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Thread: 8. Public Relations Coordinator – Report – Bob Armstrong

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    Default 8. Public Relations Coordinator – Report – Bob Armstrong

    This is reserved for Bob Armstrong's report

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    Default Pubic Relations Coordinator Report

    Pubic Relations Coordinator Report - Bob Armstrong

    At the 2010 AGM, the governors upgraded the position of Director of Publicity to Public Relations Coordinator. Bylaw 3 of the CFC Handbook, under Duties of Officers in Section 8C, gives the mandate of this position as:

    8C. The Public Relations Coordinator will be responsible for promoting the image of the CFC and for promoting chess generally to the public. As such the Public Relations Coordinator will, among other things:

    - deal with mainstream media to promote significant chess news, such as Canadian Chess Champions, a new Canadian GM, major tournaments like the Can. Closed, Canadian Open, Can. Women’s Closed, CYCC, etc., the various benefits accruing from playing chess and other positive aspects of the chess culture.

    This position in its initial creation never got filled. I volunteered in Sept. 2010 to be “ acting “ Public Relations Coordinator, and carried on the task for a few months. Then in November I agreed to take on the position permanently.

    Because of this situation, the CFC has never developed a bank of Canadian mainstream media contacts who might be willing to publish CFC Press Releases on chess items, or to write articles on chess. I have now developed a list of some 50 print, on-line, TV and radio contacts across the country ( though most in Ontario still ) to which I send the CFC Press Releases. If anyone can supply me with a contact with their local media across the country, and an e-mail address, I will add them to my lists.

    I write some press releases myself, and on some I collaborate with others, under who's name the press release may appear.

    CFC is making its CFC Press Releases available to any member for any publicity efforts they might be undertaking. They are always posted on the CFC “ News “ Forum. I have asked to be advised of any efforts made and use of the material, so CFC can build a file on the efforts being made to promote chess in Canada.

    Newspapers do not acknowledge press releases ( too many daily ) and do not notify you if they make use of one. So I have asked that if anyone sees/hears an article on one of our press releases in any of the papers, or on TV or on radio, they advise me. I have been warned that it has not been easy to get chess material into the mainstream media, and this has been my experience so far. But our press releases do often generate an inquiry or two, and we have been successful in getting some print and on-line articles published based on our press release, and my conversations with the respective journalists. We have also arranged a number of TV interviews for some of our elite players – in some cases I have also been interviewed to give the CFC perspective on the event. Nevertheless, CFC should have very modest expectations of success on this front. But hopefully, over time, with developing contacts, this will change.

    If anyone has any newspaper, television or radio contacts I might be able to use, or any advice on this effort, please e-mail me : bobarm@sympatico.ca . CFC issued 7 Press Releases from Aug. – Dec. 2010. We have had no occasion to issue a press release since the 2011 Winter Meeting.

    One new innovation I have brought in for communicating with the membership/public, is an almost daily “ The CFC Regular Chess Post – ( Date ) “. I do this on our “ News Forum “. I try to cover current events across Canada, facts on CFC, political happenings, etc.. Because the “ news “ items are then copied onto the News Section of the CFC Website, this now shows on the CFC Website as well, for all visiting our website to see.

    We have also instigated a new feature into CFC – social networking. Michael von Keitz raised with the CFC executive that communicating with members/public now involved having Facebook and Twitter pages. So Michael opened the CFC Twitter Account in March, and then I took it over. I now “ tweet “ daily, using a truncated “ version of the almost daily “ Regular Chess Post “ item.

    I then in March had a Facebook organization page opened for CFC by a volunteer member – but I soon discovered that some CFC members, without any contact with CFC, had opened a CFC Facebook Group Page, back in 2009. It had less than 100 members and had become inactive. I arranged with the founders of the page, to make CFC co-administrators of the page ( though they said they no longer had time for it, and would be effectively handing the reins over to CFC ). I have now started posting on a regular almost daily basis, different items of interest, initially posted on our “ News “ Forum. Here is a sampling of what our Facebook “ Wall “ looks like:
    __________________________________________________ ________________________

    Bob Armstrong - The CFC Regular Chess Post – March 30

    2011 Calgary Closed – 8-player RR – av. rtg. - 2195 – winner - IM Eric Hansen ( 2537 ) – 6.5 pts. . Eric playing for Canada in upcoming Americas Continental Championship ( along with GM Mark Bluvshtein ), where six births in the FIDE World Cup at stake.

    Chess Federation of Canada
    __________________________________________________ __________________

    Bob Armstrong - The CFC Regular Chess Post - March 29

    The Canadian Open ( in 2011 in Toronto from July 9 – 17 ) is currently the biggest tournament in Canada: 2010 CO in Toronto- 265 ; 2010 Trois Rivieres ( Quebec ) Tournament – 235, and in 2011 – 220; 2010 Quebec Open - 259. ( Quebec figures thanks to CMA's Larry Bevand )

    Chess Federation of Canada
    __________________________________________________ __________________

    Bob Armstrong - The CFC Regular Chess Post - March 28

    March 26/27 - Hamilton Winter Open ( 5 rds. ) - winner - Can. GM Bator Sambuev ( CFC 2718 ) highest CFC-rated Canadian - 5-0. Defeated GM Wesley So, Philippines # 1 ( FIDE 2667 )!

    Chess Federation of Canada
    __________________________________________________ _______________

    Also, I have raised the membership of the group page to 119 now, and have sent out probably 50 more invitations to join. I have now had closed the new “ organization “ page, to avoid duplication and confusion re CFC pages. But it is now being suggested that the “ group “ page is old-fashioned, and that CFC would be better served to open what is referred to as a “ Facebook Fan Page “. I am investigating how the features differ from our current page, and whether we should follow the suggestion.

    This non-executive officer position is a challenging task, and does involve some significant volunteer hours. But one of the core objectives of the CFC is promotion of chess to the general public through mainstream media and social networking. I feel we are finally making some modest progress on this objective.

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    Bob: What a difference a year makes. Just think of all of the efforts you've made in the past 6-7 months. I certainly hope you will continue on in this position for some time !

  4. #4

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    Hi Fred:

    Thx for the encouragement. It's been a challenge and a learning experience, and involved a bit of volunteer time, but it has also been fun. I'd like to carry it on for another year. I'll put my name forward again at the July AGM.

    Bob

  5. #5

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    I second Fred's sentiment. The use of social media strikes me as a positive step forward and I hope Bob continues on in his role. In fact, I believe he is already looking into the possibility of redefining our use of Facebook (specifically, switching to a fan page as opposed to a group). Does anyone have any suggestions regarding his use of Twitter? It may simply be me, but the messages occasionally seem a little too cryptic - for the sake of clarity, I don't think it would be impossible to use sentences (or sentence fragments), instead of snippets of information.

  6. #6

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    Hi Michael:

    The problem is the 140 character limit on twitter. This is very short. And I am trying to get all the basic info on an issue into one tweet, rather than using multiple, consecutive tweets, which I have done on occasion, where my material all needs to be tweeted, and it just won't fit within 140 characters. To go to sentences or sentence fragmenrs will severly limit the usefulness of many tweets ( too little info ). But if the point form is too difficult to read, then maybe I'll just have to limit myself to one shot ideas.

    Bob

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    One critical step will be integrating Social Media with the website. News should simultaneously hit the web page, Facebook and Twitter at the same time. We have to be careful that we don't duplicate/undercut our efforts here.

    Has there been any discussion with the web page developers about our efforts on Facebook and Twitter? It would be ideal if it all has a common feel to it.

  8. #8

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    Hi Garland:

    Here is some correspondence between the website developer and myself - I'm still trying to get up to speed on some of this stuff, but doing what I can:


    -----Original Message-----
    From: Mike Almond [mailto:mike@resolutionim.com]
    Sent: April 4, 2011 10:34 AM
    To: Fred McKim
    Cc: Stephanie Mohl; Bob Gillanders; Bob Armstrong
    Subject: Re: RSS feed

    We will be able to set up an RSS feed for the news section. You can take this and import the feed into Facebook to automatically post to the CFC wall. I believe there are apps on Facebook that allow you to automatically tweet any CFC posted update.

    Mike Almond
    Sr. Associate/ Creative & Technical
    Resolution Interactive Media
    Phone: 519-936-6674
    Fax: 519-913-0829
    __________________________________________________ ________________

    Hi All:

    I am not technologically up on this stuff.

    But something I have run into seems relevant. I post a message on the CFC " News " Forum almost daily. I then want to use it on Facebook and Twitter. So I copy it and paste it on the CFC Wall in Facebook.

    Problem - Facebook limits posts to 420 characters. Often I am beyond this and have to edit the text to get it down to 420 characters. So if the RSS feed exports the text from the CFC News on the new CFC website, directly into the " compose " box on Facebook, I will still have to go to check whether the post violates the 420 character maximum, and if so, edit it. Do I understand how this works?

    And for twitter the problem is worse - 140 character limit. So I copy the Facebook post, paste it into the Twitter message box, and then have to again edit it down to 140 characters. So there will be the same problem automatically exporting.

    Any comments?

    Bob

    I have not yet had a reply.

    Bob

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