Amy Cloud - City of Bellingham Public Information Officer
Opening Welcome:
President Doug shared about the 2023 Rotary International Convention he attended with 14,000 other Rotarians in Melbourne, Australia. The ”End Polio Now” campaign continues in the remaining countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The up-and-coming Generation Z received attention with an informative side session and drew attention with the enthusiasm of the Rotaract crowd. The House of Friends highlighted various subgroups within Rotary such as the LGBT crowd and then the Fellowship of Flying Rotarians of which Doug joined.
Guests:
John Moffat introduced speaker, Amy Cloud
Doug Cole introduced Bill Day
Rick Kaiser brought Jim Lemerond, President of Bellingham Technical College
Members on Zoom: Steve Hager, Nathan Twining and Mike Bradburn
Special guest Chuck Snyder from Arizona
Club Events and Committee Announcements
August 14 - BASECAMP SERVICE PROJECT - Late afternoon/early evening Rotary service project at Lighthouse Mission’s Basecamp (1530 Cornwall Ave). The scope entails organizing Basecamp’s donation room, some deep cleaning around the facility, and straightening and securing the slightly askew "I see you. I love you. I am with you." signage on the front fence.
August 19 - THE PRESIDENT'S PICNIC is open to our spouses/partners, and current, former, and potential future members of the Rotary Club of Bellingham.
We encourage you to register early so timely purchases and other preparations can be made. We ask you to register yourself and your guests, using our regular meeting sign-up form. We also ask that you indicate what type of potluck dish you'll bring (salad, hot dish, dessert, or bread) so we have a good variety.
October 14 - GUESS WHO IS COMING TO DINNER - Rotary social dinners in member homes, potluck style. We need only one more host that can seat up to 8 people. Talk to Brad Burdick. It’s one of our best social events!
Shauna Naf has handy ROTARY BUSINESS CARDS that you can put your name on and invite people to Rotary with. See Shauna to get yours.
John Moffat introduced Amy Cloud, a former TV reporter and national award-winning magazine writer and editor, is a FEMA-certified Advanced Public Information Officer (PIO) and crisis communicator. She has served 15 years as a volunteer PIO and co-chairs the Community PIO Group. She was deployed in March 2020 to Whatcom Unified Command for ten months to staff the COVID-19 response Joint Information Center. She has also worked as a PIO during floods, a Presidential candidate visit, and major community events. Amy is a media relations and PR professional with nearly 20 years’ experience supporting leaders in healthcare, higher education and municipal government. With a master’s degree in Adult Education, Amy has prepared trainings and presentations on topics ranging from crisis response and traffic safety to conducting effective interviews. She believes the best communicators are those who listen best.
Amy Cloud is the City of Bellingham’s Public Information Officer (PIO). First, what a PIO is not is a Marketer, a Communications Director, an elected official, a reporter, or a social media guru. A PIO is often a FEMA trained professional crisis communicator that fields inquiries, monitors fake news, does research and info gathering, provides communications counsel to the C-suite, prepares information for public consumption, writes and delivers news releases, statements, key messages, and is the consistent trusted source for information related and crises and branding.
With so many people involved, the most difficult part of the job is collecting the most accurate info. You’re often the face that’s responding to natural disasters, industrial accidents, catastrophic events and mass casualties. You must quickly assess the crisis and the likely fall-out. You must gather credible information and isolate misinformation. You have to create quick and accurate messaging, which can be difficult under stress. You also must prepare leadership and the spokespersons, and handle media relations.
Ideally, you’re preparing for potential tsunamis while the surf’s calm. It’s important then to have a Crisis Communications Plan in place. These plans involve risk assessment, a response team with assigned roles, prepared templates, established communications channels, and practice, practice, practice. You also want to debrief after a crisis event to be well equipped for the next one. The term is called “hotwash” it.
Why do you need a skilled, trained crisis communicator? One, to protect your business, agency, brand before, during and after a “crisis”. And two, to lead your crisis responses by building a Crisis Communication Plan and provide communication expertise, training and mentoring to your team.
Examples of good Crisis Communication work is the WSDOT. The Whatcom County Health Department has theirs dialed in pretty well too.
RCOB apparel, including polo shirts, dress shirts, vests and hats is now available. These are items that every Club member simply must have in his/her wardrobe! Besides looking great, Club members will be contributing to branding for the RCOB as well as supporting our Club's Foundation, which will receive part of the proceeds.
Click on the button below for the the clothing catalogue, with the Order Form on the last page. Fill out the order form, turn it into Vinson Latimore at a meeting or email a scanned copy to embroidery@choicesscrubs.com.
