‘Tis the Season for List-mania!
Spreading Your Message During the Silly Season

As we start sliding down the slope to Christmas and the Silly Season, lists seem to be everywhere. The media love a good list – be it a Top 10, a Best-Of, or a Worst-Ever. And often it’s at the end of the year that these lists start to become more and more common.

With the sources of “real” news drying up, or going on summer vacation, newsrooms often need something else to fill the space … and what better to do exactly that than a quirky list of the best or worst people, movies, songs, news or sports stories for the year.

But as several items in this special “List-mania” edition of Our Community Matters show, they don’t need to be silly to get a run. Lists can provide a really useful tool for shedding light on important issues as well.

Your group can make the most of the media’s thirst for lists at this time of year by preparing one of your own. Send it to your members, donors and supporters as well in case it doesn’t get a run in the papers.

Here is a list (!) of ideas to get you started:

1. Top Three challenges for your local community leaders (politicians, councillors, etc.) for the New Year

2. Five Key achievements of your group (or your community) during 2006, and the Top Five challenges for 2007 (including survival remedies)

3. Six of the Best ways your community can lend support to your group or the community at large during 2007

4. Eight is Enough things your group offers the community

5. Top Ten “presents” you’d love “Santa” (i.e. your local community) to put in your group’s Christmas Stocking

Of course, it’s not enough to just issue a list, you need to have the experience and credentials to back up your point of view – so make sure your list is appropriately focused.

For more information on how to get your story into the media, visit the Marketing, Media and Post Centre, an initiative of Our Community and Australia Post, at http://www.ourcommunity.com.au/mmp.



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From the December 2006 Our Community Matters Newsletter and reprinted with permission.

Courtesy of http://www.ourcommunity.com.au.

Our Community is the national gateway for Australia's 700,000 community groups and schools. Through the Our Community Centres of Excellence, we provide the one-stop-gateway for practical resources, support and linkages between community networks and the general public, business and government - building capacity to strengthen the community in every Australian State and Territory.

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