2006 eNews Vol III

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What's in this issue?
1) 2007 Board Nominations
2) Accreditation Classes
3) Mentors Needed
4) Enforcing PRSA’s “Code”
5) Fall Membership Special
6) How to make crisis planning a priority? Get real.


1) 2007 Board Nominations
The following members have been nominated to serve on the 2007 Board of the PRSA-St. Louis Chapter and will be voted on by members attending the Oct. 18 chapter luncheon. If you have any questions, please contact Jeff Waldman, Nominating Committee chairman, 314-996-7572.

President -- Rita Holmes-Bobo, APR, Express Scripts, Inc.
President-elect -- Jim Braibish, APR, Braibish Communications
Secretary -- Regina DeLuca-Imral, Edward Jones
Treasurer -- Sandi Straetker, PRiority Public Relations, LLC
Immediate Past President -- Chuck Reitter, PR Consultant

Directors -- *Rob Staggenborg, APR, Christian Brothers College High School; *Trudy Barthels, Ascension Health; **Melissa Barreca, APR, Ameristar Casinos, Inc., and **Carolyn Green, C. Green & Associates
Delegates - *Paul Tandy, APR, Parkway School District; *Suzanne Holroyd, Ph.D., APR, The Vandiver Group and **Dawn DeBlaze, DeBlaze & Associates

^{*Tern ends Dec. 31, 2007.  ** Term ends Dec. 31, 2008.}

Get to Know Your Fellow Members

Kelly Doria	Ashley Gammon	Corrie Hendrix	Courtney Jordan	Rob Staggenborg

2) Accreditation Classes
Do you have at least five years of paid experience in the full-time practice or in the teaching of public relations?  Then it is time to consider getting your Accreditation in Public Relations (APR).  Your APR is a distinction in the industry.  Plan to attend a one- day workshop designed to give you a basic understanding of the Examination for Accreditation process and a framework for further study.

• Who:  PR professionals with at least five years full-time experience.
• When: Oct. 28, 2006, beginning at 8:30 a.m. and lasting between 5 to 6 hours
• Where: To be determined
• What: Introduction practitioners to appropriate study toward accreditation.
• Why: Professional Development
  

• The two-stage examination process
• Communication theory
• Legal aspects
• Research
• Four-step planning process
• Knowledge, skill and abilities tested in the Examination

To sign up for sessions e-mail admin@prsastlouis.org ; For more information on APR check out the PRSA National Web site or inquire at accred@prsa.org.


3)  Mentors Needed
We are having an outstanding response from students to our expanded online mentoring program this fall, and we are looking for additional mentors to participate.  Conducted entirely through e-mail, this program gives students the opportunity to interact with professionals and ask questions about working in PR.  If you are interested in participating or would like more information, contact Michelle Mason mmason@millenniumcom.com or 314-569-7100.

4) Enforcing PRSA's Code?
PRSA continues its efforts to promote ethical standards and guide practitioners in making ethical decisions.  The newest code adopted in 2000, focuses on educating practitioners on ethical principles and values, but not on consequences of unethical behavior.  Chapters across the country are searching for ways to enforce code principles with little success.  PRSA is encouraging chapters to talk about licensing PR professionals (similar to doctors and attorneys) and accreditation as possible code enforcement measures.  As your ethics officer, I'd love to hear from PRSA members on: (a) Do you think there needs to be code enforcement standards added to the educational aspect of the current code? and (b) If so, how should that be accomplished?  I'll compile responses and report back to national.  Thank you in advance. - Liese Hutchison, APR hutchill@slu.edu.


5)  Fall Mmbership SPECIAL DELIVERY
Head "Back to School" with PRSA. Join PRSA in September or October as a full member ($290 membership level) and you’ll receive a $60 voucher toward the cost of one national tele-seminar or one on-site seminar.  Download a special "Back to School" membership application at prsa.org.

6) How to make crisis planning a priority? Get real.

Editor’s Note:  As our October 18 luncheon with Bob Pierce will focus on crisis communications preparedeness, here's a piece on Scatterbox by Steven Silvers to get you in the thinking mode.

The PR manager at a fast-growing services company told me that her executive team agreed in theory on the need for a crisis plan, but not on when it should be done given competing demands for time and budget.  She wondered how to justify making “bad news” readiness a corporate priority.

I suggested that she put crisis planning into a literal context by asking management to consider the cost of not being ready for a potential real-world scenario like this:

It’s 4:20 on Friday.  Most everyone has gone home for the three-day weekend.  Your phone rings, and on the line is a daily newspaper reporter two time zones away.  She’s on deadline and wants to know if you’ve fired the employee who’s been accused of harming a customer.

You have no idea what she’s talking about.  Recalling your half-day media training, you say very pleasantly that you’ll get the facts and call her back – but her tone turns accusatory, and she says someone who used to work for the company sent her the police report, and she starts reading it to you.  You tell her you haven’t seen any police report so you can’t comment, and she demands with a rising voice to know whom at the company has seen it, then.

Before you can answer, she wants to know what the company’s response is to the victim’s family, which told the media through their attorney that the company doesn’t conduct adequate background checks on its employees, and should have known something like this would happen.

You tell her again that you can’t comment until you find out the facts, and she accuses you of blowing her off.  She says she’ll just write that the company refused to comment, and that she has other sources including a local competitor, the victim’s attorney and the former employee who sent her the police report you claim you’ve never heard of.

Just then you get an email from a manager in that city.  He says there’s a television news van parked out front and a camera crew is interviewing customers in the parking lot.  He says he sent out the building’s security guard to chase them away, and he’s wondering if he should call the police.

The reporter hangs up.  You call the manager but nobody answers.  It’s now 4:30 here and 6:30 there.  You wonder what to do next.

If your company has an adequate crisis plan in place, then management will already know how to react, respond to and contain a situation like this -- or worse. If not, then a surprise bad news scenario is going to end up costing the company and its reputation a whole lot more.

That’s why they call them crises in the first place.