2004 Annual Report

By MAGGIE CRABTREE, APR

2004-05 Chapter President

2005 has come so quickly! The year as your president has sped by. Hopefully you feel your membership has been valuable. At the beginning of this year we asked what you wanted for added value. And, to the best of our ability we responded. Here are just a few of the highlights of 2004:

Accreditation: We had six PRSA members study for the APR accreditation exam. The program headed up by past president Melanie Rose, APR and taught by a gaggle of APRs who received high marks from the participants.

Professional Development: We continued to offer the national PRSA webcasts with speakers we’d usually only get to hear at a national conference. We managed to break even of these events, and meet our ongoing needs for development. In addition, our fall half-day workshop on creativity jumpstarted all those who attended, and the chapter made more than $1,100 for future professional development use. Special thanks to Mary Joan Hahn, Melanie Rose, Garry Matlow, Ann Nolan and Tamitha Anderson for pulling together and working so hard to pull off this event.

Networking: Our monthly joint PRSA/SPRC meetings continue to draw a good crowd and we jointly plan for the meetings and topics. Our hope is to continue this collaboration with SPRC. In addition, I have had the opportunity to meet many of our distant members and provide opportunities to participate from afar.

PRSSA: The student chapters have blossomed thanks to the leadership of members Dale Goodwin and Erin Dorsey at Gonzaga with PRSSA liaison Lea Conner-Dudley, APR, Steve Blewett at EWU with PRSSA liaison Susan Nielsen, APR and Moon Lee, Bruce Pinkleton and Erica Austin at WSU with PRSSA liaison Hugh Imhof. We had 59 students participate in our Day on the Job and an outstanding participation by our professionals both in PRSA and SPRC and Ad Club. Our students have caught on fire with WSU students attending the New York national convention and our Gonzaga students will be offering a regional conference in February 2005. Finally, a special thanks to Vicki Simmons who chaired a very successful wine tasting and auction that raised about $2,700 for PRSSA activies this next year. Thanks to all of you who helped out with donations and time to make this evening a success.

Professional Recognition: Thanks to all who nominated an educator of the year, a professional of the year and Degerness nominees. These awards, which will be announced at the January 2005 meetng are just another way we can acknowledge the good work of public relations in our community.

We had a few things we’d like to do better. We recognize the need to develop a senior roundtable and hope to continue that goal into 2005. We’d like to continue to build our particpation for senior members. We’d like to improve our ability to recruit professionals in Spokane into PRSA, and to have a greater value for our distant members.

Finally, Thanks to all of you who have made an impact on the success of this year. A special thanks to our outgoing board members Mary Joan Hahn, APR, Melanie Rose, APR, and Vicki Simmons, who have been a tremendous asset to our organization. We thank you for your hard work and dedication, and, thanks to Ann Nolan who has agreed to stay another year as we transition in many new board members.

I look forward to our next year, and all the years to come as we work together on promoting our profession.