Budget Proposal 2008/2009Greater Victoria Rotary PR Committee

HISTORY OF THE COMMITTEE:

The Greater Victoria Rotary PR Committee was created in the fall of 2006 to promote Rotary in the Greater Victoria area in a unified and solid manner in order to create more public awareness and interest of Rotary’s good work both locally and internationally, and ultimately gain more members. The members of our group consist of PR directors from various Greater Victoria Rotary Clubs and our hope is to eventually have a PR representative from each club join us with their input at our meetings.

The committee meets every month to discuss and organize on-going PR projects for the good of all Greater Victoria Clubs. Because we represent all the clubs in the area, we have a better chance of being awarded public relations grants. This year we were awarded a grant from Rotary International which has benefited all the clubs.

Through the help of this year’s Rotary International Public Relations Grant and the membership fees from each of our clubs, we were able to run a PR campaign for our clubs. The grant stipulated that we promote Polio with the acquired grant money. The campaign consists of transit bus signage as well as ads in the TC. We are currently running both.

Pictured below is the bus signage. There are currently 5 transit buses with our signs in the Greater Victoria area. The campaign started on the weekend of April 12th, 2008 and will run continuously for 24 weeks.

As mentioned, we are also running anad in the TC measuring 2.26" wide X 4" high.It is black and white, and will be running onthe following dates: April 27, May 11, May 25,June 8 and June 22. The ad is pictured tothe right.

Thanks to the grant money and theGreater Victoria Rotary PR membership feesused to match the grant, this promotionalcampaign is a reality.

This committee was also a huge helpto the Cycle To Walk campaign kick off which happened on April 12th, 2008. Withthe help of this PR Committee, we wereable to arrange for $9,000 worth of freeadvertising in the TC for the kick off event. The ad was also put together by our own committee. For those not familiar to the Cycle To Walk Society, funds raised will go to the eradication and education of polio and rehabilitation of polio survivors. Visit www.cycletowalk.com for more information. Ultimately, the money raised by this society will greatly assist Rotary’s mission to make Polio history.

This increase will give us more monetary leverage to gain more PR grant money from Rotary International, providing all the clubs with greater media exposure over all, as well as bring more public awareness to Rotary.

We also have yearly expenses such as the Rotary Victoria phone line, common web page www.rotaryvictoria.org with a listing of all Rotary Clubs and links to their web sites, as well as various promotional expenses that come up through the course of the year.

Your consideration in increasing our membership fee would be greatly appreciated and would certainly make our work to serve all clubs that much more effective.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Patricia Wade, West Shore Rotary, telephone 478-2519, email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it