Communications Guidelines - issued July, 2009
The aim of your District Communications Committee is to help and encourage Clubs to develop and spread good news stories of their successes to their local communities and to other Clubs in District 1070 and beyond.
To achieve effective communications, Club’s should have a Public Relations or Communications Officer in place, to distribute your good news. A number of Clubs are already producing excellent ‘Public Relations’ (P.R.) whilst others are developing their skills and some have yet to make a start. It is recognised that Clubs are at varying stages of development with the success of their P.R. activities. However, the Communications Committee is happy to talk to Clubs about P.R. and Communications to suite their particular stages of progress.
There are a number of excellent vehicles in which to publish the results of the hard work and valuable hours Rotarians devote to Community, Vocational and International activities. These are:
Published by Graham Walker, Rotary Club of Peterborough Werrington, on a quarterly basis. Graham awaits your features and articles on Club activities for publication. Rotary Clubs are provided with the ‘Publication and Deadline Dates’ for the year ahead.
Wherever possible, you should send your ‘copy’ and photographs by email direct to the editor (address in the Rotary 1070 District Directory). If this is not possible, typed copy is preferred, although scribbled but legible notes will do.
These are key outlets for our publicity. Building good and regular relationships with the News Desk and Editors of local Newspapers is essential for on-going cooperation, as with the Talk Show Hosts and Editors of the local Radio Station, if you want them to publicise or feature major Rotary events.
As with 1070 News & Events, they require interesting and well-presented ‘copy’ with good lead times. They are interested in ‘Rotary in Action’ featuring local community activities. However, they will generally not welcome ‘cheque presentations’ Rotarians at lunch or Charter Nights, this is not good P.R. for Rotary and not interesting for their readers!
Many Clubs produce some form of ‘in-Club’ communication to keep members informed about Diary Dates, Events and Club Members.
These publications come in all shapes and sizes and at varying frequencies, some in colour and some in black and white
To encourage more Clubs to produce some form of documented communication for members and to improve the overall quality of ‘Bulletin’, there is an annual District 1070 Bulletin Competition for Clubs to enter.
Submit three different copies of your bulletin between 1st July 2008 and 30th June 2009 and you could win the coveted District Bulletin Shield. The results will be announced at District Conference.
There is also a competition for the 'Best New Bulletin' for clubs that have not entered the competition before. In addition, we have a category for 'Best Rotary Article'. Please make clear which categories you are entering when submitting your entry.
The criteria by which the bulletins are judged are, Information, News, Entertainment, Balance, Effectiveness and Presentation.
Why not resolve to enter your Club’s Bulletin for the Rotary year ended 30th June 2008. Send your entries to Mark Edwards, Peterborough Evening Telegraph, 57 Priestgate, Peterborough, PE1 1JW.
The details of this competition will be available from your Club Secretary later in the year.
The District has a magnificent Display Stand for use at Club Events. Its use is free of charge but you will need to give Peter Moreton, Rotary Club of Nene Valley, good notice if you wish to use it. Alternatively, many clubs are now investing in their own display units which are reasonably priced and can be personalised to your club and event.
Our main aim for the 1070 Website is to keep the news and details up to date and easy to follow. It's a hard task and can only be achieved with the very active assistance of all Club, Officers and Rotarians in the District.
More details about the progress of the Website will follow. The District Web Site Minder is John Cookson of the Rotary Club of Lutterworth Wycliffe. In the first instance, all submissions for the website should go to John Cookson.
Please contact us if you would like our help. Our contact details are in your District Directory under Communications Committee.
Graham Walker,
Rotary Club of Peterborough Werrington
Chairman District 1070 Communications and Public Relations Committee.
You are welcome to download copies of the district journal, News & Events from this page.
For further information about News & Events, or to submit articles for consideration, please contact the Editor, Graham Walker.
In order to keep these files to a reasonable size for downloading, they are compressed as much as possible and then converted to Adobe PDF format. To read the file, you will need to have Adobe Reader installed on your computer. Due to the compressoin, some of the graphics and pictures in these versions will not be up to the usual printed standard. Adobe Reader can be downloaded free of charge by visiting the Adobe site at www.adobe.com. We recommend that those with dial-up connections do not attempt to download these files.
If you are not a Rotarian but would like to receive a printed copy, please get in touch and, if any are available, we should be pleased to send one to you.
