Friday 15 June 2012

Report from MagNet 2012





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A report back on PWAC@MagNet12 from Calgary Member Jacqueline Louie:
MagNet 2012 and PWAC AGM

This was a great opportunity to connect with PWAC members from across Canada and attend some excellent professional developmentsessions. I was very pleased with the 4 PD sessions that I attended - it was really interesting to hear what the presenters had to say and a good look at what's going on in the wider industry. Also PWAC Toronto and head office did a great job of making delegates feel welcome and find their way around, with a lot of wonderful social events, as well as tours of Toronto.

PWAC Calgary and PWAC-SK PWAC Prairies and the North regional conference Sept. 22 in Saskatoon, it sounds like an excellent day of professional development sessions including a 2-hour workshop on travel writing and a panel of writers with various specialities. Early bird rate until Aug. 15 is a very good deal. They may be able to arrange billeting for members coming from out of town. (more to come later).

Check out the new writers.ca - everything from the previous website has been migrated to the new site. They want feedback this summer on how the site works for members. (currently still has some bugs in it).

Resources - PWAC Toronto newsletter apparently has some good ideas for events, and reaching out to the community. i.e. reaching out to colleges and universities and offering journalism students a student rate - it's a good way to give PWAC exposure to up and coming journalists and possibly encourage them to join PWAC as members. By linking with other organizations PWAC can do some good cross promotion of various events.

Thank you for the opportunity to be a Calgary chapter delegate to the PWAC AGM. It's definitely worthwhile for members to attend the PWAC AGM and MagNet, which will both be held in Toronto again next year as well as in 2014.

Writers.caThe new writers.ca - it's where writers and clients connect.
Check it out! It's PWAC's new tool for writers, publishers, editors and corporate buyers.
It's in stage one now and PWAC needs its members to try it out and provide feedback on how the site works for them. (provide feedback over the summer with formal launch this fall).
You can enhance your PWAC member profile - use lots of keywords so that people searching for a writer in your specialty can find you. What kind of companies do you want to serve and what services do you offer?
There will be room to include testimonials as part of your updated profile.
There will be forums - one private for PWAC members, one for the public. Visitors will include potential PWAC members and potential clients. You can use the public forum to announce things like professional development events, book releases, etc. etc. The site will include online work tools, boilerplate contract to offer clients, a database of clients, a digital repository where writers can post material to resell (thanks to Access Copyright support); paypal payments for resales as a convenience to clients ... a FAQ page is in the works. The main steps for members now is to update your profile;
use the forums to discuss things you are interested in; and you can create forums as well.
Members can still use existing PWAC list serves. Note: the new site is still a little buggy.

- Jacqueline

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