Communications+Committee

Current members: Eleanor Kwei, Mark Maxam, Matt Pucci, Kusum Sinha, Barbara Ulm, Abe Zambrano

This committee is responsible for our communications strategies, including the Parent Media Campaign, brochure(s) and other media, such as a website or newsletter. The committee meets on an as-needed basis and is currently in the process of developing a logo, drafting a brochure and considering possible internet media. It is the hope of this committee to reach the community in different ways to develop an understanding of the mission and work of the Croton Community Coalition.

CHECK OUT THE COALITION WEBSITE AT [|www.crotoncoalition.org]!

The Committee reviewed the suggested sites as well as Eleanor Kwei's site that she developed for her recently-published book. The Committee decided to hire Eleanor to develop the Coalition website. A date of April 30 was set for review of site layout. You can see Eleanor's site at [].
 * Notes**
 * March 31, 2011**

For consideration at the meeting of the Communications Committee on Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 3pm in the main office conference room at CHHS.: A couple of sites I thought we might look to emulate include: www.nrfocus.org  www.healthyyouth.org. //Possible designers// Gale Silverberg __ galia62@aol.com __ (914) 220-2262 Web design, email marketing, social media integration, etc., recently ventured off on her own. Please see below for a few samples of websites and e-mail promotion she has designed. She can send you samples of e-newsletters as well, if that is of interest. Websites __ Pleasantville Community Synagogue __ __ Euro Laser Services __ Email Marketing __ Euro Laser Services Email Archive __

She is very excited to work with us on ensuring that the Croton Community Coalition has an eye-catching presence on the web. It would be wonderful, too, to utilize social media and e-mail promotion to full advantage in order to spread such a meaningful message to the students and the community. //From Irene Herz of AuntReeneesWebsites.com//  @http://nrfocus.org/ is a Wordpress blog. You might want to consider doing one of those. You can get a free one at @http://wordpress.com/ with one of their preset themes, or if you want, I can set up a Wordpress site with a customized appearance, and you could maintain it yourself. I'd have to charge you a small amount for setup and hosting if you want a customized one with your own URL. It sounds like you are capable of posting the material yourselves. --- The Communications Committee met on Tuesday, April 27 at 10:15am at CHHS. At the meeting we reviewed copies of two brochures (the original drafted and the one brought to the meeting by Barbara Ulm). Subsequent to the meeting, Laurie Dean provided a side-by-side comparison of the text included in each.

We are also working on selecting a logo. Coalition members were asked to provide feedback on the logo choices and the draft brochure to Ginny (crotoncoalition@gmail.com) by Monday, April 12. Click here to see potential logos. Click here to link to the draft brochure.

After our March Coalition meeting, we received feedback on the brochure. Suggestions were incorporated and the revised text can be seen by clicking here: . (In Laurie's comparison, this is referred to as the "UChoose" brochure).

As we received some feedback that the brochure was graphically weak. Marlene Ratliff at PVC provided a different look, which was then further revised. That can be seen here: . (In Laurie's comparison, this is referred to as the "CCC" brochure.)

With Coalition members expressing a unanimous preference for the black&white UChoose logo, Eleanor Kwei modified that logo to even out some of the spacing. The revised logo, approved by the Communications Committee at our April 27 meeting is below:  <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">At our meeting on March 11, 2010, the following items were discussed:

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Logo: Mark Maxam reported that Nicole Ezagui is working on a logo incorporating the student artwork (a tiger with a raised paw) and the Village of Croton logo.

Brochure: We talked about the use of a brochure vs. a simpler fact sheet for distribution at upcoming events (Game Night at CHHS on March 12 and PVC Dance on March 19). It was decided that the fact sheet would be more appropriate since we need more time to finalize the brochure. It was agreed that Ginny would design and distribute a fact sheet for review, using pieces of the draft brochure. Committee members agreed to review the brochure and provide edits and comments prior to the March 25 full Coalition meeting. The goal is to present a draft brochure to the Coalition on that date. Laurie agreed to ressearch printing methods, one of which would provide for small runs of the brochures on printers at the school or village. Eleanor has offered her help with layout and graphics. Barbara also offered the assistance of Marlene Ratliffe in her office.

Discussion: Some concerns were raised that would be good to discuss at full Coalition meetings. Particularly, how do we reach parents and help them with the difficulties of alcohol and drug abuse prevention tactics with their children? and how do we reach a set of parents with widely ranging views on this topic? While we are currently focused on efforts directed at students in the schools, we need to provide education to parents that is community-based (rather than school-based). There is also a concern that nobody in town knows what the group is doing and that we need to get the message out. We also talked about sharing expectations regarding underage alcohol and drug use and about the behaviors we model as adults. We discussed the role the Coalition has in noticing what we're communicating as a community about alcohol and drugs.

We agreed to set our next meeting date at the March 25 Coalition meeting. All members of the committee are asked to bring their calendars to that meeting.

Attending: Laurie Dean, Eleanor Kwei, Mark Maxam, Barbara Ulm, Ginny Loughlin