NAHJ Region 5 Thanksgiving Update

NAHJ Region 5 Members,

I want to wish you'all a Happy Thanksgiving. We have a lot to be thankful for at this time of the year and May God Bless You and Your Family.

About a month ago, I wrote and said I was working on some one-day multimedia seminars in Texas. I have had the dates, but wanted to give you some more information before making the announcement. Unfortunately, that info hasn't come through so I am now going to give you the dates and locations. A reminder: both of these seminars will be limited so once we set the prices etc you should sign up ASAP before space fills up.

We will host our first multimedia all-day training seminar on January 30, 2010 at Texas State University in San Marcos. We will have 60 seats available in three labs. One lab will teach a class using Final Cut Express, a second lab will be a social media class while the third lab will be geared towards non-photographers. These will be all-day sessions so you can spend half-day in one lab and another half-day in another lab. Moreso, a chance for you to learn stuff and then practice it. The cost hasn't been determined or if we will have a speaker. That is still in the works.

We will host our second multimedia all-day training seminar on February 12, 2010 at the University of Texas at El Paso. There will be two labs for 52 people. One lab will geared towards Final Cut Pro, while the second lab will teach a social media class. Again, same thing as above, you will get a chance to switch labs, if you want and apply what you learned in the classroom. No price set and no ideas yet for lunch.

We are working on the regional seminar at Rice University on March 19-20. Ideally, we want to host a townhall meeting on Friday, March 19,  talking about immigration followed by an all-day conference on Saturday, March 20. I have appointed Minerva Perez to be the chair for the planning committee. We are working on coordinating for this seminar, including finding a host hotel, sponsors and closing event on Saturday night.

So please mark your calendars for these events and plan to attend. The most important thing for you, as a NAHJ member, is you must get involved. We want to put together these training opportunities so you will be more qualified for this difficult job market. At any time, we can become a victim of this recession, but the more valuable you are and the more things you know how to do will either help you keep your job or get you back on your feet, if you are unemployed.

Just a few other tidbits: I have contacted some members in the Rio Grande Valley and they have agreed to start up the NAHJ chapter down in the heart of South Texas. I am happy you'all are taking on this challenge and know you will be successful. Perhaps, we can plan for an all-day multimedia seminar there in the future.

I have also been in contact with the folks from Dallas-Fort Worth, but not as successful to get that group going again. We all agree DFW needs to have a local Hispanic journalists group. DFW is too big not to have a group active so we are working on getting people involved there. If interested, let me know.

We need to recruit NAHJ Region 5 Members to come back to the group. So talk up the group, tell them about our events and convention and bring get the expired members to renew again.

Don't forget the Count Me In Campaign for NAHJ. It comes to an end on December 15 and we need your help. Go to http://www.nahj.org/ for more info. Also check out the website for the latest information. We have info on the Lou Dobbs Departure saying we support seeing him go, Net Neutrality and info about the death of fellow Texan Ray Gomez, which has hit us all hard.

The 2010 NAHJ Convention will be in Denver, Colorado from June 23-26. We have learned NALEO will be hosting their convention at the same time so we are working on hosting some events together. One last thing, NAHJ has selected Orlando, Fla. for our annual conference in 2011. Disney has said they will support us and we have set up a hotel at a Disney hotel and convention center site. It should be fun.

Don't forget to follow me at mannydelarosa on Facebook or mannydelarosa68 on Twitter. For NAHJ Region 5 Updates, you can follow us at NAHJ Region 5 on Facebook and NAHJRegion5 on Twitter.

Manuel De La Rosa
NAHJ Region 5 Rep
Reporter, KIII-TV
Corpus Christi, Tx
361-425-6108
mannydelarosa@yahoo.com