|
BCA News: March 2006
In
this issue:
- Workshop News
- Officer Spotlight: Anita Bowden & Mary Jane Welch
- Officers Meeting
- Key Benefits of Membership
- Awards Competition Update
- 2008 Workshop Invitation
- New Members
- Grapevine
- BCA Officers
 Make your plans now to participate in the BCA workshop in Virginia, April 19-22. The March 13 registration deadline is just a few weeks away. This year’s $399 registration fee is an all-inclusive program fee that covers not only your workshop, but lodging and all meals except lunch and dinner Friday when we’re in D.C.
Imagine! That’s a savings of more than $200 over past years when you paid $100 or more a night just for lodging, plus a workshop registration of $235.
This year’s schedule is packed with professional development training, spiritual renewal, fellowship with colleagues and a trip to D.C. to see the Newseum, National Geographic and Washington Post.
On Wednesday evening, we’ll hear from writing coach Grant Lovejoy who will teach us how to communicate our message to a society that prefers oral communications. During our visit to Washington, D.C., Joshua Trent, deputy associate director of presidential personnel for the Bush administration, will tell us what it’s like to be a believer who’s also a Beltway insider. Other featured leaders include: Steven Roundtree, art director for U.S. News & World Report; Mark Sandlin, senior photographer for Southern Living; Dan Beatty, visual coordinator for the Richmond Times-Dispatch; and David Adams-Smith, retired news editor, Chicago Tribune.
Read more about the schedule and seminars to be offered at http://www.baptistcommunicators.org/workshop/2006/
The registration deadline is March 13. Visit http://www.baptistcommunicators.org/workshop/2006/ to print out a registration form now.
 Anita Bowden is senior editor at the International Mission Board, responsible for coaching young writers and policing messages for all products – print, video and Web. Anita has been a writer, editor or manager at the board since 1977. She became a BCA member in 1978, and has served as membership vice president, president and awards chairwoman.
A Richmonder by birth, she graduated from Lynchburg (Va.) College with a BA in English and from the University of Maryland with a MA in journalism.
Anita is married to Ron and they have two children. Daughter Laura is in grad school preparing to be a school psychologist and son Kevin is working in construction for Home Depot.
Anita is active at First Baptist Church, Ashland, Va., where she co-teaches an adult Sunday school class. In her spare time she’s trying to convince April, the 10-year-old black lab, to stay OFF the sofa.
 Mary Jane Welch is online editor for the International Mission Board. She has been a writer and editor there since 1978 and a member of BCA since 1980. Mary Jane came to the IMB from the SBC Brotherhood Commission in Memphis, Tenn., and has served as a summer missionary in California and Nevada. She has a degree in English from Mississippi College, studied architecture at the University of Tennessee, and has a certificate in landscape design from George Washington University.
Mary Jane met her husband, Tim Turner, a Virginia native, a month after moving to Richmond. They took up kayaking this past summer. Their "children" all have fur and bark and Mama Cat still holds court in a heated dog house, accepting food and belly rubs. Mary Jane and Tim are members of Atlee Community Church in Mechanicsville, Va.
 |
| From left, standing, Jason Crawford, Norman Jameson, Joe Westbury, Woody Murray, Anita Bowden, Keith Beene, and kneeling, Cam Tracy and David Winfrey. |
Officers met on Friday, February 24, at LifeWay Christian Resources in Nashville. Web manager Cam Tracy shared plans for a web site redesign, and the officers voted to hire Todd Mullins, art director at Union University, to provide graphical support for the project.
Treasurer Jason Crawford reported on the progress of the organization’s merchant account application with Bank of America. BCA plans to accept credit card payments via it’s web site before the beginning of the new fiscal year in July.
President-elect Norman Jameson and Membership Vice President Woody Murray agreed to produce a “benefits” brochure for membership recruitment purposes.
Program Vice-President Anita Bowden overviewed the workshop schedule and seminar leaders. Officers discussed workshop transportation concerns and how to get more members involved in affinity groups.
Items tabled for future discussion include creating a mentoring program with Baptist universities and possible sites for the 2008 workshop.
By Linda Lawson
It doesn’t seem so many years ago that the tables in the Southern Baptist Convention newsroom were covered with manual typewriters. The stories were then edited and re-typed endlessly through the production process. It didn’t seem strange to us because we were used to the same kind of equipment back in our offices.
That’s only one small illustration of the many ways communications has changed—and improved. Baptist Communicators Association (then called the Baptist Public Relations Association) was an important part of my journey from assistant editor to editor, manager and communications director at LifeWay. I believe it can be the same for today’s high-tech-savvy generation.
Here are just a few of the benefits I have received from BCA and which I believe are available in multiplied ways today.
Relationships—I was often amazed that someone I had met and talked with at a BCA workshop became someone I was contacting within weeks to gain ideas of insights about a challenge I was facing. I even hired a few! Most important, some of those I met through BCA became life-long friends.
- Skills—Whenever I need to learn something new, there was always someone in BCA who was a step ahead and willing to help. I remember hearing Bill Bangham tell how he cultivated relationships with his story subjects as he worked with them to gain their trust to better tell their story. It changed the way I went about interviews.
- Knowledge—As the breadth of the communications field expanded faster than I could keep up with, someone from BCA was always on the cutting edge. Seminars at the annual convention often featured early adapters who helped the rest of us get on board with the Internet, writing in an online world, digital photography and many other areas.
- Leadership—When I was contact about becoming president of BPRA in the mid-1980s I accepted with fear and trembling. The experience I gained in facilitating officer meetings and standing before my peers at the workshop gave me the confidence to do other new things.
- Personal and Spiritual Enrichment—As an inveterate reader, I always liked to ask fellow communicators about books they had read recently. In addition to titles I gleaned on the field of communication, I also picked up suggestions that have personally and spiritually enriched my life. And books are a great bridge to friendships.
For me, the benefit of BCA did not end with my retirement in 2002. I heard this week from a long-time member who was looking for information. I was glad to help and also catch up on what he is doing. I also have had occasion to meet communicators just out of college who are starting their careers as I did more than 35 years ago. I hop they will include BCA as a vital tool for learning and growing their chosen profession.
Make BCA one of your keys to networking, and tell others how BCA can benefit them. In particular, share with new employees where you work how BCA can help them develop life-long relationships as they begin to serve in Baptist communications.
Linda Lawson retired from LifeWay as the communicators department director. She is a lifetime member of BCA having joined in 1980.
 The entries in this year's Wilmer C. Fields Award Competition will be judged March 16-18 at Southside Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida. The judging panel includes communications professionals from a variety of Northeast Florida religious and secular organizations.
Award winners will be notified the week following the judging. The awards luncheon will be held Saturday, April 22, during the 2006 BCA workshop. Workshop participants will have an opportunity to see the award-winning entries and talk with the winners that afternoon.
Grand prizes in the seven divisions including public relations, interactive, audio-visual, photography, feature writing, news writing and design will be awarded during a dinner at the International Mission Board headquarters Saturday evening.
If you have further questions regarding the awards competition, contact BCA awards chairman Ty Wood at 1-800-226-8584 ext. 3159. Good luck!
 The weekly television thriller "24" always leaves the viewer gasping and wondering what new precarious exploits Jack Bauer will face next week. So we keep coming back. Admit it.
Our own annual thriller of a BCA meeting and Wilmer C. Field Awards Competition keeps us coming back. The only issue is, for 2008, we don't as yet have a place to which we can come back.
We're a celebration looking for a cake, a mystery theater in search of protagonist. Are you the hero or heroine lurking on the next page if only we would read faster?
In April, our meeting will be in Richmond. In 2007 we will meet in Mobile, Alabama and get some sand between our toes. Officers are interested in a western meeting for 2008, but that's not a "guideline." We'd like to spot a meeting place so we can ease a program chair onto the officer slate for orientation.
Thinking about hosting BCA? It's a great chance to put all the communications planning, marketing, PR and design to work that you've been learning. And you'll find the officers and other members to be a great help.
If you're thinking about it, contact Keith Beene (615) 904-0152 or bca.office@comcast.net to start the conversation.
Kenneth Bonnett, Jeremy Cox and Lance Micehels are graphic designers at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. kbonnett@sebts.edu, jcox@sebts.edu, lmichels@sebts.edu
Kat Harder is a graphic designer with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina in Cary. kharder@bscnc.org
Brandon Pickett is a media missionary with the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia located in Glen Allen. bpickett@sbcv.org
James Yacovelli is the staff photographer at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. jyacovelli@sebts.edu
Brian Blackwell married Ashley Church on July 9, 2005, at Calvary Baptist Church in Alexandria, Louisiana. Brian is a newswriter with the Louisiana Baptist Message and has been a member of BCA since 2001. Contact Brian at brian@baptistmessage.com.
Wilmer C. Fields underwent successful hip replacement surgery on February 9. In an email to BCA following the surgery Fields wrote, “That painful experience and the necessary month-long therapy following have led to a personal discovery about communication.” Contact Fields at wilcfields@comcast.net.
Got news to share?
Send items for the BCA newsletter to Keith Beene at bca.office@comcast.net
Joe Westbury, President
The Christian Index (Georgia)
jwestbury@christianindex.org
Norman Jameson, President-Elect
North Carolina Baptist Convention
njameson@bscnc.org
Jason Crawford, Treasurer
Kansas-Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists
jcrawford@kncsb.org
Anita Bowden & Mary Jane Welch, Program Co-Vice Presidents
International Mission Board
abowden@imb.org & mwelch@imb.org
Doug Rogers, Program VP-Elect (2007 Mobile)
Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions
drogers@alsbom.org
Ty Wood, Awards Chairman
Florida Baptist Convention
twood@flbaptist.org
Communications Vice President
VACANT
Woody Murray, Membership
LifeWay Christian Resources
wmurray@lifeway.com
David Winfrey, Professional Development Coordinator
Western Recorder (Kentucky)
david.winfrey@kybaptist.org
Erich Bridges, Missions Vice President
International Mission Board
ebridges@imb.org
Charles Richardson, Historian
Retired-Hardin-Simmons University (Texas)
crichard@hsutx.edu
|
