6 June 2007: .5 hours

Wrote up an announcement about CATA's production of "Spoon River Anthology," edited it, and sent it out.

1 May 2007: 2 hours

Watched the presentation of a proclamation from the president be presented to CATA students, interviewed the two DOE representatives who presented it, asked the students a few questions to get their thoughts, and wrote up an article based on my notes. Then, I had some help editing it before sending it out.

30 April 2007: 1.5 hours

Making up signs and posters to advertise the spaghetti dinner and then went around town putting the signs up.

29 April 2007: 2.5 hours

Read the PR/Marketing section of the book, The Campaign Manager, and took notes, especially on how to make one main point and reinforce it in the most powerful manner.

21 April 2007: 1 hour

Wrote up the article about the poetry slam, edited, sent it out.

20 April 2007: 2 hours

Attended the poetry slam CATA had at Barnes and Noble and took notes for an article about it.

17 April 2007: 9 hours

Spent the day in Concord, making presentations about CATA, meeting legislators and reporters, saying a lot of positive things about CATA, made a point to advertise the school all day, watched other presenters, went to the capitol building for the charter school hearing session, and spoke for CATA and spread as much positive PR as possible all day long.

15 April 2007: 4 hours

Conversed with other students going to Concord about our presentation through CATA's proboards.com forum, wrote up a lot of ideas, organized a potential format for how it could happen. After getting next to no responses, I created a timed presentation for our 25 minutes slot in Concord.

10 April 2007: 3 hours

Talked to Lynne about press release formatting, when it is appropriate to use personal style, and made observations about the style and format most newspaper journalists use, noting differences in announcements, front-page events, and the local sections of the newspaper.

4 April 2007: 7 hours

Having just gotten the news of CATA's potential closing, I did a LOT of research. I researched the technicalities of how charter schools and educational legislature work in the state of New Hampshire. I learned a lot, and brainstormed an abundance of ideas on how we could take what we know and love about our school and find a legislator to market to and get a bill to pass, or get a bill in progress amended to provide much more substantial aid for our schools. There was a lot of note-taking, brainstorming, and emailing about how to successfully market our school.

21 March 2007: 1.5 hours

Talked to Zach about his coffee house to gather enough information to do a write-up about it and then put together an announcement for the paper, had him edit it, and re-edit it until all of the names and information were spelled right and satisfactory.

26 February 2007: .5 hours

Wrote up an announcement of the CATA art show at the Barrington Public Library and sent it the papers.

28 February 2007: 1.5 hours

Participated in CATA's Poetry Out Loud, interviewed a couple of the students who participated and watched, picked out quotes, and wrote up an article. I then edited it and sent it out.

18 February 2007: 4 hours

Brainstormed and proposed to Lynne, Jeanne, Deb Byrne, and Sue Hollins putting together an event for all of the charter schools in New Hampshire to get together, perhaps present to and converse with one another, introduce the active members of the communities to each other, and get it publicized! We shared some ideas and came up with a pretty good plan which then got taken over by people who are higher up for down the road.

16 february 2007: 2 hours

Met with Conor Makem, reporter of the Rochester Times for an hour and a half, did a tour and an ongoing interview about the school with a few in-and-out students and teachers. he is going to write an article and publish it at some point and we talked about me writing a regular, monthly column in the Rochester Times about CATA and he said I could and that would be great and that more people should know about the school and he's happy to help make that happen, which is what I want to hear! After that I did some emailing and a few minor additions to my contact list and to-do list. It was a good day

12 February 2007: .5 hours

Responded to my email correspondences with Mr. Keith about RPM and Jam Club, Mr. B about the dance class, and Lynne about her writing up the press release for Scholastic Art Awards (which she agreed to do.) Then I took Jane, the dance instructor's, email address from Mr. B and send her an email to get some more information on her end. I also sent out an email to Carla to update her on my end a little and request her input on potential collaborations.

Objectives
Report CATA events
Obtain master contact list (media/events)
Create list of PR and community involvement opportunities
Work with PR and help
Keep list of help/support (-->show gratitude)

Involvement Opportunities
market square day
apple harvest day
strawberry festival
town parades (Rochester, Dover)
4th of July
high school recruitment day @ BMS

11 February 2007: 1.5 hours

Emailed myself a to-do list for the rest of February, wrote emails to Lynne about my ideas, wrote requests to a couple teachers to provide me with some information about RPM and the dance class to include in my soon-to-be press releases about them, and sent a letter of inquiry to the Dover Community News about doing a profile or series of articles about CATA. Updated my contact list. I then emailed Carla an update.

7 February 2007: 3.5 hours

Went on the radio with Trisha for wkxl1450's "School Talk" for an hour, got a tour of the studio, got as much contact information as I could and talked to their sales rep and event recorder about my independent study and got them interested in some of the upcoming events and the school, met with Sue Hollins afterwards as well as Carla Proulx (PR for NH Center for School Reform) and talk more about the school, my independent study, some of my ideas, and got Carla very interested. She would like to write something on CATA and view the press releases we've done so far and asked me to email her more details about what I'm doing on offer to lend a hand. This was a very productive day.

5 February 2007: 1.5 hours

Wrote up press release for CATA's info session and emailed it to all the local papers after earlier talking to Mrs. Allard, emailing her my contact list, and discussing ideas for CATA PR.

4 February 2007: 1 hour

Wrote up the first draft of the CATA info session press release and then discussing what was strong and what could improve in it as a press release with Lynne. We edited it together.

31 January 2007 1.5 hours

Went to the Barrington Rec. Center and found out a little bit of information about their events and quarterly newsletter and Jeanne and I now have an appointment with them tomorrow at 1 to talk further. I organized my priorities and scheduled them into my planner for the next month. I talked to Lynne and got an update on the PR Committee, officially joined it, and talked to her about my ideas and her ideas and what's going on with the school. She's agreed to help me out and read over and do press releases with me and sent me one of hers that she just wrote for the soiree.

30 January 2007: 1 hour

Met with Jeanne again and looked over the Barrington winter news and decided to go down to the town commons the next day to meet with potential contacts. Then went to student government and discussed potential events to plan which would create positive press and collaborated ideas on different news outlets and events we could already cover.

23 January 2007: .5 hours

Met with Mattie and talked to her about this new independent study, where I could take it, and what Jeanne and I need to know and went over my objectives (which are posted on this site.)

22 January 2007: 1 hour

Met with Jeanne for the first time about turning PR into an independent study and being my mentor, going over what we would do for it, and decided to do it. We came up with the objectives for my course and listed some of the things I could start with. I then went around the school looking at events and clubs that had been posted and talked to Megan about anything else that may be going on in the near future.

19 January 2007: 1 hour

Talked with Jeanne and a few other students about our previous night's viewing of "An Inconvenient Truth" and helped Jeanne write a press release about it.

1 November 2006: 3.5 hours

Reviewed, revised, and updated CATA brochure information and contacted the appropriate staff members to verify facts and get lists of electives and current happenings.

28 September 2006: 2 hours

Made up hand-outs for CATA to give out at Barrington Middle School's high school recruitment day and for future use.