Why Join JEANC?
Don Bott, Past President

The question is simple: If I’m a publication adviser, why should I join the Northern California organization?
 
My term as president of JEANC began in January, and other than preparing for the national convention in San Francisco, I was trying to figure out how to answer that question. The cost of membership isn’t much, and there are even incentives to join both the state and national organizations at one time, as well as a reduced rate for signing up for two years. Still, that hardly answers the question.
 
So here are some concrete answers to the question.
 
1) We are bringing a state convention back. It will be Oct. 26-28, 2007, at the Sacramento Convention Center. We’ve booked it and paid for the rooms. Now we need you mark the dates and begin to make plans. To register for the convention, you must be a member of JEANC (or our Southern California counterpart, SCJEA). We will have speakers, sessions, contests, and social activities for journalists. It should be a great experience.
 
2) We are introducing Northern California mail-in awards. We expect to have more than 20 categories of contests for newspaper, yearbook, and newsmagazine. Contests will reward quality writing, photography, and design. Our informational flyer should arrive at schools by the beginning of the 2006-2007 school year, and we expect to have an October deadline for entries. Once again, you must be a member of JEANC to enter any of these contests.
 
3) We continue to sponsor the Arnetta Garcin Memorial Scholarship. We recognize up to three winners each year with cash awards. The first-place winner advances to the national competition, where twice in the past four years the Northern California winner has been a finalist to the National Journalist of the Year Award, not only a great honor but an extra $2000 for that individual. For students to apply for this scholarship or to have a chance to advance to the national competition, the adviser must be a JEANC member.
 
And this is not all.
 
Web page redesign is on the horizon. We would like to have a database for support online so that a teacher — whether in Alameda, Bakersfield, or Chico — could see that advisers with experience and expertise are nearby, ready and willing to help.
 
Don’t wait to join! If you take care of this now, your students can be eligible for several awards and you can make plans for a great state convention in October 2007. This link will take you to the membership form, which you will need to print and send: http://www.jeanc.org/memberform.html
 
Is there more you would like to see from your Northern California organization? If so, let me know: d.bott@comcast.net