Open letter from the PR Officer

Contact: Cara Wides - 020 7631 9831 - c.wides@liberaljudaism.org

You’ve already seen the article detailing my appointment in either a previous edition of LJ Today or your own synagogue magazine so I won’t repeat any of that. After four months as Liberal Judaism’s PR Officer the time has come to tell you what I’ve been up to and some of my plans for the future. By the time goes to print, we will hopefully have a lovely, new, gleaming website, updated weekly by yours truly. This will include the latest news releases, details of the various programmes run by Liberal Judaism as well as links to and information about all the congregations in the Liberal Judaism family. In these days of electronic wizardry, having a good, easy to use and accessible website is of vital importance and as such, is one of my key priorities.

A major part of my job is providing PR support for ULPSNYC-Netzer and the Movement’s Outreach team. They have lots going on and are often in different places around the country running seminars, taking services and organising youth events. I remain back at the Montagu Centre, making sure that their mammoth efforts do not pass unnoticed. What am I doing for you, the congregations? I am here to provide PR support, to help you to improve your profile. I’m reminded here of that old adage, “Give a man a fish; he will have food for today. Teach a man to fish; he will have food for a lifetime.” To that end, I have produced the first of three handbooks, entitled “Making Your Mark on the Media”, which I have distributed to your PR officers and Chairs. These are guides to writing news releases, working with the broadcast media and dealing with the media in general. I hope these will prove to be helpful. I hope that you will also help me in raising Liberal Judaism’s profile by ensuring that the name of our Movement is included in all your news releases and that our logo appears on your publicity and stationery and publications. Please, do not hesitate to contact me if you need any help with your PR, or just want to say hi. You can contact me via email, phone and the post.