Hi All,
Four of us — Rosemarie, Pauline, Jess and me — met last evening to talk about publicity/outreach activities, including setting up a group to handle such matters.
First up was how to respond to reporters interested in covering our moving in. The ODT is keen to do a news story soon and a feature story for Friday week. We discussed who would be good interviewees and I agreed to ask if they were willing and/or available.
Also on that topic we came up with a list of facts and figures that journalists might find useful. They include that:
*the number of residents is more than 40 *the average age is just over 40 *the age range is under 1 to 70-plus *there are seven under-16s *the ratio of females to males is 1:0.7 *residents are of nine nationalities
These are approximations and if anyone would care to correct them or contribute other useful tidbits, please do.
We also talked about marketing-type publicity approaches from the likes of eHaus and Kiwibank. eHaus has asked Jess directly for an interview and Kiwibank wants to issue a press release that would include a cohousing contact person for media to approach. We felt this was a matter the directors might like to offer guidance on.
Other talking points included:
*induction workshops and how these can be co-ordinated with finding tenants for the units that are being let;
*what use we should be making of social media;
*possible dates for a formal opening and an open day for neighbours. It was felt there was no urgency for either and good reasons such as site readiness and weather suitability not to rush them and we should consider dates from August onwards.
The confirmed members of the group are Gay, Kristin, Jess, Rosemarie, Claire, Anne and me, and anyone else who would like to put up their hand to join or offer suggestions is very welcome to do so. Thanks to Ian for dropping in on the meeting to offer his photographic services.
Regards,
Anthony