Many of us are hard at work trying to grow membership in states with long established chapters.

But imagine the energy, creativity and committment it must take to start an SPJ chapter in a part of the country where there’s been no activity for over a decade or more.

That’s why the Gardener wishes to tip his hat this week to two members who are planting the SPJ banner in Iowa and North Carolina.

Garden Center blogger M.E. “Buddy” Baker interviewed them both and filed this report:

Starting from Scratch

By M.E. “Buddy” Baker

Passion is at the root of what motivates two women working to start SPJ chapters.

Callie Martell, an assistant producer for North Carolina television program “NC Wanted,” is trying to resurrect an old chapter that’s faded to black. She’s confident that its revival “can and will happen.”

“The state of North Carolina is the home to many passionate journalists who have been asking about the chapter for some time and want to see it succeed, regardless of the timing,” she says.

The effort is still in its infancy, with the first meeting scheduled for early March. Already Martell says there’s “a lot” of e-mail and phone chatter about the group-to-be since SPJ’s national conference in the District of Columbia last October. She’s using the national headquarters as a resource and reaching out to members who were involved in the earlier incarnation of the group.

“We have a small handful of people from across the region who are committed to the project but we are having to plan far in advance to accommodate schedules and travel distance,” she says. “We are just going to take this step by step and learn the ropes as we go. So, no, there aren’t any officers in place but I expect things to start rolling very smoothly once we have our first meeting. Right now, we encourage anyone who is interested to step on up!”

May her efforts with the chapter be as successful as her TV show. Thanks to stories she’s helped tell, “NC Wanted” has aided in the capture of more than 10 fugitives since her arrival.

Rachel Weber also is confident of success in starting a chapter in Des Moines, Iowa. Two print powerhouses are located there – the Des Moines Register and Meredith Corporation, where she is a staff writer for “Kitchen Makeovers” magazine. Meredith is a major publisher of books and magazines, and also owns 14 television stations.

Weber graduated only last spring from Iowa State, where she was treasurer of the student chapter. Still fresh with the enthusiasm of the newly initiated, Weber has been recruiting people at Meredith and has signed up journalists at the Register.

She feels good things can come from this assemblage of newspaper reporters and magazine writers. “I feel like there’s going to be a lot of collaboration.” Meredith, she says, also has a lot of resources – read that as people “my mom’s age” – that she can consult for advice and assistance.

Which brings us to what she considers one of her greatest challenges: her youth. Only a year out of college, Weber has been mistaken for a teenager. “I want us to be taken seriously. I want this to be organized and really strong starting out.”

News of Weber’s efforts has spread solely through the scribe grapevine. “People want to do it,” she says. “It’s just a matter of organizing them.”

Her efforts are moving along quickly. Just before press time, Weber e-mailed an update: “I’ve made headway and have had conversations with the regional director as well as one of the chapter doctors and am really excited for our first informational meeting on Saturday, March 15.”

Good work and good luck to both of you.

SPJ Garden Center Tip of the Week

Does you chapter award scholarships? Consider adding a one-year student or post-graduate membership along with the scholarship. It’s a meaningful gift that could pay dividends in the long run.

SPJ By the Number

Membership this week                     9,244

Membership one month ago            9,163

Membership one year ago                9,096

SPJ Membership Coordinator Linda Hall told the SPJ membership committee in January that she had sold a lifetime membership to one A.B. Feuer, a retired journalist and author from Virginia.

That would be the first one purchased since the $1,000 for a lifetime membership was announced late last year.

On learning that Mr. Feuer is in his 80s, she gently joked with him that “I’m probably going to win this bet.”

But the Gardener thinks “Bud” Feuer has placed a winning wager. He has bet on the future of journalism and upon SPJ as the way to ensure that future. It’s a good bet.

Curious about the man, the Gardener asked Rekha Raman, one of our volunteer Garden Center bloggers, to interview Mr. Feuer and tell us a bit more about him. Here is her report:

Profile of Mr. Bud Feuer

I was given an online introduction to Bud by Linda Hall, the membership coordinator of SPJ. Following that, I had a telephone interview with Bud, as known by his friends, and had a very friendly conversation with this pleasant gentleman, who is in his early eighties, active and still immersed in the field of journalism.
Bud Feuer is a retired journalist, who has been an esteemed member of the SPJ for about 15 years, and in the past year opted for the lifetime membership which costs $1000.  He thought with his advancing years, purchasing the lifetime membership would be an advantage as he wouldn’t have to worry about renewing his membership from time to time.
He was motivated to join SPJ because the organization enables him to network with other members and also learn the latest writing tools used in journalism. He gets to talk to other people from SPJ and gets updates on the latest events and new topics coming up in the journalistic field.
Mr. Feuer was a war journalist, and worked for the Chicago Tribune for a number of years, in northern Indiana. He started off as a paperboy and worked his way up into the field of journalism.

During the course of his career, in the 1940s, he got to meet the legendary Tribune Editor and Publisher Colonel Robert McCormick as well as other famous writers of that era.

At that time, as a young journalist he was on call 24 hours a day and unraveled some of the most amazing stories of the times, and says that how stories were covered was much different from what journalism is today.

He used to be a feature writer, but now writes primarily for magazines, mostly on history. He has written at least 500 magazine articles on war and unusual historical facts.

Mr. Feuer has 50 years experience in the newspaper, magazine and book business. After retiring in 1985, Bud moved with his family to Roanoke, VA and spends his time writing and researching.

He says writing is a great mental exercise and “is good for the rest of the body too.” The knowledge accumulated over the years from his career as a journalist thralls his mind even now, and the facts bring back the nostalgia of his passion.

He gives talks to universities, schools and different service organizations. The audiences find his experiences awesome and eye-opening.

Bud has published several books and magazines which can be found on his website, www.abfeuer.com, and have appeared such magazines as “Sea Classics” and “The Artilleryman.”

His books include such titles as “Packs On! – Memoirs of the 10^th Mountain Division in WWII” and “FDR’s Prisoner Spy – The Bilibid Diary the Commander Thomas Haynes, U.S.N.”

Bud is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the American Society of Journalists and Authors. He was recently presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the University of Notre Dame.

Garden Center Tip of the Week

When the new $1,000 Lifetime SPJ membership was approved in October at the SPJ National Convention, I calculated that such a deal in my case would pay for itself in 2019, around the time that I turn 65.

(I can only hope that by then, I’m half as sharp and productive a writer as Bud Feuer.)

Bud’s example, however, made me realize that perhaps I’ve been looking at the equation the wrong way.

While it was not necessarily the intent behind the new deal, the lifetime membership can be viewed as a kind of living bequest or a way for longtime members to say, “This is how much I value being a member of SPJ.”

Perhaps if we were to market it as a means to express that sentiment, we’ll be surprised to see how many more “Buds” will bloom.

SPJ by the numbers

Membership this week                9,119

Membership one month ago        9,040

Membership one year ago            9,003

Today, I’d like to talk with you about an issue that affects how SPJ chapters govern themselves and how they reach out to their membership.

It’s an issue that has a tremendous influence over how professional chapters gain members and then hold onto them.

Many of our chapters represent entire states with members spread out over vast geographic areas.

This is particularly true here in the Rocky Mountain west, but I’ve heard from other SPJ officers on either coast who have struggled with the same problem.

The problem is this: how do you make all members feel like they are equal parts of a chapter when so much distance separates them?

Here are some suggestions I’d like to pass along based on our experience in Colorado where we literally have members in all four corners of the state, from Durango to Grand Junction on the west to Fort Collins and Colorado Springs to the east.

When I became chapter president nearly two years ago, I was surprised to discover that nearly half of our members lived and worked outside of the Denver metro area.

Yet, much of the chapter’s activities: our mixers, programs and meetings, took place in Denver. In many ways, we were a Denver-centric chapter in a way that was not terribly relevant to about half our members.

That has changed.

It started with our board. We have made a conscious attempt to include SPJ members from the outlying areas on our 12-member board.

When we meet once a month, we use a telephone conference system that has enabled board members in Greeley, Breckenridge,  Fort Collins and Pueblo to take part.

We also created a regional advisory committee composed of SPJ members from all parts of the state. This group acted as a sounding board to our decisions and provided valuable input. It also provided us with candidates for the board as vacancies fell open.

And finally, we made a concerted effort to move our programs outside the Denver city limits. Thus we held mixers in Pueblo. We held training seminars in Colorado Springs and Fort Collins. We brought speakers to Boulder and Greeley.

This strategy paid off. As a result, we were able to move many SPJ members who were not affiliated with the pro chapter into our ranks. In fact, much of the growth our chapter has experienced in the last two years came from outside of Denver.

Take a close look at your membership rolls. If you are in a state where members are scattered over large distances, you might want to adopt a similar approach of thinking regionally while acting locally.

SPJ by the numbers

Membership this week                        9,065

Membership one month ago               8,926

Membership one year ago                  8,912

By KATE FAZZINI

Girl Reporter

Putting on a successful membership recruitment event requires more than just booze and a cheese tray.

No, it’s true! In fact, at the New York Deadline Club, some of the most successful chapter events have not included booze or cheese at all!*

“We have mixers all the time just to get people together and talk,” explained chapter president and hardworking AP business reporter Tim Paradis. “But we’ve also had panel discussions which are a good way for journalists to sort of talk about the tenets of journalism, ranging from the ramifications of celebrity photography to freelancing to what editors look for in a pitch letter.”

Having a diverse set of offerings – a little something for broadcast here, photo there, legal issues, etc. – helps prove to both existing members and recruits that the SPJ can work for all kinds of journalists, not just beat reporters.

So how can these events actually help drive membership? Woman-about-town Rachel Nielsen, a master freelancer who also serves as the Deadline Club’s first vice president and events and membership coordinator, said being innovative and getting big names on board are two ways to help cultivate interest.

“One successful event was a tour of NBC studios, which included a talk with Ann Curry, the Today Show anchor,” Nielsen said. “That group included a number of graduate journalism students. We got feedback like, ‘this is just what I needed today to take with me and really get back to work.’”

Seeking the right mix of topics is also a must – after all, journalists have been known to love cutting through B.S. Other successful events have included essential topics, such as “how to break news,” “how to build your source base,” “how to dig for details,” Nielsen explained.

“The key to having successful events is that we had stated goals going into the events,” Nielsen said.

It’s especially important to note that a successful event isn’t necessarily one that results in a pile of new membership forms and freshly-inked dues checks.

“Some people choose to go to one event and skip another,” she said. “We hope to create some informal ties – nothing too sort of overbearing. Hopefully, they will see the broader benefits in terms of being part of a national organization.”

Nielsen outlined three main points of advice in organizing a successful membership event:

1. Set goals. Do you want people to walk away with more knowledge about first amendment issues? Do you want to plant seeds for a new student chapter? Do you want to put on a successful networking event? Get your goals together first.

2. Get personal. “When we get 45 RSVPs to an event, we send 45 personalized responses. We all make sure that we have a very personal outreach to our guests,” she said. Nobody likes drinking booze and munching on cheese cubes alone – you can insure a greater turnout if you makes sure your attendees know they are important to the process.

3. Think about timing. Some of the Deadline Club’s most successful recruiting events happen at the beginning of the year, a.k.a. “renewal season” – you know, like, right about now. “We had a winter party that also included our election. We of course had an email announcing that to our members, that included a membership reminder ‘have you not joined SPJ yet? Is it time to renew?’ A lot of people either joined SPJ or re-joined.”

So, get out there, set some goals, write up some quirky and personal emails and remind your constituents that in the New Year, one of the most valiant personal aspirations is expanding one’s mind and enriching one’s day-to-day life, including one’s career. Nothing is more exciting than that.

* “You get three exclamation points in your life – choose them wisely,” a professor of mine once said. So, I’m saving the last one for my obit, Dr. Frantz.

SPJ by the numbers

Membership this week: 9,266

Membership one month ago: 8,821

Membership one year ago: 8,806