Girl Scounts and NYSE

What do Girl Scouts and NYSE have to do with each other?

Girl Scouts will ring the opening bell of NYSE at 9:30a.m. on Monday, April 13! view live at http://tinyurl.com/gsnyse

Raise Money for Women in Kenya

Mom It Forward (http://mommygossip-gno.blogspot.com/2009/03/gno-live-meet-up-with-other-gno-gals-in.html), in partnership with 12 for 12K (http://12for12k.org), is kicking off 6-weeks of fundraising for moms and by moms (Tuesday, March 31 through Tuesday May 13) and we need your help!

On Saturday, April 18, Mom It Forward and 12 for 12K events will be taking place all over the US, in Canada, and in Australia (see list of locations below) to raise funds and awareness for Yehu Microfinance (http://yehu.org), BasaBody (http://basabody.com), and Coast Coconut Farms (http://coastcoconutfarms.com). The goal? To combat poverty by empowering poor rural entrepreneurs in Kenya to help lift themselves out of poverty through enhanced accessibility to sustainable financial services, business opportunities, and skills training.

If you are interested in attending an event in your area, planning/holding an event in your area, volunteering, sponsoring an event by providing a product or service (venue, food, drink, prizes, etc.), or making a donation, please contact Mom It Forward at momitforward@gmail.com.

We are having events in these cities:

The United States:

Chicago, IL
Dallas/Ft Worth, TX
DC Metro (DC/MD/VA)
Kansas City, MO
Milwaukee, WI
Nashville, TN
New York City, NY
Philadelphia, PA
Portland, OR
Raleigh, NC
Salt Lake City, UT
San Diego, CA

Canada: Toronto, Vancouver

Australia: Sydney

Giveaway: WomenHeart’s ALL HEART Family Cookbook

Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women in the United States. Sara Lee Fresh Bakery knows the first step to a healthy heart is maintaining a healthy weight and getting the nutrition women need in order to live a strong life and care for their families.

Sara Lee is partnering with The Heart Truth Campaign to raise awareness of heart disease among women and encourage them to make heart healthy food choices every day. One of the best things a mom can do for her family is to take care of herself!

To support the campaign, Sara Lee Fresh Bakery is offering heart healthy sandwich recipes in the WomenHeart’s ALL HEART Family Cookbook and will contribute one dollar for every cookbook ordered up to $35,000 to the National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease.

Readers enter to have a chance to win a WomenHeart's ALL HEART Family Cook Book: Sara Lee and WomenHeart's Family Cookbook Giveaway.

Feature Friday: Carla Hannibal

Carla Hannibal has been in the health care industry for 27 years. She started young as a candy striper went on to work as a phlebotomist, claims processing, nursing and then administrative work and never lost her love for helping people. "A couple of years ago I resigned my job as an administrator and decided to work for myself. I started consultant work and contributing and writing for health care magazines. I was also diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis and it helped to be able to continue to work from home," Carla said.

Three years ago, Carla's son was murdered. He was 16 years old. "The grief process was not something I ever thought I would go through," Carla said. "Without the help of other women like me I would not have made it. I have done a lot of volunteer work in my life. It all came back to me I had to give back in spite of the pain I was feeling and still continue to feel."

Carla used to go to the women’s prison as part of a ministry. She also did nursing home and street missions. With her way of dealing with her grief, Carla created a website called http://womenlikeus.wetpaint.com.


Faten: What is the purpose of Women Like Us?

Carla: Remembering how healing it was to have women hear me in my grief and understand and be able to relate was awesome. I wanted to give back but not just for grieving women but for women in general. Women have all kinds of issues to deal with every single day, and we are strong. We carry those issues, but we don’t often have places to vent.

Faten: Why should women join your site?

Carla: Women should join my site because it is a work in progress and that is what women do. We conceive, we incubate , we give birth, and then we nurture life. This site is about life and how we as women handle it. It’s about sharing and helping each other to hold on. It’s about giving all you got to your fellow sister and then receiving some.

Faten: What are some long term goals for your site?

Carla: I would eventually like to see this site as a place where women come to chat, read, do research and find comfort,a place of resources for all that has to do with women. I’ll call it my learning, healing, loving and sharing place.

Faten: Define woman.

Carla: A woman is the part of God that heals nourishes and smiles.

Faten: What can women learn from the world?

Carla: I think a better question is, “What can the world learn from women?" I say that because men rule the world.

Faten: How about from other women?

Carla: We learn from other women what to do and what not to do. We follow our mothers and grandmothers, our aunts and sisters, and our girlfriends and cousins. We are almost tribal in nature. We are the essence of everything that is.

Faten: Any words of wisdom or thoughts before we wrap up the interview?

Carla: I would like to say thank you to all the women who made me what I am today, and all the women who will make me what I will become tomorrow.

Be sure to visit: http://womenlikeus.wetpaint.com/.

Phil Bundy's Golf Clubs

Note: Phil Bundy was interviewed on Connecting Women Radio discussing his quest to play on PGA Tour and tips. Bundy offered some personal reasons for starting his quest. For more information on Bundy, go to PhilBundy.com. Be sure to listen at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/connectingwomen.

Golfers seem to enjoy learning more about the clubs that I use. “What’s In My Bag?”:

Driver: Bobby Jones by Jesse Ortiz 10.5°
3+ Wood: Exotics by Tour Edge CB2 Fairway Wood
5 Wood: Exotics by Tour Edge CB2 Fairway Wood
16.0° Hybrid: Exotics by Tour Edge CB2 Hybrid
19.0° Hybrid: Exotics by Tour Edge CB2 Hybrid
22.0° Hybrid: Exotics by Tour Edge CB2 Hybrid
25.0° Hybrid: Exotics by Tour Edge CB2 Hybrid
Irons: Exotics by Tour Edge EX-1
52.0° Wedge: Tour Edge JMAX Bounce
56.0° Wedge: Tour Edge JMAX Bounce
60.0° Wedge: Tour Edge JMAX Bounce
Putter: SeeMore mFPG

Quotes of the Week

I asked my Twitter followers (known as Tweeps) what were their favorite quotes on "Empowerment".

I got some awesome responses. Enjoy!

• Mental and physical preparedness is empowerment" - Stephanie Behers. (submitted by @MallaryTytel ).
• "If you want to become a 'powerful' person, you must empower others" - @teenbizcoach.
• "A beginning starts today"- Mary Wollenscroft. (submitted by @ElleAndraWarner).
• "Each choice gives you a chance to pave your own road"- Oprah. (submitted by @ElleAndraWarner).
• "The earth's most precious natural resource is truly a rare find. As it changes by the second it is that of our time"- @teenbizcoach.

Enjoy these quotes! You can also click on the bold names to go to their Twitter page.

Avoid These Five Pitfalls For PR Success

All businesses today realize the value of good PR. Especially for a small business, PR (public relations) goes a long way towards establishing credibility, raising awareness of products and services and ultimately increasing sales. But as with anything in life, there is a right and wrong way to go about getting PR. Here are five mistakes that can easily derail your PR efforts:

1) Under Pressure: Reporters follow a different schedule than most of the workforce. 9-to-5 hours? Forget about it. Those in the media have 24/7 jobs with very tight deadlines. Not only knowing this, but respecting it, can go a long way towards making the difference between PR success and failure. Here’s the rule of thumb: Early mornings are for story planning. Late mornings are for gathering facts and quotes for the story. Early afternoons are for writing the story or putting it all together. So when’s the best time to send a press release or call a reporter? Send your release earlier in the week to avoid the weekend news cycle. And when you call a reporter to pitch a story, try for mornings or early afternoons so that you get to them well before late afternoon when they’re rushing to meet their deadline.

2) Just The Facts: A well-written press release or pitch letter goes without saying. But compelling and accurate facts are critical to the success of your written PR communications. Here’s the problem with inaccurate facts in your press release: It doesn’t just make you look bad. If published, those inaccuracies make the reporter look bad as well. If you are unlucky enough to make a reporter look bad, it’s a sure way to ruin your chances of getting another story with that reporter or one of their colleagues.

3) Making Time: Ok so you’ve been able to send out a press release and you’ve now got one or two reporters that want to set up a time to do a story. But here’s the rub, you apparently have more important things to tend to and have made a habit of re-scheduling with the reporter. Guess what, that reporter will not hesitate to make plans with someone else for a different story. Simply put, if a reporter calls to set up an interview, DO IT. They are not on your schedule. You are on theirs. Move your schedule around to accommodate them. It’s as simple as that.

4) Expectations: PR is not advertising. If you think a news reporter is planning on doing a story that will only be about you, not include your competition and spend the entire time talking about how great you are, you will be disappointed. Reporters have a job to do and that is to report the news and deliver stories that are of interest to their readers. Their job is not to put money in your pocket. Understand that there is a lot of give and take when dealing with the media. They are providing you with publicity that you did not have to pay for. But you also don’t have any control as to how they write their story. It is your job to provide them with good and compelling information to help shape the story in a positive light for you.

5) PR Doesn’t Just Happen: PR is more than just sending out a press release. You need to take the time to develop relationships with reporters and discuss interesting story angles with them so that they are compelled to write about you. Reporters receive hundreds of press releases from people like you each day. Yours is just one of the many sitting on their desk. Go beyond simply sending them the press release so that you stand out from the crowd. It’s not unlike making a sale. But instead of selling a product or widget, you’re selling a story.

Editor’s note: John Sternal is co-founder of http://understandingmarketing.com and author of the PR Toolkit for Small Business, a resource to help small business owners do their own PR for media exposure.