This is happening

Dear friends,
Today we had a meeting how to work on publicity towards schools in Holland. It was an interesting brainstorm. Over the next few months we (Anke, and new apprentice Annedien and I) will develope proposals which still need to be discussed with our boss. It's fun to work on and we have a lot of ideas.

Office
Last month Mercy Ships Holland also got a new fundraiser in the office. He is doing a lot of work, which might lead to good results. Over the next few weeks I will be included in meetings with journalists and media related people, which should also be good.. All again in the planning stages.
Health for Life
In the mean time the people on the ship are looking into giving us feedback for the reprint of the Life Guide (beginning 2008 hopefully) and also for a children's edition. I went through all of it aswell and compiled a 7 page document with improvement suggestions our (Health for Life-) team will discuss during the next planning meeting in October. A writer doctor is working on all the changes over the next few months.

Dutch Mercy Ships website
Our new Dutch website is being worked on frantically (we wrote all the text last year, but it needs to be put in the design). I will go over editorial comments/changes of the almost 60 pages in the next few weeks together with my friend and webdsigner Sham, before we will launch. Our website team (Anke, Sham, our boss Arjen and I) is getting more and more exited... I think it will be wonderful to have it up and running by the end of this year.

Volunteer Network
The season is starting again and that means information booths and presentations in church groups. Volunteers and office personnel are active with that. But also some help with assisting in other ways, like editing files/keeping up press lists. One of the volunteers helped me with that while my two other PR collegues where gone on holiday. Unfortunately one of my helpers is leaving now and another collegue is going on pregnancy leave. So, prayer for more help is appreciated. Not only in PR, but also in fincances and IT department.

Writing and media
I have been asked to write a column for a business website and writing the monthly e-news. Now my helper Tara is back after holiday (yeah!) so she will do that again one day a week. She will also keep up the lists of readers and media lists. We get more and more requests from local newspapers/radio to interview Mercy Ships staff. I help them find the best match. I am also finalizing the plan for two media trips this week. The reporters will be onboard over the next week.
I also write press releases if there is news (check out english ones on http://www.mercyshipsnewsroom.org/. Over the summer is was very quiet (not a lot of news so no press releases), but this week we will publish again. I did publish a press release about the start of Newbornlife this week (this is just Dutch news). There are some Dutch websites who placed it, I hope they will also want to interview the initiating lady (Mrs Venema) so they can get more volunteers. They have raised over 1200 euro for VVF surgeries so far! See more on Newbornlife below.

Well, that's it for now.
Let me know if you have questions,
Hope you are well.

Geertje
geertje.vanderpol@mercyships.org