SPJ Las Vegas. 2010. Yours truly with Jigsha Desai and Elissa Yancey.

By now, I hope you have heard rumblings about the 2012 SPJ Membership Drive.

Information has gone out to Regional Directors and chapter leaders around the country and should be trickling through to members as we speak.

Mark your calendars: the month-long drive goes from Sept. 4 – Oct. 4.

Listen here: SPJ BlogTalkRadio episode about the Membership Drive and One Member, One Vote

Why are we doing this?

The point of the membership drive is what you might expect: to recruit new SPJ members and re-engage members who may have left the organization. Another way of thinking about the drive, though, is to get us all into a membership state of mind.

SPJ in Las Vegas. 2010. Mike Brennan accepts his national Mark of Excellence Award from George Daniels, Campus Adviser At-Large.

We SPJ members want to be part of a strong, vibrant, dynamic and relevant organization that empowers us to excel in our work, lead within our spheres of expertise, and be at any national–even international–table where journalism is the topic of conversation.

Let’s grow! We are hovering just under the 8,000 mark right now.

So, what it is exactly?

The 2012 Membership Drive has three pillars, all of which are voluntary. Of course, the more members who get involved the more effective we can be.

• The personal touch: Each One Reach One (E1R1)
• Social Media and blogging
• Programming

The toolkit and calendar

To help RDs and chapter leaders decide how they’d best like to approach the drive, the Membership Committee came up with a toolkit that describes the elements for each of the pillars. There is also a calendar which includes dates for important initiatives we hope as many chapters around the country will execute in a unified approach.

Read all about it: Check out PDFs for:

• Toolkit
• Calendar (includes a template for an email/letter members can use for E1R1)

SPJ Region 7 Spring Conference, Overland Park, KS (2011) President-elect Sonny Albarado hangs with speaker Jim Flink of Newsy.com

Blogorama

Throughout the membership drive month I’ll be sharing Q&A blogs with members around the country, so be sure to watch this space. I’ve asked RDs to recommend people I can interview, but the more the merrier!

Or, if you’d like to contribute your own membership blog, please let me know: me@hollyedgell.com

Continue to watch this space for updates and more information about the drive.

SPJ Region 7 Spring Conference in Overland Park, KS (2011). Region 7 Director Kelsey Volkmann at the podium.

Tags: each one reach one, ideas, membership drive, Society of Professional Journalists

This entry was posted by Holly Edgell on Thursday, August 23rd, 2012 at 11:32 am and is filed under Membership, Pro Chapter, SPJ Podcast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.