Summer Convention Expands, Returns to Eastern Shore

Industry management expert and "Black Ink" author Ken Blum will lead a special Thursday afternoon convention session on the "nuts and bolts" of growing revenues, containing costs and keeping staffs motivated in these challenging times for newspapers.

His session will be followed on Friday with separate programs dealing with advertising, circulation and technology. Newspaper readership will be addressed in a special presentation on the industry’s recent ambitious Readership Impact Study. And everyone will get a chance to get their legal questions addressed at the popular Legal Roundtable featuring media lawyers from the MDDC region led by the Association’s hotlines attorney Alice Neff Lucan.

"We’re developing a convention that will give our newspaper professionals a real bang for their buck, and that seems more important than ever this year," said Convention Chairman Tom Schmidt, president of Carroll Publishing Co.

"We’ll have several ‘fun’ events – such as a visit to an Eastern Shore museum and a cookout, entertainment at the convention dinner, hospitality suites, a golf tournament – but we’re taking special care to be sure that everyone has the opportunity to go home from this gathering with enough answers and ideas to pay for their attendance many times over," said Schmidt, MDDC’s president-elect.

The convention will get started Thursday morning with meetings of the Advertising, Technology and Circulation committees followed by the Board of Directors meeting.

Blum, who has been involved with community newspapers for 30 years, will share his wisdom at the opening session. His "Black Ink" column for Publisher’s Auxiliary was recently published a collection "Black Ink, The Book."

Other features this year include a reception and dinner at the Queen Anne’s Museum of Eastern Shore Life on Thursday. After a chance to view the museum there will be an Eastern Shore dinner with steamed crabs, barbecue chicken and pit beef. The days will close with a hospitality suites on Thursday and Friday, sponsored by American Profile Magazine.

The Friday sessions will focus on advertising, circulation and technology, as well as featuring the Legal Roundtable. There are also plans to include a speaker on the Readership Impact Study, which showed recently that about 85 percent of the adult U.S. population uses a newspapers. The study involved 100 daily newspapers with more than 37,000 readers and non-readers in those markets being surveyed. Enjoy an Ice Cream Break sponsored by the Associated Press Friday afternoon.

Friday evening includes the Past President’s Reception, sponsored by Kruger Pulp and Paper Sales, and the Convention Dinner. Saturday will feature the annual golf tournament nearby at The Easton Club.

Room rate for the convention is $100 for a single and $110 for a double. Contact the Tidewater Inn directly at 1-800-237-8775 by Aug. 6 and mention the MDDC Press Association to make your reservations. More convention registration and program information will be mailed soon.