PR for Speakers' Clubs

Go to the club officers training to learn from PR people at other clubs. Take along cutting of places where you have been in the papers. If none, photograph or photocopy how other clubs have appeared to inspire your club members.

If your club meets in a venue with a notice board (a restaurant, YMCA or YWCA, school, civic building) ask if you can put up the article from the local paper alongside a notice for your next meeting/regular meeting date.

Note the names of your venue with postcode, the names of everybody in the photo and their club. (Yes, I'll add a caption shortly.) Include the name of the photographer so a newspaper can contact them for more photos and for copyright reasons.

Get a VIP to present prizes. You could pick the head of a local company, the president of another club in the area such as a sports club, historical society, school, university, or the mayor. A picture of the mayor and winners will usually get you into your local paper.

No VIP? How about checking all your members. Look for an extreme or contrasts. The oldest member? The youngest? The youngest and oldest? An 18 year old student and an 80 year old?

Or three the same? Three students? Three pensioners? Three grooms, brides? A bride and groom? Three grandfathers or grandmothers? Three teachers? Three tennis players? 

What about people who have been helped? Somebody unemployed who hopes to get a job as a result of entering a contest? Somebody who was unemployed and now has a job and thinks the club helped him achieve his aim, or at a bad time helped him or her remain happy? 

Photos

Anybody with a visual novelty or emotional appeal? A club member with twins, six children, three dogs. A member with a walking stick, wheelchair or white cane for the blind? A leg in plaster from a skiing accident? A new member with a new home, new job, new wife, new car, new club and new year's resolution? Photograph them with one or more of these in the picture. 

Get your group to all adopt the same pose and hold the same object, champagne flute glasses held forward, certificates at waist level, pens in right hands, manuals on chest, or just dancing or holding hands up to wave, or right legs forward as if dancing.

How about three tips from the winner? With bullet points in a box with a border, for your next leaflet to houses or businesses or university colleges around the club venue.

A word of praise for the club winner from the national champion?

Check the deadline for the newspaper. You could send in your article and after the contest simply phone or email the name of the contest winner or the order of the top three winners as a one-line footnote or headline or caption.