Members, and even non-members, can get more involved in the work that AAF Greenville has planned for the 2008-2009 club year. 

Let me start by dispelling a myth; you do not have to be a member to serve on a committee; we welcome ideas and hard work from anyone that is willing to share their time.  But be warned that once you get involved and start to reap the benefits of your networking and professional development experiences, you're going to want to be a member so that you can take advantage of the benefits offered not only by AAF Greenville, but also by the national AAF organization.

Below you will find a list of committees that are currently at work, and the contact information for the chairperson of each committee.  We hope that you will find something that interests you and that you will reach out to the chairperson to ask questions, offer your services, etc.  

ADDY

Co-Chair: Corey Hudgins, cstrayer@bellsouth.net
Co-Chair: Stacy Hammac, stacy.hammac@erwinpenland.com
Probably the event that we are most well-known for each year, the ADDY® Awards are a three-tiered creative competition run by our national affiliate, the American Advertising Federation. The competition starts at the local level, then winners have the chance to advance to the regional and national competitions. This committee is responsible for collecting entries, securing judges, judging entries, creating a winners book, hosting the awards gala, and forwarding entries to the next level of competition. Throughout all of these steps of the process, this committee keeps our members informed about the most current ADDY news.

Diversity

Chair: Nika White, nika.white@erwinpenland.com
This is our newest committee and one that we are determined to see succeed in the 2007-2008 club year. Our regional affiliate, AAF District Three, created a turn-key minority internship program that we will be implementing at the local level. Our big picture mission is to increase interest in our industry among multicultural audiences. Our primary tactic will be making presentations at local area high schools; soliciting applications for a paid, two week summer internship; awarding that internship; securing host companies for the intern(s) and gaining recognition for the student achievements.

Education

Chair: Martin Salisbury, martin.salisbury@erwinpenland.com
The AAF challenge for Education committees at the local level is to foster professional education opportunities for club members; provide leadership and learning opportunities for students; and educate the general public about our industry. This committee partners with the Programs committee to offer informative, relevant programming for our club members each month. For students, we offer an internship program that requires the committee to distribute information to upstate colleges, solicit applications, interview candidates, coordinate hosts for the internship and facilitate the eight week internship. For the general public, we focus our efforts on our annual public service project and our participation in the LARB.

Government Relations

Chair: Allan Jenkins, allanjenkins@charter.net
This committee is responsible for projects and programs designed to build effective relations with local, state and national government officials. The duties include monitoring legislation for anything that might threaten our industry, educating lawmakers about our mission, and promoting industry self-regulation. If you have personal relationships with any elected officials, please let Allan know, as we might have need to contact them to support or oppose some legislation related to the industry and personal contact is always best.

Local Advertising Review Program(partnership with Better Business Bureau)

Chair: Mike Bell, mike.bell@proforma.com
Advertising self-regulation has been a part of the mission of the BBB since its founding in 1912. The purpose of its Local Advertising Review Program is to protect the marketplace by fostering fair competition and truth in advertising through business self-regulation. We support their efforts by partnering with them on a monthly basis to review advertising-related claims against local businesses.

Membership

Chair: Jason Kelly, jkelly@thinkcargo.com
The primary responsibilities of this committee are recruitment, retention and involvement of members. As you might suspect, recruitment involves networking with prospects at our functions, following up on leads provided members, and fielding questions about benefits of membership and pricing. Retention and involvement are a little more difficult to define in terms of duties, but basically we want to recognize new members and those that contribute to our efforts, and make sure that our members feel engaged and understand why their membership in our organization is worthwhile.

Programs

Chair: Nicole Christos, nicole.christos@thebounceagency.com
The purpose of our monthly programming is to offer members and prospects professional development networking opportunities. This committee is responsible for scheduling and handling logistics of all programs; communicating program information to our members via e-mail; correspondence with guest speakers; solicitation of event sponsors that are seeking an audience with our members and much more. The bulk of this work is done during the summer months, but this committee always has a need for volunteers to assist with logistics, greet guests at the registration table, etc.

Public Relations

The primary responsibility of this committee is to spread the good word about AAF Greenville. That includes events, student internship programs, legislative opportunities, public service projects and more. This committee also collects all press clippings, event photos and other print materials for use in the assembly of our Club Achievement books in the spring, as we compete against other clubs our size across the country for national recognition of our hard work on behalf of the industry.

Public Service

Chair: Michelle Breeze, michelle.breeze@erwinpenland.com
We like to give back to the community in which we operate, so each year we chose a non-profit beneficiary of our donated creative services for a public service campaign. In years past we have supported the Upstate Homeless Coalition, The Meyer Center for Special Children and several others. Participants on this year's committee will be developing a campaign to promote the new AAF Greenville brand, targeting prospective members and educating the community at large about our reason for being and our contribution to local industry.

Twist