Let me start by saying that the national conference was AMAZING! I truly know now why I am so addicted to public relations.

The conference started for me Friday night at the Motown Premiere “Bring Us Something PRSSA” social. All the chapters from around the Country met, mingled and passed about PRSSA things from each respective school. CMU brought PRSSA magnets and key chains, classy I know. After some “hot” wings and a bad displayed of Motown karaoke we took this fabulous group picture!

The next morning, Saturday, was the official Welcome to National Conference. We met the PRSSA National Committee, whose VP of Regional Activities is CMU’s very own Jena Johnson. We also got to hear from Betsy Plank, aka the Godmother of PRSSA and our keynote of the day Ofield Dukes, APR, Fellow PRSA and President of Ofield Dukes and Associates. He was very soft spoken, but the impact of his words is indescribable. I got to talk to him later for a brief couple of minutes and he taught me and a couple other PRSSA members the importance of a good hand shake.

The rest of the day was filled with varies sessions from “Ethics in Public Relations” with John Bailey of John Bailey and Associates, “Reaching for the Stars: Entertainment PR” with Rita Tateel, president of The Celebrity Source, “Diversifying Your Donors:Donor/Fund-raising PR” with Richard Martin, VP of advancement at Lutheran Social Services of Michigan and a session with other chapter vice president, like myself, from the other chapters around the country. This last session was interesting to me because other chapters run a lot differently than our chapter at CMU. After talking to other chapter vice presidents I got a lot of good ideas to improve our chapter.

MORE COMING SOON!!!!!!!