2-4-2012 Minutes

The Communications Team met on Feb. 4, 2012. Attending were Mary Clinton, Neil
Goldstein, Joan Karasick, Ed Krisek, Dennis Leeper, Mardys Leeper, Liz Morgan, and Rick
Rickert. There was agreement that we would identify the general tasks of each of the four
areas that we identified: press relations, branding and logo, social media and website.

Press Relations Team:

Neil and Dennis volunteered to staff this committee. They will reach out to others (Sayre,
Bryan, Jean). Ed Krizek will also take a role, described below.

Background: Neil Goldstein has had an ad hoc role of writing press releases and collecting
images and sending them out to media outlets. Sayre Dixon, Dennis Leeper, Jean Lenke
and Bryan Boosz have also been involved in this. Neil posted a list of media outlets on
the church website, consisting mainly of e-mail addresses of local newspapers and some
broadcast outlets. It was suggested that Neil remove this list so as not to encourage
members to send out news releases without editing. Recently, most media outlets want
you to fill out a form on their website and they prefer a two-week lead time.

Concerns:

1) It is not clear how information flows from the activities of the committees to the
individuals who are responsible for publicity (do we need a graphic depicting the flow of
information?).

2) We need to clarify process for approval of content for the Focus, Digest and press
releases. If an idea is questionable, the team should consult the LLC, the Board and/or
Rev. Peter. It was suggested that style guidelines for writing press releases would be
helpful.

To address the above it was suggested that the Press Relations team do the following to
come up with a way to collect the newsworthy information:

1. Reach out to the various committees and ministry teams. (Ed)
2. Monitor the calendar and make suggestions to the committee as to what may be
potential newsworthy (Ed)
3. Suggest to the various ministry teams and committees that they can come to the
communications team with their ideas and to ask for help.
4. Cast out for reporters - ask for pictures! (all)

Ed will come up with a list of things that we might want to publicize. We will try to
identify a group of roving reporters who will follow up with events that have already
occurred. Ed will go to each of the five ministry teams and small group ministry teams and
explain the process and seek information.

Branding and Logo: We agreed that we need a logo from which tag lines and themes that
can be drawn. We looked at the puzzle piece designed by Rick Rickert and the chalice
designed by Elizabeth Lincoln (currently in use in the Focus and other brochures).
While the group admired Rick’s puzzle piece and its symbolism – many of us see

ourselves are part of the puzzle, particularly new members who are given a piece upon
joining the church - we could not agree that it would communicate who we are to the
wider community. Likewise for a chalice, albeit its meaningfulness to us.

This topic needs more work by a subcommittee who will need to reach out to the
congregation for consensus. Besides Rick’s submission of a design, there were no
volunteers among those present. Mary will seek out volunteers to work on this (perhaps
Erwin vanZanten, Maria Koenig and Carol Getty). We should look at the UUA marketing
links and consider incorporating the national logo into our publicity

It was suggested that we do some informal market research to find out if our chosen
design conveys what we want to convey.

We were reminded that Board members wear a t-shirt – what logo do they use. Dennis
informed us that the worship diversity team will be printing pens and bookmarks for
Friendship Sunday on March 25. They will select the design.

Social Media:

There were no volunteers among those present, with the exception of Joan, webmaster,
with whom the social media team would need to communicate. Mardys suggested that
we read the UUA guidelines for using social media. We will publicize how to get to the
Facebook pages of different groups of the church.

Mary will contact Gabe Small about taking the lead. Those who are posting now: Marylin
Huff, Jean Lenke, Bryan Boosz, and Dan Alamia.

Website:

Joan is a very committed webmaster in training - learning technical mechanics of it. She is
the content manager at this point. Joan needs a group of people who will be responsible
for contributing to the website. Each ministry team should have its own page and keep it
updated. Most of the ministry teams’ interaction will be internal communications.

Joan posed this question: Is less more? Neil: you never know what is going to catch an
eye, so maybe more is better. It was agreed that the website should offer members a path
to involvement, answering the question “what do I do if I have an idea for something the
church?”

There was a short discussion about blogging. We focused on internal blogging. It was
agreed that it should only be used by a limited few and the content needs to be approved.
In the past, blogs on our website have not caught on. Perhaps ministry teams could
establish their own blogs. What function would a blog serve? We decided to start a blog
for our communications team to see if it is useful.

Liz is interested in investigating. Younger people follow blogs. Joan will investigate if
other UU churches have blogs that are good and the UUA website. Maybe we could link to
the blog from the Social Media group.

We didn’t set a date for our next meeting. Its purpose would be to follow up on what
others are doing.