT Arlington, will discuss branding, visibility, identity and public perception at the IABC meeting July 25.
Now with Market Builders Principle, Handley specializes in strategic planning, brand development and positioning, product development, customer acquisition and retention, internet commerce, communications programming, and employee and media relations. A former Bronze Quill winner and Dallas Volunteer of the Year, she holds bachelor's and master's degrees from UNT and has been an adjunct professor of public relations at TCU.
Time & date: 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Tuesday, July 25
Place: Petroleum Club, Carter-Burgess Plaza, 777 Main St., 39th floor
Parking: $2.50 in parking garage at Seventh and Commerce streets
Cost: $20 members, $25 nonmembers, $18 students
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Making That Special Event Special
What traditional marketing tool is becoming a staple in most PR plans? And what allows your organization to connect directly to your target audience?
Special events.
Event marketer extraordinaire Cynthia Ham, a principal at one of the largest marketing firms in the Southeast, archer>malmo, is traveling to Fort Worth specifically to discuss event marketing -- sponsorship activation, integrating a client's brand into an event, pitfalls to avoid -- with GFW PRSA at the July 12 meeting.
Ham has 30 years of experience in public relations and event marketing. At archer>malmo, she oversees PR and event marketing for a range of national clients, including Terminix, Cellular South, Merry Maids and Kraft Food Ingredients. In addition to chairing many of Memphis' milestone events, she has collaborated with Sir Michael Parker, special events producer for Queen Elizabeth II, on several projects.
Time & date: 11:45 a.m.-1 p.m. Wednesday, July 12
Place: Petroleum Club, Carter-Burgess Plaza, 777 Main St., 39th floor
Parking: free valet in parking garage at Seventh and Commerce streets
Cost: $25 members, $30 nonmembers, $20 students
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Fajitas, Frolic and a Bit of Bounding Main
Some things are so good, you have to do them again.
For the July meeting, SPJ will reprise last year's family-friendly aqua-soirée at the Fort Worth Boat Club on Eagle Mountain Lake. In a drought, embrace the water. There'll be plenty to swim in (tree-shaded pool by the boat club patio), fish in (off the dock) or breeze around in on Amon Carter's still-sleek 38-foot cabin cruiser. Jeff Prince will serenade you as you dine.
Rides on the legendary publisher's legendary Chris-Craft, arguably the highlight of last year's party, will happen from 7 to 10 p.m. Put on the memory shades and the time-warp 'phones, feel that lake spray in your face and pretend you're Somebody. You owe it to yourself.
If you missed this deal before, remember, life doesn't always give you a second chance.
Time & date: 5:30 p.m. 'til sometime later, Saturday, July 22; eat at 6:30
Cost: $20; $10-$15 for kids under 13, depending on how big the little rascal is and how much he eats (all plates of boat club food cost the chapter the same, regardless of the consumer's age or appetite)
What to do: fish off the dock, enjoy the pool, get a ride on Amon Carter's boat, go sailing with Paul King and Gayle Reaves-King (wear non-skid shoes), relax at Carolyn Poirot and Jack Strickland's cabana, etc.; sign-in starts at 5:30 on the covered patio at the quizzically titled "doagie bar," the one-story building adjacent to the parking lot (down the hill east of the clubhouse); if you're swimming, feel free to show up earlier, say 4 o'clock
Dinner: fajita buffet, soft drinks and tea, and outgoing president Reaves-King's palate-pleasing brownies for dessert, all on the upper patio between the pool and clubhouse dining room
Drinking rules: cash bar at the clubhouse, SPJ-provided beer at the cabana, and never the two shall meet; TABC statutes mandate that alcoholic beverages may not be brought on clubhouse grounds, which includes the lawn, so ... beer/wine/mixed drink with dinner, buy it at the clubhouse bar ... beer before and after, free at the cabana, to be consumed there
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STRAIGHT STUFF
IABC local update: Craig Vanbebber, senior manager, media relations at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control in Dallas, will discuss "Prioritizing Media Relations: Tips, Tools and Tactics to Help Your Organization Excel" at the Dallas/IABC luncheon Tuesday, July 11. Learn more and register here.
PRSA local update: Greater Fort Worth PRSA is offering two teleseminars this month. At 2 p.m. Tuesday, July 18, learn how to measure blogs and wikis. New forms of communication require new methods of measuring effectiveness. Katie Delahaye Paine, founder of KDPaine & Partners LLC and publisher of The Measurement Standard and The One-Minute Benchmarking Bulletin, will outline the forms of new media measurement and detail the tools and techniques needed to put a measurement program in place. Register by July 14. At 2 p.m. Thursday, July 27, see how a crisis can quickly evolve into a disaster if errors are made in the initial response. Prolific and oft-quoted James Lukaszewski, ABC, APR, Fellow PRSA, will show how planning for crisis communication can aid executive decision-making and how to set up testing procedures to ensure those plans work. Register by July 24. If enough members commit to attend a teleseminar, the chapter will pay for it and find a place to hold it. Contact Marc Flake at mflake@tarrantcounty.com by the registration deadline.
SPJ national update: Incompetence or lying, take your pick; and White House request to kill story rejected. The U.S. government said it could not find the men Guantanamo detainee Abdullah Mujahid believes could help set him free. The British publication The Guardian found them in three days. One was working for Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai. Another was teaching at a leading American college. Another was living in Kabul. More here. ... The same team that produced the Pulitzer Prize-winning National Security Agency "domestic spying" story, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, put together The New York Times' piece on government surveillance of private banking records. The White House asked the paper not to run it, which happened with the NSA story as well, and the Times complied for a year. "We have listened closely to the administration's arguments for withholding this information, and given them the most serious and respectful consideration," said Bill Keller, the newspaper's executive editor. "We remain convinced that the administration's extraordinary access to this vast repository of international financial data, however carefully targeted use of it may be, is a matter of public interest." More here and here and here and here and here and here.
