Hi, RPRS members and friends! Lindsay Priester here, RPRS president for 2018. As we’ve long left the holidays behind and March is quickly approaching, I wanted to take a minute to tell you where things stand with RPRS and what lies ahead.

Our board of directors recently transitioned and while we’ve got many of the same faces, there are a few changes!

Kelly Propst, our fearless leader for the past few years, has moved to an at-large role, while I’ve taken over as president. I’ve got some giant shoes to fill, but I’m thrilled to get this opportunity (while also conveniently having the experience and expertise of Kelly nearby). A huge thanks to Kelly for her unwavering dedication and leadership to this group over the years.

Stephanie Llorente, one of our long-term board members, has moved off the board and earned some much-deserved rest. She served as an officer for almost a decade and we’re so grateful for her time, commitment and willingness to jump in and help with everything over the years. Lucky for us, she’s still a very active RPRS member, so we get to see her often!

Lisa Jeffries, former banquet chair, has taken on the role of vice president and is booking dynamic and engaging speakers left and right. For those of you who know Lisa (which is probably most of you), you know she knows everyone in the biz, so this is the perfect role for her.  We’re very excited to share that the banquet chair vacancy left by Lisa is being filled by Allison Thiebaud, a new member to the board. She’s already brought energy and enthusiasm to planning the perfect banquet for our 2018 Sir Walter Raleigh Awards.

The rest of the crew is the same awesome group of PR/comms rockstars from last year – Jessica Pope (secretary), Andrea Epstein (treasurer), Olivia Easly (membership), Lindsay Poe (publicity), Hope Torruella (social media), David Dean (awards) and Christa Leupen (member-at-large). This group is one that is incredibly talented, engaged and committed to making RPRS the best it can possibly be.

The board met in January for a planning session. We spent hours discussing what’s worked in the past, what we can do better, and what we can provide to make sure our members get as much value as possible from their participation with RPRS. The planning session was a huge success and we’ve got big plans for this year!

One of those plans involves continuing to improve our Sir Walter Raleigh Awards program. Last year, David and Lisa worked tirelessly to update our awards program. For the first time in RPRS history, we were able to accept credit card payments (about time, we know!) and all submissions were digital. David is now taking the lessons learned from last year and putting into place additional systems and processes to enhance the Sir Walter Raleigh Awards. Stay tuned for more details!

We’ve already got some big events on the calendar, too. In March we’ll be hosting our breakfast networking social. It’s entirely FREE and includes breakfast (and coffee aka PR pro rocket fuel) and is one of our favorite events of the year. You can register here.

In April our luncheon will focus on everything you need to know about the Sir Walter Raleigh Awards. We’ll have previous winners give you their tips and tricks, as well as some lessons our awards chair, David, has learned from managing the process.

There are other fun things in the works as well: a half-day workshop for PR pros, co-working days and more. We can’t wait to give you more details!

Mostly, though, we want to hear from you! If you have an idea for a lunch speaker or social, an improvement or change you’d like to see in our Sir Walter Raleigh Awards, or just want to grab a coffee and say “hi,” please reach out to us! All of our contact information is available here and we’d love to talk!

Cheers to an exciting year for RPRS!

Lindsay Priester, 2018 RPRS President