Disaster Drill news release

For Immediate Release

May 4, 2010

LSC holds disaster drill

For the third straight year Lyndon State College held a training exercise for emergency response teams, administration, journalism students and human services students.

This year’s drill was held on Friday April, 30. The staged disaster was an e-coli breakout started with bad pineapple at the dinning hall and snack bar.

“Overall, I was very pleased with the disaster exercise” said Peggy Sherrer, a psychology professor who helped organize the drill with Journalism Professor Dan Williams. The drill was also part of a class that the two professors co-taught, some students were psychology students and others were journalism.

The idea of the class was to teach the physch students how to deal with trauma victims as well as protect themselves and deal with journalists. The Journalism students learned how to interview trauma patients, human service professionals, emergency responders and administrative officials. They also learned how to protect themselves from trauma in the event they have to cover a traumatic event such as this in their future career.

The drill started at noon when participants gathered in ASAC 100 to receive their assignments and begin their days. The students that were not in the classes acted as victims, parents, concerned citizens and observers.

The drill was completely planned out step by step and gave students specific instructions on where to go and when to go there. The psychology students worked with the victims and the concerned citizens to set up a shelter and provided food and water to the victims.

The journalism students were busy chasing down their stories. They attempted to interview victims, and the human-services people. The two groups of students worked together to gain a real-life experience. The journalism students also interviewed administration and attended a press conference held by Bob Whittaker, dean of institutional advancement.

The scenario saw two students with weekend immune systems die and four students be hospitalized.

In the past LSC has hosted a boiler explosion, a school shooting and now an e-coli break out.  

Old and new ads

Budweiser beer has been around since the beginning of time.  They have been advertizing since the beginning of the creation of their product. In their 1957 ad, they have a male and female. They appear to be a high class family sitting down to enjoy a nice dinner. The beer is perfect as the man pours it and both the man and female cannot take their eyes off of the beautiful beer. The women is an attractive lady. The slogan on the ad is “Where there’s life… there’s bud!” It says that with out a nice Budweiser you aren’t living life.

The newer Budweiser ad is a picture of a very attractive female in a bathing suit stepping in front of bottle of beer. It makes the reader think that in order to get women like this you need to drink bud. The bottle is larger than the woman making the assumption that the beer is more important than the woman.

New: http://www.nmmlp.org/images/bad_ad/Bud-Brianna-Glenn.jpg

Old: http://www.adclassix.com/ads/57budweiser.htm

Coca-Cola products have also been around for what seems like forever. So have their sub products, such as 7-UP. Ina 1947 7UP ad it shows a nice looking family spending a splendid afternoon together. The first slogan is “Sky High in Family Fun.” Then “Fresh up with seven-Up is written large across the top, with a cartoon family having a blast. The ad wants you to believe that by purchasing 7UP you will be purchasing hours of family fun, and all of your family will love.

In the newer 7Up ad they try a different approach. It is an old 7Up bottle pouring out into a glass that is turning into a new 7Up can. “Good then” is written across the to next to the old bottle and “Better now” is slapped next to the new can. The ad is trying to tell their customers that they have changed the ingredients of the beverage to make it all natural. In a world that is all about natural and organic ingredients now it is a brilliant advertizing campaign.

New: http://s3images.coroflot.com/user_files/individual_files/229690_0o0h4wbBIIYTJs0shEn6sPMG3.jpg

Old: http://www.adclassix.com/ads2/47sevenup.htm

Jell-o is a another long standing product. In this 1952 advertisement it shows a stressed out cartoon mom trying to control her children and hopefully some of her kids friends, they did believe in big families back then though.  Anyway, they are out of control running around on Halloween. The is telling stressed out moms to buy jell-o and make it and all we become less hectic. It’s a sweet treat that all kids love, and it will calm them down.

In the new ad Jell-o is doing a similar thing. This specific ad is for instant pudding. Something quick that all families need to survive, something quick. It can also attract customer by the slogan: “Every wallet needs a little wiggle room,” it is clever because it covers to topics. Pudding wiggles and moves around, but also families these days are all looking to save a dollar. Cheap pudding is a tasty way to keep your budget in line. Thank goodness for Jell-o!

New: http://blog.solutionset.com/wpmu/files/2009/04/jello.jpg

Old: http://www.adclassix.com/a3/52jello_berenstains.html

Ad material

Visual: I am waiting on the visual, most likely a text book.
Headline: Coffee and Calculus
Subhead: Need help in calc? get up early and get a head start on the trig your gonna need.
Swing Line: Coming this fall:
Body Copy: Trigonometry for Calculus Mat 1430. Doctor Kevin Farrell will guide you through the trig that you are going to need for pre-calc and calc.
Who: You
What: MAT 1430
Where: Lyndon State College Vail Building Room 449
When: Fall 2010. Wednesday 7:30 a.m. to 8:25 a.m.
Why: Cause you might need a refresher in trigonometry.
Zinger:
don't be dumb, get the help(?)
Call to action: Register today, for more info see Kevin Farrell.
There are no mandatories and I have yet to think of a logo.

Good and bad advertisements

This weeks assignment was to find three good ads and three bad ads.
Why don't we get the ugly ones out of the way first, shall we?

BAD:
The first bad ad I found is for Vermont Catholic Homes. They are a retirement home. One reason I dislike it is because the name of the company is on the bottom of the ad and makes you search for it. Another reason is that they provide a lot of text, if I wanted to read a news story on retirement homes I would have found one. Also the text is awfully small, the ad is directed towards older people. Older people often have bad eye sight, so small text is a bad idea.

Bad ad number two is similar. It is for Edward Jones. There is nothing to catch the readers eye, upon first look it looks like a small story. There is a ton of text and nothing to excite the reader or get their attention. It also has a lot of business jargon written all over it, things that I don't understand. Ads should be simple not hard to interpret.

The third bad ad I found is for VCAM board of directors elections. They are looking for candidates to run for the board of directors. But the ad is way to busy. The text is hard to read in places and is kind of boring in others. It just doesn't do its job.

GOOD:
The first good ad I found is for a radio station. It is a full page ad and is real simple and easy to read. It gets the point across real quick and catches the readers eye, making them stop and think about the radio station. It leaves a good impression on the reader.

The next good ad is for a red cross blood drive. It brings people in with its color and it gives plenty of detail with out being boring. It gets the reader to think about giving blood and makes them want to know where and when they can do such a cool thing.

The third good ad I found is for Infinex financial group. It is a investment bank and does a good job at attracting the reader. It is simple and draws the reader in with a graphic. Unlike the Edward Jones ad it is simple and doesn't overwhelm the reader with information, it makes them curious and want to call for more information.

Meet a pro!

Bill Johnson is the Sports and information director at Lyndon State College. His main job is make sure that he gets out a press release after every game the Hornets play. He sends these releases to the media outlets throughout Vermont and the New England as well as to any areas where student-athletes may be from. 

Johnson is in charge of keeping an accurate data base of player and team states from Lyndon State College. He keeps track any school records and championships the school may have won. Johnson is in charge of making sure local media outlets have access to all of the coaches and players at the college. During games he keeps in touch with NSN sports who often broadcasts the games live and gives them any information they may need, such as player’s season stats, injury updates and just basic information. 

He updates the athletic web site and writes releases on players when the earn conference honors, he makes sure that all local media outlets also know about these honors. 

When athletic alumni come back to visit, such as hall of famer Rick Sutton, Johnson makes sure that he has scheduled interviews with the different outlets and that he is available to the public. 

Johnson graduated from Lyndon State College in 1987 with a bachelors in Sports Management. He was the Sports Editor at the Adirondack Daily and Lake Placid News, prior to his job at LSC. Johnson also served as the Olympic Training Center Supervisor for the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. He was also a college basketball coach before becoming part of the media. 

Johnson credits his former jobs for preparing him with the knowledge he needs to do his job at LSC and make sure he keeps the media happy. 

Disaster

Private jets are expensive and usually reserved for the rich. Someone should have told the auto industry these facts.

In November of 2008 the CEO’s of GM, Ford and Chrysler showed up to a hearing to ask for a government bailout in a private jet. A California representative asked them if they flew commercially and opened the floodgates for the press. The CEO’s were ridiculed for not spending their money in a smart manner. The CEO’s then drove hybrid cars to their next meeting.

Obviously this was a bad move. The CEO’s should have thought of a more economical way to travel, maybe taking commercial transportation would have been the better option to make it seem like they were just like the little guy, but they were not like the little. These CEO’s were asking for millions of dollars to fix their problems.

How would I have defused this situation if I were the PR person for any of these companies? Easily. The quote released would look something like this: “Our company already owns the jet, it would not make economical sense to just let the jet sit on the runway at an airport, that would be the true waste of money. Currently we are looking at downsizing in order to save money and we have addressed transportation issues as a budget cut.”

Even if the jet was not for sale, it would not be unfair to say we are looking at the possibility of downsizing, because at the time the company was cutting employees and other expenses. 

Salary Cap speech

Salary Cap-1

Avatar...Pirates of the Caribbean...Spider Man...X-men...King Kong. 

These are the most expensive movies ever made. All of them were produced for more than two hundred million dollars. And all of them were successful. Which is good... if that amount of money was spent on a movie that flopped the producer should be run out of town. 

Some movies just can not compete with the budgets these movies have and they never attract a major audience. Yes there are movies like Paranormal Activity, which spent eleven thousand dollars, that do come along and make a few dollars and compete. The producers just didn’t have the huge budget. The movie did well but it still didn’t compete with Avatar. 

This is unfair, isn’t it? 

By spending a small amount of money the producers made a quality movie and made money, now they have more money to reinvest into a better movie.

Let James Cameron spend his money. He has earned that right, after producing successful movies he made money so he can spend the 

money... and the final result? ......More money in his pocket. You must spend money to make money. 

You wouldn’t limit the amount of money producer can spend on movies so why do we have salary caps in sports? 

There is no cap on how much money you can spend on a steak. Why would  there be there a limit to how much an owner can spend on an athlete?

We live in the United States of America and we boast about freedom. One of those freedoms is the right to spend money the way we want to spend money. 

Owners of professional sports franchises should have the same freedom. 

In order to win a championship you need to put a good team on the field. Good teams consist of good players. Good players cost money. 

If the New York Yankees have money to spend, why can’t they spend it? If a salary cap was in place it would restrict the Yankees from spending, possibly making it impossible to win. If the Boston Red Sox sell out every home game since 2003, they have money, so let them spend it. The reason the Red Sox and Yankees have money is because they spend money. 

Same is true in football, the Patriots spend to the cap every year. They get good players and spend smart. But sometimes when you have to many good players you can’t keep them all. For example the Patriots have Tom Brady’s, Randy Moss’ and Vince Wilfork’s contracts expiring soon, and they will all demand big money. If the cap is still in place it will reduce the chances the Patriots have of keeping all three franchise players. 

How is that fair? (PAUSE) If a team has developed premier talent they need to be allowed to spend the money to keep the talent happy and in their uniform. 

A salary cap prevents this. (PAUSE) A salary cap prevents our country from working the way it should work. Spend money to make money. (PAUSE) (READ FOLLOWING SLOWLY)

If teams are spending money on top talent, they will win, winning brings fans, fans bring money. 

Yes every once in a while there is the exception. The Tampa Bay Rays had one year of success, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers shared a year as well. In those successful seasons those teams made money. But they didn’t spend it. It was not reinvested into better athletes who could win more games and bring them more glory. The following year both of those teams suffered 

bad seasons, and the fans stopped coming, which meant the money stopped coming, pretty soon the Tampa Bay Buccaneers didn’t have the money to spend to the cap. The MLB has no cap so the Rays can spend as much as they want, but they don’t and the end result is no championship...no fans...no money. 

Let teams spend. If they don’t spend smart its not our fault them falter, its life and people need to make mistakes to learn. The salary cap is in place to even the playing field and keep teams out of finical struggles. It doesn’t do either one.  

The NFL has a cap, yet teams struggle every season...  most people standing in this room don’t remember the last time time the Lions had a winning season. The playing field is supposed to be even yet the same six or eight teams are competitive every season, and the same teams are not. 

The NHL has a cap, yet teams still struggle to write pay checks. The league has taken over the Phoenix Coyotes because they couldn’t pay the bills. 

So does the salary cap even make sense? 

NO. When it creates problems it is supposed to fix, the system is broken. Let’s fix it, get rid of the salary cap, let’s be American.

END