January 2023 Club Updates and Club Achievement Tips

AAF Tuscaloosa

AAF Tuscaloosa encourages board chairs to write their club achievement books throughout the year. We encourage leadership to take pictures, save graphics and format monthly reports after club achievement books. That way, the work is organized and ready for editing by the end of the year. 

– Jacob Crawford, President

AAF Birmingham

We brought some holiday cheer to some families at our annual holiday party with help from our friends Alabama PRSA, AMA Birmingham, and United Ability. Party-goers wore tacky sweaters (congrats to LaShana Sorrell), held a toy drive for United Ability’s kids and families and conducted a traditional art auction and raffle benefiting United Ability. More importantly, the advertising and public relations community got to learn about the remarkable work of United Ability from their staff who were on hand — and have some fun too. United Ability’s First Teacher Home Visiting Program provides free home-based services to families with children ages birth to five who may have a diagnosed disability, developmental delay or are just in need of extra support in the home are recipients of these home visiting services 

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We were thrilled to honor Past President and United Ability’s David Barry with the Ann Halpern Service Award at our Holiday Party, an honor that recognizes an individual who has demonstrated exceptional social responsibility in the community and exceptional service to AAF Birmingham. The impact David has made on AAF and our community is remarkable. There is no greater profession than one in which you can directly impact the lives of those in your community. David’s tireless spirit and kindness has helped empower individuals with disabilities to live full and meaningful lives. His work with Journey of Hope, the champions campaign, with United Ability Day and the United Ability Foundation, by creating a license specialty tag with the Alabama DMV, through the Giving Is Good summer volunteer programs, and countless other programs and initiatives has impacted thousands of lives in our community.

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AAF Birmingham is proud to host the Mighty Mentors Podcast, helping students navigate all things professional. On episode 5 of Mighty Mentors, we sat down with Ally Pridgen who is a recruiter based out of Atlanta, Georgia! Join us as we hear the most up to date tips from someone who hires candidates like yourself each and every day. Together, let’s find out how to “land the job” and be on the lookout for Part 2 next year when we release our second episode with Ally about what to do “Once I get the job… now what?” On episode 6, of the Mighty Mentors podcast, we hit the road to visit our AAF North Alabama Huntsville chapter. We were joined by a panel which included Britiain Meithe and Ryan Faricelli from Nasa’s “Dare to Explore” podcast and our Mighty Mentors cohosts: Dan Haun and Anna Bain. Please enjoy the panel’s conversation as we teach you step by step what you need to know to start your very own podcast!

– Daniel Haun, President

AAF Mississippi Gulf Coast

Our American Advertising Awards activity is in full swing. While we are in the process of booking the venue and fleshing out how the ceremony itself will flow, we’re maintaining a strong presence on social media by pushing out both organic and paid content. We have reached a very large audience in doing this and hope that it will soon translate into additional entries. 

We have reached out personally to some of our previous entrants who have submitted historically large amounts of work as well as those who have been MIA over the past few years. We’ve been able to secure a few new entrants by doing this. We will continue to utilize our email database, social media presence as well as the presence of many of our board members in the community to continue beating the drum of the American Advertising Awards and we look forward to having a very successful event. 

– Cece Shabazz, President

AAF Baton Rouge

This year for the American Advertising Awards we are throwing it back and getting physical with our retro 80’s ‘Let’s Get Physical’ theme. While we didn’t end up going back to physical entries like we expected at the beginning of the year we are still leaning into our theme and hoping the fun and familiar theme will get members energized about this year’s award season. 

The theme has also given us an opportunity to bring in a new copywriter to jazz up our social posts. Along with bringing in a new copywriter we have had good success with bringing in new sponsors. With our biggest new sponsor, Guaranty Media, donating radio ad space to promote the competition and awards gala. This new promotion, along with another three time sponsor who donates free magazine space in a local publication, our long term goal of bolstering our local notoriety has been really working out. 

With our call for entries deadline drawing near we have, as a board, divided up our list of previous entrants and reached out personally to each encouraging them to enter again. This was met with considerable enthusiasm and gratitude for the personal touch, and has also calmed some of our nerves about our initial low entry numbers. 

– Julia Yarbrough, President