Welcome to February’s newsletter. I hope everyone is having a great start to the new year. Our first ever “Wear your ears to work” day was a huge success!! Ok, it was just me and I wanted to wear the mouse ears I recently bought while on vacation in Florida. I know you all would have participated if you had been given more notice, so stay tuned for other fun days.This month has been very busy at the ANA. Mostly working on Legislative matters.Our lobbyist, John Moody, and I have spent countless hours on phone calls, text messages, and emails to make sure we keep an eye on things for our members. The last three weeks have been spent on lobbying efforts at the Capitol. TBF, it was mostly me playing Vanna White to John’s efforts. I know we aren’t his only client, but the help he gives us makes me believe we are! This is crossover week, so we still need to keep an eye on developments. Don’t hesitate to reach out to me with any questions or concerns, or to our Legislative Committee chaired by Manuel Coppola.Speaking of Committees, this year we have: Legislative, Education, Contest/Convention, Marketing, and Membership. We need to hear from our members, if you have a thought or would like to participate, reach out and I will get you connected with the chair of the committee. Our Contest/Convention committee is frantically working to get things updated for 2022, stay tuned for more info on that.While the lobbying part of my job has kept me very busy, I have been trying to make an effort to get to visit other papers. I did get out to meet with Cloves Campbell, Jr, publisher of the Arizona Informant. The Arizona Informant serves the African American community all over Arizona with over 14,000 (and growing) paid subscribers. They recently celebrated their 50th year with a Gala on December 9th. I enjoyed our conversation and learning about the paper and their needs. My goal is to see everyone so the ANA can be better positioned to help serve our members. I also tried to meet with folks at The Daily Prophet (in Diagon Alley at Universal Orlando) and they said wouldn’t take a meeting with a Muggle – so that didn’t go well. (Yes, I am a Harry Potter geek, more on that another time).And finally, this month I want to introduce Rich Macke. Rich has recently become president of River City Newspapers of Lake Havasu City and is the publisher of Today’s News-Herald and the Parker Pioneer replacing the now retired Mike Quinn. Rich is a member of our Legislative Committee and agreed to answer a bunch of questions for me, so keep reading on.Last thoughts – Communication is good, but conversation is key. Talk to me!conversation[ˌkänvərˈsāSH(ə)n]NOUNa talk, especially an informal one, between two or more people, in which news and ideas are exchanged.There will be more to come, so stay tuned! And as always, feedback and comments are welcome.L.simpson@ananews.com, cell: 602-326-9588, office: 602-261-7655
