CSMA Adviser Update

Adviser Update will return in August, under new leadership but with the same goal: keeping advisers of CSMA member media informed about association activities, deadlines, and all sorts of opportunities.

Our website, social media and the CSMA listserv will continue all summer long, providing reminders about our Best of Colorado contests and our All-Colorado critiques, along with updates on SAW and reTHINK and J-Day... as we receive more information.

We see you, Fairview! The Lance is the first yearbook to arrive this spring, and we hope the first of many from our members. Please remember that we ask for a copy of the book (which will not be returned) as well as our online entry form, which requires a message to your judge. Our judges can be much more effective in helping the NEXT staff when you provide specific questions and concerns.

The postmark deadline is July 15 for yearbooks and all other media to be critiqued this summer, but we encourage you to send submissions as soon as you can.

It's been a challenging year but our students have risen to the occasion. Our spring awards have been delayed, but don't forget to organize entries in the following:

• Best of Colorado individual awards - all submitted online with over 50 categories, sorted by enrollment.
• Eric Benson Scholarship - $1,000 award, and financial need of some sort is important.
• Reporter of the Year - one of our five competitions honoring outstanding individuals with $250 going to the student winner and another $250 going to the winner's media program
• Designer of the Year
• Broadcast Journalist of the Year
• Photographer of the Year
• Middle School Journalist of the Year
• All-Colorado Critique - we are asking for yearbooks to be mailed in, allowing for better judging. Print news MAY be mailed in (2-3 issues) or PDFs may be shared. Broadcast and online entries are online-only, as usual. We are accepting critique submissions now and will try to get those to judges as they are submitted. If you can't get a copy of the yearbook mailed until after July 15, just let jpkjournalism@gmail.com know. You will still get a critique.

Remember that all CSMA member media may enter our competitions at no cost beyond membership dues.

Thanks to everyone who replied to our quick deadline survey, which resulted in keeping the July 15 deadline for all our 2019-20 contests. But we do encourage you to submit entries as soon as you are able (and before we forget over summer).

We know that each school and each program will be in a different place in terms of creating content now that we are all "remote learning/teaching," so we are offering FOUR different contest cycles. The fourth and final deadline is May 26 (extended one day due to Memorial Day Weekend), and several contest categories are unique to this final awards window.

Our third group of winners in our continuing Best of Colorado awards were chosen this week, and you can read the entire list here. You can see the top-ranked work in that post. Award certificates were put in the mail today.

Entering is easy. Just go to our special contest post and scroll down a bit to find the submission links for our final round of contests.

Our goal is to recognize as much great student work as we can, as soon as we can. The last thing we want to do is add unwelcome pressure to do "one more thing" to anyone's plate. But if you are looking for some motivators for your students and perhaps for some new audiences for their work, please consider participating as much or as little as you want.

Colorado Student Media Association memberships are by school medium, and we offer four options: print news, yearbook, online, and video media. If you are able, why not renew your memberships for 2020-21 today? A single membership is $65. We offer a convenient online membership form, and you can choose either to pay with a school credit card or ask to be invoiced once schools offices are back to something approaching normal.

But your membership renewals will remove something from the fall's sure-to-be challenging fall as all of us begin exploring new ways to bring students and teachers to campus.

Best wishes for some time to relax and recharge over the summer, while you and your loved ones stay healthy and safe.

Email: jpkjournalism@gmail.com
Website: colostudentmedia.com
Location: 9253 Sori Lane, Highlands Ranch CO
Phone: 303-550-4755
Facebook: facebook.com/coloradostudentmedia
Twitter: @ColoradoSMA