FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 19, 2007
Contact:
- Brant Houston, IRE Executive Director, 573-882-2042 or brant@ire.org
- John Green, IRE Membership Coordinator, 573-882-2772 or jgreen@ire.org
IRE offers prizes for current members who promote new membership drive
Want to go to an IRE conference or Boot Camp, but you can't afford it?
And your company won't pay?
Help could be on the way. IRE members will be eligible to win free training and a travel allowance by helping us promote our new membership drive.
IRE is holding its first membership drive in a decade, and we'd like your help signing up new members. At $60 a year, IRE membership is journalism's best bargain.
Right now, each new professional member who joins will bring IRE an additional $30 for its operating funds, thanks to a partial-matching grant from a Challenge Fund for Journalism financed by the Ford, Knight and Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation. Each new $25 student membership will bring in an additional $12.50.
Current members who sign up new members will be eligible for these prizes in a special drawing. The prizes include:
— Registration fee waiver to attend the 2008 CAR Conference ($150 value) with a $500 travel stipend. One award will be given.
— Registration fee waiver to attend the 2008 IRE Conference ($165 value) with a $500 travel stipend. One award will be given.
— Grand Prize: Registration fee waiver to attend a Computer-Assisted Reporting Boot
Camp, at the Missouri School of Journalism (a $500 to $1,000 value) with a $500 travel stipend. One award will be given.
For each new member recruited, one slip of paper will go into the prize drawing, meaning the more new members you recruit, the more chances you have to win. NOTICE: to qualify you for this drawing, each recruit must be a NEW member to IRE or have not been a member for 3 or more years.
Here's how it works:
1. Prospective members should be asked to place the name of the person who asked them to join IRE, in the box marked "Referred by" on the membership application form. This feature is on both the online and PDF application forms at www.ire.org/membership.
2. Each referring member will receive one entry for each processed membership in which their name appeared as the referring individual. (For example, THREE memberships equals THREE drawing entries.)
3. BONUS - Each member recruiting five or more new members will automatically receive a ONE-year extension of his or her own membership.
The drawing will be held at the 2007 IRE Conference, June 7-10 in Phoenix, Ariz. You do not have to be present to win. Offer applies only to applications completed as instructed and received by May 25, 2007. Applications received after the May 25, 2007 deadline will be accepted and appreciated, but will not qualify the sponsor for the drawing.
Drawing winners have the option of "gifting" their awards to a colleague, as long as that person is (or becomes) a member of IRE. Awards may not be redeemed for cash.
