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Message from the President

Message from the president

Dear Members and Friends of PRSA,

Our March 3 lunch meeting and professional development seminar on SEO and social media was “really interesting, current, and relevant,” according to one of the attendees.  Thank you to guest speakers Michelle Richard and Andrew Valdez.  Michelle is vice president of ITSC in San Antonio, has served at the PRSA national level on a technology advisory committee, and is a member of our PRSA San Antonio Board of Directors.  Andrew is director of new media at Schreiner University in Kerrville. Both Michelle and Andrew have been recipients of Del Oro Awards from PRSA San Antonio.

Our speakers deserve an extra round of applause because they stepped in at the last minute when the original speaker cancelled. The program was well-attended, the question-and-answer session at the end was lively, and the consensus of the meeting evaluations was that the content was excellent, practical, and people wanted more of it!

Thank you to Beth Graham of the Magik Theater for the door prize donation of four tickets to Magik Theater’s spring break show, The Jungle Book: a New Telling of an Old Favorite. Thank you to PRSA board members for help and support before and during the March luncheon meeting, including Marie Thornsberry for handling the invitations and advance registration; Debi Lamb-Burrows for preparing the graphics; Bob Sheldon, APR, Fellow PRSA, for speaking on behalf of the Del Oro award program; and Eilene Wollslager, APR for helping with the speaker selection.  

New reservation and payment policy

Elsewhere in this Byline is an article about the changes we made regarding payment policies for PRSA luncheon meetings.  Our board of directors discussed our luncheon costs, including an option to increase the pricing in order to make sure that we break even on events. We decided NOT to increase luncheon prices, but we did implement a reservation and payment policy that will better control our costs.  Also, as many of you who are responsible for event-planning know, budgeting for an event is tricky business, and managing an event can also be challenging when you’re trying to collect numbers and provide guarantees but don’t have all of the necessary information on hand when you need it. 

Changes include:  Reservations without payment will not be accepted, and all luncheon reservations must be paid in advance via credit or debit card; reservations and payments are due by 5:00 pm the Tuesday before the Thursday luncheon event, and a late fee of $10 per person will be charged for reservations accepted after the RSVP date and time; and in order to qualify for the “retired member discount”, individuals must be current PRSA members with the official “retirement” membership status from PRSA national.

Payment policies will go into effect for the April 7, 2016 meeting. If you have questions, need more information, or want to discuss these changes, or feel inconvenienced by these new policies, please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or 210-601-4572.

Del Oro

Raise your hand if you submitted an entry to Del Oro this year, and keep your hand in the air if you found the new process to be way better than the old way.  Thank you to our Awards Committee Monica Faulkenbery, APR, (chair), Fran Stephenson, APR, Debbie Rios-Vanskike, Laura Short, Bob Sheldon, APR, Fellow PRSA, Abbey Forney, Michelle Richard, and Tracy Ross-Garcia. Theyhave all been working tirelessly on our Del Oro awards and banquet. This year, for the first time, the awards submittal process was all done online (instead of those cumbersome, pesky, expensive binders that we used to have to submit).  They also established new categories and fees (to include reduced fees for non-profits and students).  It was an amazing upgrade to our process, and we will benefit from their hard work for years to come.

A round of applause also goes to Fran Stephenson who prepared and presented a webinar (February 28) on how to create award-winning Del Oro entries.  Fran, you did a great job.  I watched the webinar live, and watched it again on demand at a later date. Your insights and tips were very valuable.

PRSA at PRSSA

Thank you to PRSA president-elect Melissa Monroe-Young, APR and to PRSA member (and recent graduate) Michelle Jaramillo who spent an evening with the PRSSA students at UTSA, talking about the advantages of PRSA membership. I hear it was an excellent, lively meeting.  PRSA was certainly represented by two of our finest members and role models.

Oh! And if you haven’t already signed up for the “PRSSA Night with the Pros” coming up in April, I encourage you to do it. I’ve participated in the past, and not only is it an engaging, hopeful experience (hopeful in the sense that you get one-on-one contact with students, and you will learn that the future of our profession is in good hands), but it is also a perfect opportunity to meet students who are potential internship candidates and job candidates.  The event will be held Thursday, April 21 from 6:00 to 9:30 at UTSA. See the article elsewhere in this Byline for more info.

Mark your calendars

•          Mixer! Tuesday, March 22 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Kennedy’s Irish Pub,19179 Blanco Road, San Antonio, TX.  The St. Patrick’s Day festivities will continue. Wear your green for an evening of networking and complimentary hors d’oeuvres. Free parking is available.  Thank you to our hospitality chair Faith Green for setting this up! Register 

•          On April 7 at 11:15, our meeting topic will be Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication for Leaders: Be First ... Be Right ... Be Credible. Bob Howard, a leader in crisis and risk communication as relates to national and international disasters, will present the seminar. Two things about this seminar: (1) We’re starting 15 minutes earlier than usual, because the program (and Q&A) will be a big longer than our usual programs. (2) I’ve taken several crisis communications seminars from Bob Howard. He is an outstanding educator, and knows this topic better than anybody else I’ve ever heard speak on crisis communications.  Register 

•          May 12: our Annual Del Oro Awards Event.  A cocktail hour and awards dinner will be held May 12 at San Antonio Zoo. Registration will be open soon. We’re excited that this event will be held at the Zoo, which allows us to include some interesting opportunities into the program.  If you haven’t been on a carousel ride at the Zoo … well … you’ll be able to cross it off your bucket list on the night of Del Oro.  Just sayin’ …

Don’t forget …

•          Diversity every day:  We are one of the most diverse PRSA chapters in the country, and we need to demonstrate our commitment to diversity in thought and practices. 

•          PRSA is valuable to us as individuals and to the profession. Lifelong learning through PRSA, for instance, is a big deal.  PRSA offers learning opportunities through webinars, on-demand training, monthly and quarterly publications that talk about the latest best practices, and of course, local educational opportunities through events such as our monthly luncheons.

•          PRSA leads and defines the profession.  It is the largest professional organization serving the U.S. public relations community.  We ARE the industry thought leaders

Finally ….

I welcome all of your ideas, opinions, and comments, so please contact me at [email protected] or 210-601-4572 to share your thoughts with me

All the best,
Gretchen Roufs, APR
PRSA San Antonio President