A Round With The Community Associations Of The Woodlands
I'm putting together my column for the Courier on Monday afternoon.
Thinking that the Spring Fever 5K - an event that the Community Associations of The Woodlands took over from the folks in the Grogan's Point section of The Woodlands - might be taking an attendance hit because of all of the events happening on Saturday, March 7, I dropped a quick, innocent e-mail to Willie Fowlkes.
It read, "I'm putting together my column for tomorrow. How are things looking for Spring Fever?"
His response is, "Any specific questions for publicity need to be filtered through our Community Relations department. I will be glad to help you out once I receive permission from them."
As you can imagine, I was pissed to no end.
A multitude of potential responses were written but always deleted. Of course, I have a number of constituencies to protect and represent. I just thought that it was totally bullshit that I can pick up the phone and call Steve Karpas, Marcus Grunwald or John Conley at three of the biggest marathons in Texas, and I have to jump through this hoop for these guys?
I put in a communication to my Friends of the Running Community partner to potentially discuss pulling our water station support of Ten For Texas if the detente continued.
The bottom line would be this: Their events wouldn't get a sniff of a mention from me in any publication that I wrote for whether it be the Courier, Inside Texas Running or Runner Triathlete News.
After stewing on it for a day, I sent the following message to Willie (which was copied to Mary Connell, Chris Nunes and Kelly Dietrich):
Willie,
Thanks for the note. It is always good to hear from you.
I'll take the policy under advisement and apply it accordingly to my coverage considerations.
In the meantime, best wishes - as always - to you for all of your 2009 events.
Jon
Now if you can read between the lines, it meant what I said above: "I'm not mentioning or covering your events."
In 20 minutes, I had this response from Mary Connell:
Willie/Jon,
Sorry I didn’t get back with you yesterday. This is an internal policy—not external.
Willie, just let me know the info you would like to provide Jon, and /or let me know you have provided it to him.
Jon, please feel free to contact Willie or me about the race events.
Mary
Now I don't know if Courier publisher - and good friend and supporter - Jim Fredricks placed a phone call to Mary or not as I had forwarded Willie's e-mail to him in disbelief on Monday
What they were doing was stupid. If I write something anywhere, it is free publicity -- especially for the Spring Fever 5K and the Muddy Trails 5K. Honestly, they don't need it for CB&I or Ten For Texas.
The only thing that I write that is one bit negative is here because I use this to vent and it isn't a public forum anymore. It is the second thing in three weeks that has consumed precious mental energy, which I don't have a lot to give! :)
Thinking that the Spring Fever 5K - an event that the Community Associations of The Woodlands took over from the folks in the Grogan's Point section of The Woodlands - might be taking an attendance hit because of all of the events happening on Saturday, March 7, I dropped a quick, innocent e-mail to Willie Fowlkes.
It read, "I'm putting together my column for tomorrow. How are things looking for Spring Fever?"
His response is, "Any specific questions for publicity need to be filtered through our Community Relations department. I will be glad to help you out once I receive permission from them."
As you can imagine, I was pissed to no end.
A multitude of potential responses were written but always deleted. Of course, I have a number of constituencies to protect and represent. I just thought that it was totally bullshit that I can pick up the phone and call Steve Karpas, Marcus Grunwald or John Conley at three of the biggest marathons in Texas, and I have to jump through this hoop for these guys?
I put in a communication to my Friends of the Running Community partner to potentially discuss pulling our water station support of Ten For Texas if the detente continued.
The bottom line would be this: Their events wouldn't get a sniff of a mention from me in any publication that I wrote for whether it be the Courier, Inside Texas Running or Runner Triathlete News.
After stewing on it for a day, I sent the following message to Willie (which was copied to Mary Connell, Chris Nunes and Kelly Dietrich):
Willie,
Thanks for the note. It is always good to hear from you.
I'll take the policy under advisement and apply it accordingly to my coverage considerations.
In the meantime, best wishes - as always - to you for all of your 2009 events.
Jon
Now if you can read between the lines, it meant what I said above: "I'm not mentioning or covering your events."
In 20 minutes, I had this response from Mary Connell:
Willie/Jon,
Sorry I didn’t get back with you yesterday. This is an internal policy—not external.
Willie, just let me know the info you would like to provide Jon, and /or let me know you have provided it to him.
Jon, please feel free to contact Willie or me about the race events.
Mary
Now I don't know if Courier publisher - and good friend and supporter - Jim Fredricks placed a phone call to Mary or not as I had forwarded Willie's e-mail to him in disbelief on Monday
What they were doing was stupid. If I write something anywhere, it is free publicity -- especially for the Spring Fever 5K and the Muddy Trails 5K. Honestly, they don't need it for CB&I or Ten For Texas.
The only thing that I write that is one bit negative is here because I use this to vent and it isn't a public forum anymore. It is the second thing in three weeks that has consumed precious mental energy, which I don't have a lot to give! :)
posted by WalkSports.com | 8:57 PM
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