May 2016: Bring a JAWS Leadership Workshop to your region

We all want to succeed in our careers.

And JAWS is helping us succeed in a variety of ways, formally and informally.

One of the best examples is our recent leadership training sessions in Chicago and Washington, D.C., with Jill Geisler and her team of coaches.

Jill shared her solid lessons gleaned from experience as a broadcast newsroom manager; holding a masters degree in leadership; working at Poynter Institute guiding their leadership and management programs; holding the Bill Plante chair in leadership and media integrity at Loyola University in Chicago.

Her enthusiasm is contagious, and she and her team of coaches offered positive solutions to real-newsroom issues participants were experiencing. The workshops were scheduled from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays – and participants lingered to interact with the coaches and with each other.

They eventually left with new JAWS friends and new ideas about how to better get the journalism job done.

Jill and her teams offered their services free of charge to JAWS. She arranged for us to meet at Loyola at no charge, and Northwestern’s Medill D.C. school generously donated their facilities in Washington.

Operations director Roxanne Foster and D.C. regional captain Lottie Joiner offered great assists with logistics.

An audio session with Reveal in D.C. in March rounded out our specialized regional training for the year. Participants raved about Susanne Reber and her team, and we hope they can work JAWS into their schedule in the future.

We want to continue to offer these high-quality regional training opportunities to our members in the future.

But we need your help.

If you can answer the following questions affirmatively, we want to help bring an event to your region in the next year.

  • Would you be able to get 25 to 30 participants (or partner with another group to achieve that)?
  • Can you find a suitable location for training at no or very low cost?
  • Do you have someone who can help coordinate logistics such as lunch and snacks, location and especially marketing the event?

Let me know if you’re interested! Email .

— Sandra Fish