Awards, Social Media and Elections Highlight Annual Meeting

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The Yankee Chapter of PRSA concluded its 2009/2010 year yesterday with its annual meeting and awards presentations.

Rich Brooks, of new flyte media.

Rich Brooks, founder and president of flyte new media in Portland, Maine, led off the afternoon’s events with an in depth presentation on social media, the variety of options available, ways to optimize its use and examples of good practices.

The chapter held it annual business meeting following Brooks’ presentation and elected chapter leadership for the coming year. After serving most of this year as interim president Susie Stone will serves as president and Tara Payne was elected president elect. The remainder of the slate includes past president Jen English, secretary Rosemarie Rung, APR, treasurer Jane Law, assistant treasurer Susan Noon, APR, assembly delegate Laura Simoes, assembly delegate Robin Schell, APR, alternate assembly delegate Jen English and directors Grace Lessner, Martin Murray, Tara Hershberger, and Director Donna Eason, APR.

The meeting concluded with the presentation of the Chapter’s Pat Jackson Award, and the new Summit Award.

2010 Jackson Award Recipient Phil Auger, of the New Hampshire Cooperative Extension, with Yankee Chapter president Susie Stone (l) and Isobel Parke, APR, Fellow PRSA.

The Pat Jackson Award recognizes a professional who is not in the public relations field but nonetheless successfully uses public relations principles to benefit his or her organization and society.  It is named for the late Pat Jackson, founder of the behavioral management & public relations consulting firm Jackson Jackson & Wagner, and former National president of PRSA. This year’s award was presented to Phil Auger, of the New Hampshire Cooperative Extension in recognition of his decades of service in Rockingham County to private landowners and communities in the management of their forest lands, including his current work as Extension Educator In Land And Water Conservation.

This year, the inaugural Summit Award recognized excellence in the use of social media as the primary tool utilized in a public relations campaign and was awarded to Kelliher Samets Volk, of Burlington, Vermont. The firm utilized an array of social media tools, including Twitter and Facebook, to effectively support the business goals of Stowe Mountain Resort, including increasing the level of social media interaction between the resort and its fans. Summit Award judges this year included Katie Delahaye Paine of KDPaine & Partners, Berlin, NH; and, Rich Brooks of flyte new media, Portland, ME.