Regional Conferences

NCEW has made a concerted effort to hold from six to 10 regional conferences a year, recognizing that many editors from smaller and mid-size newspapers may not be able to attend the national convention. This effort is producing strong attendance. Recently, programs have been held in Louisiana, Iowa, New York, Texas, Nebraska, Florida, and Pennsylvania.

For information on regional conferences close to you, click on the links listed below or check out our calendar of events page.

Regional Conference How-To Guide

Consider expanding the reach and benefits of the National Conference of Editorial Writers by organizing a regional conference. These guidelines will help you in choosing a conference format that best suits your region and the time you want to commit.

Sample seminar invitations are available from headquarters or by clicking here. For a copy of the document in MS Word click here. For a PDF file, click here. Questions can be directed to the Regional Conferences Chairman.

For dates and locations of upcoming regional seminars, see our Calendar of Events.

What kind of Gathering?

Call one or two other editorial writers, editors or broadcasters in your area to form a preliminary committee. You might also want to contact someone who teaches journalism at a local university. Use telephones and e-mail to discuss and set initial goals.First, consider the amount of time, energy and money your group has to invest in a conference and then estimate how many other NCEW members might be able to help out. If you have limited time, you might want to consider holding a regional gathering in conjunction with an existing journalism organization. For example, some regional events have been connected to meetings of state press associations and the Society of Professional Journalists. This method eliminates most logistics planning, allowing you to concentrate on program content. Content can range from a gathering to talk shop and critiquing editorial pages to arranging for one or two speakers. (See Nitty-Gritty Planning, Part 1.) If more resources (money or people) are available, you might consider a weekend conference, possibly patterned after the fall NCEW conference but on a much smaller scale. (See Nitty-Gritty Planning, Part II.)

For a guide to details, see Logistics. We encourage you to include a critique session; see Guidelines for a Critique Session.

The Nitty-Gritty Planning. Part I (in conjunction with other groups)

Call the press association or SPJ or other groups to find out what opportunities exist. Some groups may require as much as a year's lead time. Others may allow you to link up with them with only three or four months' notice. Find out if you need to plan separately for room rental, food, etc. Also determine if there are any registration fees that participants would be required to pay above and beyond the NCEW session. NCEW regional conferences have been successfully coordinated with press associations in New England, North Carolina, South Carolina, to name three. Even if you have to pay separately for rentals, food, etc., you can often piggyback on the group's bargain rates. If you plan a critique session, you may not want to include much more. Do allow time for shop talk, a very valuable part of regional conferences. Setting aside an hour for a moderated talk will ensure everyone benefits from sharing of problems and experiences. One successful alternative is to invite a writing coach (call the regional conferences chairperson for suggestions).

If you invite a speaker or two, consider those who can talk on a topic of interest to all participants or who can make them laugh -- or both.

It might help to read over the suggestions for an independent conference that follow.

The Nitty-Gritty Planning. Part II (an independent conference)

The rewards of a longer conference are worth the extra efforts. Begin planning at least six months in advance.

The date and place: Choose a central, easily accessible location, or one that would attract people under any circumstances (such as a state capital). Hold a one-day meeting or a two-day conference. Pick the date after talking with several NCEW members to determine what dates would ensure a good turnout. Overnight stays: It's best to let participants handle their own hotel reservations and for you to arrange for a central location where guests can get a reduced rate. Contact the local travel and convention bureau as soon as possible. The staff will be able to send out bid inquiries for you and sometimes help you get reduced rates for participants. You will want to reserve more space than needed in that it is far easier to downsize than meet increased needs. In any case, have an experienced colleague (such as someone in your promotions or marketing staff or NCEW headquarters) look over a hotel contract before you sign. Some hotels will offer free meeting rooms if you have enough overnight guests. Consider university dorm rooms, too.

The program format: Begin by looking at these three tested and successful models:

A. Meet for one day with an optional overnight stay for participants. Begin with an 8 a.m. registration and welcome period, followed by a critique session until noon. Break for lunch, with a speaker. Reconvene at 2 p.m. with a moderated session on shop talk. At 3:30, invite in a guest speaker of general interest and wrap up the session by 5 p.m. to allow participants time to drive home if desired. For those staying over, arrange a time and place to meet for a pay-you-own dinner gathering.

B. Meet for a weekend. Begin with a Friday-night registration and a get-acquainted session. The next day, begin at 9 a.m. (with late registrants coming in at 8 a.m.). Start with the critique sessions, break for lunch after three hours. Have a lunch speaker and then regroup in the afternoon to talk about specific editorial needs, such a handling letters to the editor, juggling editorial writing with other duties of the job or page design. Break after three hours and regroup for dinner, including a speaker. Plan an optional tour Sunday or one session with a speaker or simply meet for breakfast and discussions.

C. Center a two-day conference around a theme (legislative topics or education issues, for example). Meet the first evening for registration, dinner and a speaker who can summarize some of the issues to be discussed. Convene the next day at 8 a.m. for late registration and coffee, and begin at 9 a.m. with a critique session. Invite three speakers on specialized topics, including a lunch speaker. End the speaking session at about 3 p.m. Reconvene at 6 p.m. for dinner and a moderated discussion about the theme. (Make sure to get a list of any early leavers for meal-planning efficiency.)

Logistics

Time and place: Decide when and where to meet, an easier task if you are connecting to another organization's meeting. In any case, check with regional newspaper or journalism associations to determine when they are meeting. If you plan to hold a separate meeting, you don't want it to be on the same day. Remember, too, to check for religious holidays or other special events. (Some special events, such as a weekend festival might be a draw and give spouses easy choices for things to do.)

Create the Committee: Make a few calls to see if you can find people willing to work. Contact the Member Services Committee chair to see if there are folks in your area who have expressed interest in regional conferences.

Budget: Determine what kind of budget you will need. Generally, try to plan so that the participants' fees cover the costs of the conference. Ideally, that can be $75 or less -- enough to cover meals. Estimate high, however, rather than low. Leftover money can go to the next regional conference or be donated to the NCEW Foundation.

To estimate costs, figure in costs of meeting room rental, meals, coffee or soda, mailing costs, audio-visual equipment, speakers, gifts or miscellaneous needs. Be sure to include a fee for spouses who attend. Anticipate, too, that one or two may not pay. Allow for guest speakers who might want to eat meals.

Try for free meeting spaces (at a newspaper or university, for example). Ask speakers to donate time if possible (you may have to throw in travel expenses for an out-of-town guest, but a donated newspaper-logo cup or umbrella makes a nice speaker gratuity), Ask a newspaper or two to donate mailing costs (paper, envelopes and stamps) and telephone costs. Ask to borrow audio-visual equipment, if needed, from your newspaper or station. Ask the host-city publisher to sponsor the first-night reception.

How many to expect? Check with your area's past regional conference chairpersons to get an idea of how many might come. Most regional conferences have between 12 and 20. A large turnout (40 or more) is the exception rather than the rule, Smaller turnouts are sometimes the most successful.

Who to invite? The more inclusive the better. Weekly newspapers, whose editorial page staffers may also be metro editors and executive editors, often are eager for feedback.

Who does what? Select committee members to head up mailing, registration, hotel contracts, meals, cocktail parties, critique planning, inviting speakers. Don't forget to appoint a chair to oversee details and handle logistical telephone calls. Be sure someone is assigned to invite non-NCEW members to become members at the meeting and to arrange for headquarters to send brochures and membership applications. Think next year: At the beginning of the session, plan for next year for assigning a committee. Consider passing out a critique sheet to get feedback on how to improve the session.

For NCEW materials: Contract Pat Stroble at the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, 3899 North Front Street, Harrisburg, PA 17110. (717) 703-3015. NCEW@pa-news.org.

Announcing the Conference

Get the message out early enough so that people can plan ahead. The minimum time you need for planning purposes (yours and theirs) is three to four months. You may not know the agenda, but mail out notices to potential participants with time, date, place and any confirmed events (such as critiques) -- and also ask them what they would like to include in the program. Contact your local SPJ or state press association and ask them to include an announcement in their monthly or bimonthly newsletters. Contact the NCEW president or regional conferences chair to find out if you can meet the deadline to include the announcement in the NCEW newsletter. Once the program is set, you will want to send out another mailing. All mailings should include a registration form.

What you will need: A list of editorial writers, editors and broadcast editorialists in your region. Also include associate NCEW members as well as your area's opinion-page professors and their students. You may buy a list of NCEW labels from headquarters for about $1 0. (That's a time saver, and you can use the extra labels to send off sample sheets as part of the NCEW Exchange Program.) Also call and ask the state press association or SPJ if either has mailing labels available. Send out a notice on the NCEW e-mail listserv as well. Ideally, assign the mailing to a person who has experience in mass mailing or someone who can borrow some clerical help at the office. The letters should be sorted by zip codes and banded together if you want quick mailing.

If you are assigning mailing to one committee member and registration to another, be sure that the registration form has the address of the registration chairperson.

Guidelines for a Critique Session

Generally, allow one-half hour for each person participating in the session. Three hours is probably the least amount of time you should set aside. Plan for a minimum of four in your critique groups and a maximum of five.

If possible, place the critique groups in separate rooms. If you have to place them in the same room, please make sure they are far enough apart so they don't disturb one another. In all cases, please provide large enough tables so participants can spread out papers or other materials.

Choose volunteer leaders to run each of the critique groups. Make sure that have clocks or watches and know the importance of keeping critiques within time limits. You don't want the first to go on for an hour with no time for the last person on the list.

As much as possible, plan the critique groups so they are made up of people who don't work at sister papers or aren't overly familiar with one another's work.

At about four weeks prior to the conference, send each critique member a fist with all the names and addresses of the group included. Tell them to send three editorial pages and one complete copy of the newspaper to each member of the critique group. Urge them to send off the packages within one week (three weeks prior to the meeting). Include a guideline for critiquing papers in the mailing. Sample seminar invitations are available from headquarters or by clicking here. For a copy of the document in MS Word click here. For a PDF file, click here. Questions can be directed to the Regional Conferences Chairman.

Prepared by Dick Mial (Last updated, 2003)