Public Relations Working Group
The main purpose of the Public Relations Working Group is to raise awareness about international water related issues, specifically the quest to provide access to safe drinking water, and how AguaClara strives to meet these goals.
To gain awareness and exposure for the AguaClara cause, the Public Relations group works at making posters and giving presentations to many interested parties around campus including Cornell Health International and the Bio-Expo. The Outreach Team has participated in Campus Sustainability Day and Ithaca's annual Into The Streets, a city-wide volunteer service day. The team also organized a benefit concert that took place in April, 2010. We also send press releases to a multitude of local media outlets including the Cornell Daily Sun and the Ithaca Journal. We plan to contact area schools and community groups to arrange presentations and lessons for local students. We will facilitate these presentations but everyone on the team is encouraged to attend. In order to make this efficient we will develop a generic lesson plan that can be used and modified depending on the situation.
Educational materials have been designed for AguaClara. We have developed Pamphlets, Brochures, and Info Sheets along with other promotional materials. As part of getting our name seen around campus, we have designed and printed posters and created t-shirts in past semesters. For the web, a new website has been designed and the wiki is being restructured.
Recruiting
We will work to recruit other people based on skills needed. This includes promoting AguaClara within the Civil Engineering Department, the College of Engineering and also to different departments around Cornell. Potential examples include, someone with educational experience to work on developing a lesson plan, people from biological or health related departments to organize measures of the effectiveness of our efforts, and people from social development departments to study how our efforts are effecting local communities and populations. We will make presentations to ENGRD classes and to other organizations that have expressed interest around campus, advertise in the Sundial, and put up posters in various places on campus.
Recruitment material can be found by browsing Outreach Resources.
To find Public Relations Working Group Tools, please visit our Outreach Resources page.
Website
The public relations website was created in the Spring 2010 in order to create a better relationship between the AguaClara Team and the general public. We plan on using this resource to streamline the process for keeping past and current members updated on AguaClara progress and to help educate possible sponsors about our project. The site is also use to advertise for fundraising events and to highlight the achievements of team members.
A complete guide to utilizing the website can be found at the Website Resources page.
Benefit Concert
In the past the outreach team has organized benefit concerts at The Nines in Collegetown. The best way to do this is to call George, the music coordinator at The Nines, at 607-272-1888. The best time to reach him is 12-5 PM on Tuesday. During the event, The Nines will donate a percentage of sales to AguaClara, and we can decide to charge an admission fee which goes directly to AguaClara. In the past the admission fee has been $5. The Nines charges $120 to hire a sound guy for the concert which can be paid out of revenues at the event. All other expenses should be incurred by outreach team members out-of-pocket to be reimbursed after revenues have been collected. (AguaClara's proceeds) = (percentage of sales) + (admissions) - ($120 sound charge) - (reimbursements for out-of-pocket expenses).
Book the event for a weekend night well in advance. Try to book student talent (bands from JAM Program House tend to work well) because student performers will help promote and bring their friends. You should not have to pay the talent; find people who will play for free for a good cause. Work with the promotional staff of The Nines to print flyers and quarter-cards. If necessary, pay for printing out-of-pocket and reimburse yourself from the proceeds. Promote online and organize volunteers from AguaClara or elsewhere to promote. Post flyers around campus and Collegetown, and distribute quarter-cards on Ho Plaza and elsewhere. It might be a good idea to sell advance tickets. The Spring 2010 flyer can be found in the Outreach Resources section of the wiki.