One of the problems the Jaycees run into is that few people have heard of the organization. This problem is somewhat self-inflicted because when there is news, they don’t tell anyone. Back in February of this year, my chapter received a number of awards, presented one long-time member with a Maryland Jaycees’ Militia (highest award in the state), presented another one with a US Jaycees Ambassadorship (highest award in the nation), and didn’t send out any sort of press releases because nobody wanted to be seen as “blowing my own horn.”
Some months ago, the Board of Directors asked me to help publicize the chapter. Since then I’ve been working with various project chairpeople to make certain that something gets out to the media about various events, even if it’s just an entry in the community calendar. In order to make the press releases easily available to the next person to do this job (and one of my goals for the next few months is to get someone into this job), I also started a separate Jaycee Blog with the press releases and an occasional event write-up.
I’ve managed to get the Jaycees mentioned in the local newspaper a time or two since then, but last month, I “hit a pothole” when the chapter gave me a Jaycees Militia membership. Suddenly, I was the guy who didn’t want to go around tooting my own horn.
If I’d been the only one to receive an award that weekend, I probably would have taken the easy way out and not done anything. Problem is, I wasn’t the only award winner. Two Jaycees members won state awards, and another one was presented with her own Jaycees Militia membership. (I’d long assumed Nicole was far more likely to receive that award than I was.)
It took me a while, but last night I wrote and sent out a press release to make sure people can find out what the Jaycees have been up to.