It’s hard to believe we’re in a new year. The PRSA Southeast District Officers are excited about this year. We have high hopes and have great plans for the year to benefit you, our chapters.
I hope you will take the time to look over our revamped website (prsasoutheast.wordpress.com). Since Stephen Loudermilk took over as the webmaster and e-news guy, he has added some new features to our website including best practices from our chapters. North Carolina sent in their “recipe” for putting on a successful full-day professional development. Please share your best practices with us. Stephen is also taking suggestions for our speakers’ bureau. Please request a form from him to fill out if you have heard a speaker in our region that another chapter would benefit from hearing them. This is just another added resource as a member of our district.
As you may notice, this website is free. The officers are very conscious of the dues your chapter pays to keep the district going. That is why you are reading our e-newsletter through our website to cut out any unnecessary costs. As of now, the district does not have any other revenue generator except chapter dues. We are continuing to keep the cost down to $1 per chapter member up to a $500 limit. Other districts charge from $1.50 to $2 per member. We hope to have 100 percent participation from all our chapters this year.
So you may ask yourself what will the district do with the funds. Besides sending the chair-elect to nationals’ Leadership Rally in June to continue to get great ideas for our district, we plan to give some seed money to our first-ever District Conference in 2012 in Chattanooga, Tenn. Thanks to the Lookout Chapter for volunteering to host our first conference, the district will need some funds to help them garner a strong speaker for the full-day conference. The district with the Lookout Chapter will be working out details throughout the year. Since the international conference will be on the West Coast in 2012, we hope you will support our district conference next year making it more affordable to you.
Please be sure to take advantage of our monthly Affinity Calls. They are on the 4th Thursday of the month at 3 p.m. ET. The next one is Monday, February 28 on awards. The March 28 call will focus on getting your APR. Please pass along this information to the appropriate chair in your chapter so they don’t miss out. If you missed the sponsorship call, you can playback the call at (218) 844-0951, Access Code: 570772#.
Finally, we will be bringing back our 2nd Annual Leadership Rally to Birmingham in November. We had such great feedback last year that we hope it will be even bigger this year. It will be hard to follow in Dr. Joe’s feet, but I will try my best. I hope to have a date set by the next e-newsletter.
Please feel free to reach out to your district liaison if you have any questions, concerns, etc. That’s what we’re here for.
Best,
Melanie Davis
District Chair