Message Box Training

Friday, May 11 at 1pm ET/12pm CT/11am MT/10am PT

 

The Sierra Club adopted the use of message boxes and message triangles -- simple, visual tools defining strategic messages that will be presented to public audiences through the media – to make us more nimble, succinct and strategic responding to reporters' questions.  Learn the Sierra Club’s standard method of designing a message box, and practice using it to tell a persuasive and comprehensive story to the public.  Practice time, too!

Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/346167969

 

Strategic Communication Training

Tuesday, April 24, at 4pm ET/3pm CT/2pm MT/1pm PT

Learn how working with the news media helps us win, and review the 3 fail-proof steps of strategic communication: Targeting the Right Audience, Developing Strategic Framing and  Messages, and Implementing Media Tactics.  This training also covers the Sierra Club Strategic Communication Plan template, includes best-practices and examples, and gives us an opportunity to learn from each others, as we share and compare experiences.

Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/612377264

 

Pitch Training

Friday, April 20, at 3pm ET/2pm CT/1pm MT/12pm PT

This training covers best practices to effectively “pitch” the Sierra Club story to the news media – a crucial building-block skill to help us spread our message, influence public opinion, and persuade policymakers!  Secret biases of the news media will be revealed! Our practice session will warm you up and get you ready to pitch reporters and editors in real-time!

Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/242063296

New Staff Media Orientation

Wednesday, May 2 at 2pm ET/1pm CT/12pm MT/11am PT?

 

If you are a new Sierra Club field organizer or Chapter/SSC/state/regional campaign staffer or volunteer, this phone/webinar training will help orient you to the Sierra Club’s available communications resources, and the benefits to integrating media work into field strategy and campaigns. The training will cover the role of the grassroots media coordinator and others in the Club’s Communications Dept., major existing communications resources, and other communications tools that you can use to further your program and organizing work.

May 2: Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/891017888

 

SC Media Update for October!

New Organizer Media Orientation - Friday October 14, at 2pm ET/1pm CT/12pm MT/11am PT
This phone/webinar training is highly recommended for all newly-hired field organizers and chapter/state/regional campaign staff, to orient you to the communications resources available at the national Sierra Club and the benefits to integrating media work into field plans. Secrets of the Communications Department, revealed… only in this training!  Please RSVP to rachele.huennekens@sierraclub.org

NEW! Message Box Training - Thursday, October 20, at 2pm ET/1pm CT/12pm MT/11am PT
Have you seen the Sierra Club's new message boxes on Clubhouse or email listservs?  Message boxes are a new tool that the Sierra Club is using to define strategic message points in a way that make us more nimble, succinct and able to respond to reporters' questions.  The media team has developed a new phone conference/webinar training to teach Sierra Club communicators how message boxes are structured, how they're used, and to give us an opportunity to practice our skills using message boxes to calmly answer reporters' questions with our most persuasive points!  RSVP for the training to: rachele.huennekens@sierraclub.org

Pitch Training Tuesday October 26, at 3pm ET/2pm CT/1pm MT/12pm PT
The highlight of this popular training is valuable practice time to hone our skills at “pitching” the Sierra Club story to the news media – a crucial building-block skill to help us spread our message, influence public opinion, and persuade policymakers!  Please RSVP for the training to rachele.huennekens@sierraclub.org

Tune-Up Your Media Skills with New Trainings This Fall!

Are you rarin' to go for a radio interview?  Curious about cyberspace?  Not sure how to get into the news cycle?

The Sierra Club Media Team offers trainings to staff, chapter staff, and activists to develop skills on using the media as an organizing and communication tool.  These trainings are offered on a regular basis, as phone conference calls/PowerPoint presentations.  If you're ready for a tune-up of your skills, check out the trainings that have been scheduled for this Fall:

> Pitch training!

Wednesday, October 27, 2010 -- 3pm ET/2pm CT/1pm MT/12pm PT

Unrelated to baseball, sorry Giants fans!  But this training will help you learn to effectively “pitch” the Sierra Club story to the news media – a crucial building-block skill to help us spread our message, influence public opinion, and persuade policymakers.  Please RSVP for the training to rachele.huennekens@sierraclub.org.

> New Organizer Media Orientation

First Friday of each month, next training will be Friday, November 5, 2010 -- 2pm ET/1pm CT/12pm MT/11am PT

This training is recommended for all new field staff (hired since January 1, 2010), and those who want a refresher. The training orients field organizers to the communications resources available to them, and benefits to integrating media work into field plans. Please RSVP to rachele.huennekens@sierraclub.org.

> Blog Trainings

Coming Soon - Novemeber 2010

Keep your eyes peeled for a brand new 2-part training series, “Intro to Blogs” and “How to Use Blogs,” that is being developed jointly by the Media Team and the Online Organizing Dept.

Influencing Your Decision Maker 101 Training

Establishing strong relationships with your members of Congress or their district staff is a critical part of a strong campaign. Join our upcoming training and learn how you can build or strengthen these relationships to take delivery on clean energy and climate solutions. On this call we will help you develop a plan for reaching out to members of Congress while they are home in late March.

What: Influencing Your Decision Maker 101 Training

When: Thursday, March 18th at 8:30pm ET / 5:30pm PT

RSVP: Click here! 

Join the Big Picture on Climate Crossroads -- Plus Conference Call Next Tuesday

The Sierra Club’s new Big Picture campaign has kicked off successfully in applauding the EPA’s recent ruling to designate CO2 a global warming pollutant. The campaign will continue to work with the Obama Administration in transitioning the country toward a clean energy economy.

Coupling the Big Picture is a social networking group that focuses on the campaign -- one of many groups that make up Climate Crossroads, a new Sierra Club online social network, where you can interact with your peers. As someone dedicated to defeating coal in favor of clean energy, we value your early involvement as we prepare to roll out Climate Crossroads to the vast public.

By dropping in to create a quick profile of yourself, you’ll be helping the Club transform Climate Crossroads into a vibrant, thriving online community that will attract new people to the Club and advance our “enjoy, explore, protect” motto. Crossroads will be accompanied by two similar commuties: Sierra Student Coalition and Sierra Club Trails. Two more communities will be coming on line in the coming months -- the Activist Network and the Sportsmen’s Network.

We’d love for you to get started. Here are two simple things:

--Register and set up an account for yourself. Give yourself a screen name, upload up a profile picture, and fill in your profile.

--Join The Big Picture group on Crossroads! Start with The Big Picture, which already has 70 members. Check out its blog, leave comments, and post pictures.

Crossroads has many other great features, including a sustainable recipe section, a handy How To section, and a calendar of events from around the country. You can also post your own events and actions.

We appreciate your support in rolling out this network. If you have any feedback, don’t hesitate to contact us at community.manager@sierraclub.org].

Tuesday Conference Calls on Online Communities

For the next three Tuesdays, we'll be doing an orientation on online communities. Join us at 8 pm Eastern/5 pm Pacific. Call 1-866-501-6174 -- 1892-005. RSVP here. We urge you to register and create a profile before the call. We'll be walking through the network along with you and taking questions.

• May 12 -- Climate Crossroads
• May 19 -- Sierra Club Trails
• May 26 -- Activist Network

Tools, Rules, and Schools for Volunteer Leaders

On Tuesday, March 17, Tom Libby and Scott Elkins, co-leads of the Chapter & Leader Support Team will host a conference call to talk about the various support teams they're coordinating and how they might help you.

March 17  --  8 pm Eastern  |  7 pm Central  |  6 pm Mountain  |  5 pm Pacific

1-866-501-6174 -- 1892-005

Here's what Tom calls his "elevator speech" --

I'm the volunteer co lead of the Chapter and Leader Support implementation team of the Sierra Club. We are the team of tools, rules, and schools for our volunteer leaders; the basic organizational functions that leaders in the club use to carry out the Club's mission. 

Our areas of focus include

• Providing training for specific Club roles
• Providing coordination of communications and new technologies
• Providing a foundation for developing fundraising programs
• Providing coaching for increasing leadership and organizing
• Providing the counsel of trained mediators for conflict resolution
• Providing guidance for by laws, standing rules and elections

Our leaders are the backbone of the environmental movement. Their ability to be effective and efficient in their work is critical to restoring the planet. 

Join Tom and Scott on Tuesday, March 17. Once again, here's the call-in number and times.

And March 24, Robin Mann and Mary Wells will host a discussion about Campaigns & Programs. See the full schedule here.

We need people with skills in each of these areas to help us develop
programs and procedures to support our leaders.

What kinds of skills might you have you could share?

What We Learned from the Clubhouse Open Houses

On our three open house/conference calls, we presenters have learned as much or more than the participants.

Specifically:

1. Many people have been in only one or two "rooms" in the house, and are surprised to find out there are so many other rooms, full of resources they didn’t know existed. So please, explore.


2. Even though it’s on every page, in the left column just a few lines under the search box, hardly anyone was aware that if they can’t find something, they can click the “email us and get help” link and they will get help.
   
   We don’t have operators standing by 24/7, but we will do our best to get back to you with an answer. And we encourage, even beseech users, to contact us when they encounter problems. We can’t fix them if we don’t know about them.
3. Many users have never tried the search box or the A-Z list. Neither are infallible, but both work pretty well.
   
   The A-Z list is long and doesn’t include every page in Clubhouse, but if you scroll down the list, you’ll get a good sense of what resources are available.
   
   And the search is much better than it used to be. Try it. Keep your search term simple. One or two words are best.
   
   
4. Despite our promotion efforts, lots of you don't know about VIA Library, our online resource for video, images, and audio. (Logos, too.) You can find it on the photos home page. Here's a brief slide show introduction.
   
   
5. Lots of Club volunteers don’t even know about Clubhouse. We try to regularly communicate to our leaders, but that doesn’t mean we reach everyone. We send a regular Clubhouse Updates email to all leaders on the WILD list, that is, people with official roles within the Club -- outings chair, fundraising chair, treasurer, newsletter editor. But not everyone has an official role and we don’t have the email address for everyone who is.
   
   For that reason, we urge anyone reading this or receiving any of our Clubhouse Updates via email to tell others about Clubhouse. Any Club volunteer can sign up for Clubhouse Updates here.

P.S. We will continue to offer open house conference calls. The next one is September 9. We've distilled the navigation part of our presentation here: the Clubhouse Visitors' Guide.

Oh, and you can also ask questions or give feedback in the comment section below.